THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
CHAPTER I.
The New Orleans Disaster.-Its Consequences and Effects.-Dispatches of the European Commissioners.-Butler "the Beast."-Public Opinion in Europe.-The Atrocities of the Massachusetts Tyrant.-Execution of Mumford.-Lesson of New Orleans.-Spirit of Resistance. in the South.-Change in the Fortunes of the Confederacy. Two Leading Causes for it.-The Richmond "Examiner."-The Conscription Law.-Governor Brown of Georgia.-Reorganization of the Army.-Abandonment of our Frontier Defences.-The Policy of Concentration.-Governor Rector's Appeal.-First Movements of the Summer Campaign in Virginia.-The Retreat from Yorktown.-Evacuation of Norfolk.-Destruction of the "Virginia."-Commodore Tatnall's Report.-Secretary Mallory's Visit to Norfolk.-The Engagement of Williamsburg. The Affair of Barhamsville.-McClellan's Investment of the Lines of the Chickahominy.-Alarm in Richmond.-The Water Avenue of the James.-The Panic in Official Circles.-Consternation in the President's House.-Correspondence between President Davis and the Legislature of Virginia.-Noble Resolutions of the Legislature. Response of the Citizens of Richmond. -The Bombardment of Drewry's Bluff. The Mass Meeting at the City Hall.-Renewal of Public Confidence.-The Occasions of this.-JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY.-The Engagement of McDowell.-The Surprise at Front Royal.-Banks' Retreat down the Valley.-The Engagements of Port Republic.-Results of the Campaign.-Death of Turner Ashby.-Sufferings of the People of the Valley of the Shenandoah.-MEMOIR OF TURNER ASHBY.
THE fall of New Orleans was one of the most extraordinary triumphs which the enemy had obtained. It was the crowning stroke of that extraordinary campaign of the winter and spring of the year 1862, in which, by the improvidence of the Southern authorities, and a false military policy which divided. their armies and weakened them by undue dispersion, they had lost much of their territory, most of the prestige of their arms, and had fallen upon a train of disasters well calculated to affect the general public, both at home and abroad. The close of this campaign, so ill-starred to the Confederacy, found it with scarcely more than three entire States-Texas, Alabama, and Georgia. Large portions of the territories of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida were occupied by the enemy; he had broken our line of defences in Tennessee, and held im