CHAPTER XXIV.

Washington and Richmond-The Peninsula-The Civil Power and Military Subordination-The Army of Virginia-Successes in the West-Pope's Campaign-The Union League-McClellan and Antietam The Proclamation of Emancipation— General Burnside in Command—Battle of Fredericksburg.

THE great plan for an advance of the Army of the Potomac agreed upon by General McClellan and his corps commanders, and approved by President Lincoln, provided for what is known in the military history of the Civil War as the Peninsular campaign.

The city of Washington was the political capital of the United States, and represented the civil and military strength of the Union. Its capture and permanent occupation, or its destruction, would have been the severest possible blow to the supremacy of the National Government. Second only in importance would have been the loss of Cairo, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, carrying with it the control of the navigation of those rivers. The war in the West swept southward of the latter point at an early day, and a stronghold for the control of the Mississippi was created at Vicksburg. Confederate armies were wasted in repeated efforts to threaten, if not to actually assail Washington,

and the most plausible excuse ever made for them was that in this manner the best defence was made of the Richmond lines and the State of Virginia. The first work performed by the Union volunteers, under exceedingly competent direction, was the construction of works around the national headquarters, line within line, which would have proved insurmountable, if even moderately well defended, but the very extent of which required a large force for their effective occupation.

The capital of the United States was, therefore, in one sense, a frontier post, and the capital of the Confederacy was similarly circumstanced. Army men said that the military heart of the Confederacy was at Atlanta, Ga., but if at any stage of the war Richmond had fallen, the fate of Atlanta would have become of less importance.

The removal of the Army of the Potomac to its new field of operations on the James River began at once, a sufficient force being left for the protection of Washington. Precisely what might be a sufficient force for that purpose, and by whom it should be immediately directed, became one of the many points of difference between General McClellan and the commander-in-chief. The most important point of all was the dimness with which the former perceived that he was not himself the commander-in-chief, intrusted with a supervisory inspection of civil and political as well as of army matters. Perhaps the point next in prominence was the perfection with which he embodied the notion prevalent over large areas of the North, that

the Army of the Potomac was the army, and that its operations were the war. It was central; its commander was the ranking officer, and must continue to be so ; but the President had several armies and several fleets to direct in the year 1862, and he was not disposed to permit any breaking down of the fundamental law of the nation that the military power is subordinate to the civil. Many men forgot that law altogether, in the excitement of the hour, and bitterly blamed Mr. Lincoln for tenaciously maintaining it.

The President urged, vehemently, that the campaign against Richmond should be pushed with all possible vigor. It is now known from Confederate records that if his orders had been obeyed there was no force in McClellan's front capable of stemming his march. Now, as before, however, his abilities as a commander were hampered and crippled by his morbid overestimate of his antagonist. Delay followed delay, while the Confederate generals gathered precisely the power which McClellan had imagined them to possess at the outset. He demanded more men, and all were given him that could be given him, but the campaign dragged, while the volunteers died rapidly of malarial diseases, or were shipped northward to recover the health sacri. ficed in pestilențial camps. All the opposition to the Lincoln Administration united, for political reasons, in ascribing the continuous and final failure of the Peninsular campaign to the President, who had "meddled" with the plans of its military director, and who had failed to give him troops

enough to win the required victories with. A large part of the Army of the Potomac, and several, but not all of its corps commanders, sided very naturally with their chief.

That Mr. Lincoln took a deep, almost an absorbing interest in the operations of that army is true. As early as May 11th, 1862, he went down to pay it a visit; he was afterward in daily communication with its commander, to whom he gave all the support in his power to give. A full understanding of the position assumed by that commander can best be obtained from a study of his own despatches and private letters. His attitude as a political leader, with reference to the most important question of the day, was sufficiently well expressed in one passage of a letter of advice and instruction written by him to the President on July 7th, 1862. He said:

"Military power should not be allowed to interfere with the relations of servitude, either by supporting or impairing the authority of the master, except for repressing disorder as in other cases."

Little fault was to be found with such a declaration, but it illustrated the fact that here was a sort of counterpoise to the action taken and the doctrines declared by General Frémont in the West. The letter was written six days after the bloody battle of Malvern Hill, in which the troops under McClellan had gallantly defeated the last attempt of the Confederate forces to interfere with their retreat from before Richmond.

The campaign was over, having resulted in a failure which had irritated and disheartened the nation,

but General McClellan was eager to make another attempt, and was asking for such supplies of men and materials as the War Department was not prepared to send.

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The attention of the nation had not been altogether absorbed by the Virginia campaign during the long months of its advance and retreat. force under General Burnside had made a permanent occupation of the coast of North Carolina, only the port of Wilmington requiring any further blockading. In April, New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi had been brilliantly won back for the nation. As early as February 16th the capture of Fort Donelson had greatly increased the already growing reputation of General Grant, and the first week of April had closed with the repulse by the army under his command of the Confederate forces under Johnston and Beauregard in the hard-fought battle of Shiloh. On June 6th, with the capture of Memphis, the Mississippi River was opened to that point. Kentucky and Tennessee, west of the mountains, were temporarily cleared of Confederate armies. There had been many minor successes in all directions, but the heart of the nation was sick and angry over the failure to capture Richmond.

No fault could be found with the Army of the Potomac. Grandly had it earned its name as the first army of the Republic. It contained a full proportion of Western as well as of Eastern men before the close of the campaign, and had become thoroughly national and representative. Neither the Army of the Cumberland nor the Army of the Ten