destroying it as a landing facility to the enemy, and preparations being nearly completed for the bombardment, Magruder evacuated the town on the night of the 3d; showing that he had had good sources of information, for it was expected by McClellan that everything would be ready on the 5th to dislodge him. Magruder had given a sigh of relief when he had seen McClellan deliberately sit down before his lines to make a regular siege; showing how well he appreciated his weakness to resist assault at the beginning, in view of the fact of his extended lines and the appearance before them of an army of certainly sixty thousand men. The enemy had had a month, of which he had availed himself, not only to bring up his main army, but to strengthen the fortifications of Richmond. So, in the first operations, from the 5th of April to the 4th of May, when the Federal troops entered Yorktown, just a month, the advantages had all remained with the enemy. Could the line have been forced without undue sacrifice for the gain? There is the best reason for so believing upon the evidence now extant from both Federal and Confederate sources. It is, however, the sphere of great generalship to divine the unknown, or to solve by trial the problem of the undivinable.

The enemy having evacuated his lines in the night of the 3d of May, General McClellan, on the 4th, promptly ordered cavalry and horse-artillery to pursue him on the roads towards Williamsburg. General Edwin V. Sumner was in command of this portion of the advance, and General Philip Kearny's division and General Joseph Hooker's division, of General Samuel P. Heintzelman's corps, and General William F. Smith's, General Darius N. Couch's and General Silas Casey's divisions, of Keyes's corps, were ordered forward in support of Sumner. The troops which they were pursuing from the lines near and at Yorktown were fifty-three thousand in number, under the command

of General Joseph E. Johnston, only slight skirmishing with the rear-guard taking place until the lines before Williamsburg were reached.

Early on the following morning Hooker attacked Fort Magruder, about a mile from Williamsburg, the most formidable of the enemy's line of defences, which reached across the Peninsula from the James to Queen's Creek, on the York. About three or four o'clock in the afternoon Kearny arrived and relieved Hooker by continuing the attack with his division, which had been so spirited that Johnston had been obliged to recall some of his troops who had continued their march. Sumner had been ordered to take command of all of the troops until the arrival of McClellan; but McClellan did not arrive. The resistance met with was much more severe than had been expected or need have been encountered, for all that the enemy was essaying to do was to gain time for his orderly retreat. As the event proved, the general-commanding should have been at the front. The function there to be exercised was very much more important than attending to what any one on his staff could have supervised, if supervision were indeed needed— the embarkation of General William B. Franklin's command, which was to go to a place on the right bank of the Pamunkey, opposite West Point, so as to take in reverse any defences which might have been prepared higher up on the Peninsula.

The losses at Williamsburg on the Federal were much greater than those on the Confederate side, and, as already indicated, were sustained for an inadequate purpose. The sole redeeming feature of the operation, except the admirable conduct of the troops everywhere, was the brilliant move of General W. S. Hancock, who, under orders, crossed Cub Dam Creek, on the right, with five regiments of Smith's division, and occupied a redoubt commanding the mill-bridge

across the creek. Here he remained unsupported for a long while, all the troops not being yet up; but although lacking reinforcements to enable him to hold his position and gain the left and rear of General James Longstreet's division, he still tenaciously held on to the ground in the hope that he would finally be able to advance and accomplish his purpose. He was waiting, however, in vain, when the enemy, recognizing the dangerousness of the lodgment which he had made, marched a column against him, led by Generals Jubal Early and D. H. Hill. By this time Hancock, holding the first, had occupied another redoubt nearer to Williamsburg, and was threatening two others. Seeing, at a glance, with his consummate grasp of a tactical situation, that it would be impossible, without reinforcements, to hold on to his captures, he fell back for a space from his most advanced position, and there halting, as the enemy threatened his right flank, he delivered his fire and charged with the bayonet, wounding Hill and throwing his troops into disorder; when Early, seeking to restore the battle, was compelled to beat a hasty retreat. Not until the affair was over did reinforcements, under General Smith, reach the ground; but they were too late to be available for a renewed advance on the enemy, who, having gained the time needed, continued his retreat towards Richmond. Here began and was conspicuously exhibited that strange fact of the absence of control of the battle-field by the commanding-general which continued to manifest itself throughout the Peninsular campaign. As no one has ever been able to attribute to him want of personal courage, the indisputable fact remains to be accounted for only by the ascription to him of a psychical trait of incapacity to see things in their relative importance as to event and time. If his corps-commanders were not those whom he would have chosen, all the more need was there that he should

have been at the front. Not only was he not at the front, but he had been detained of his own free will from being there by an affair so trivial that, if there had been no question of battle, it was beneath his official dignity to give it personal attention. General McClellan did not arrive upon the field until between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, when everything was virtually over. The next morning the army of Johnston continued its retreat towards Richmond.

While these operations were going on before Williamsburg, the divisions of Franklin's command were embarking at Yorktown for the point on the right bank of the Pamunkey opposite West Point, and by the 16th the divisions of Franklin, Smith, and Porter had reached the place at the White House where they established a depot of supplies. The expedition effected nothing more of moment, Franklin, soon after landing, merely repulsing an attack of General William H. C. Whiting, for as, on the 7th, Johnston's army had been concentrated at Barhamsville, only a few miles south of West Point, all chance of a turning movement was at an end. McClellan had ceased at Williamsburg all forward movement that could by the most strained construction of the meaning of the word be deemed pursuit, for in the following ten days the enemy moved only between thirty and forty miles to his point of concentration at Barhamsville. While the Confederate army was at Barhamsville, where it remained five days, all that McClellan did was to send out from Williamsburg reconnoissances and a force of cavalry, artillery, and infantry to open up communication with Franklin, beginning his forward movement on the 8th of May, and advancing his headquarters on the 10th nineteen miles beyond Williamsburg. On the 19th the troops which had gone by land, and those which had gone by water up the York, reunited at the White House, on the

Pamunkey. This was to be the depot of supplies for the army when it should be in position before Richmond. Here passes the Richmond and York River Railroad, which, beginning at West Point, at the end of York River, and between its branches (the Mattapony and Pamunkey), runs to Richmond.

A reorganization of the army was effected at the White House. The Second Corps, under Sumner, was to consist of the divisions of Richardson and Sedgwick. The Third Corps, under Heintzelman, was to consist of the divisions of Hooker and Kearny. The Fourth Corps, under General Erasmus D. Keyes, was to consist of the divisions of General Darius N. Couch and General Silas Casey. The Fifth Corps, under Fitz-John Porter, was to consist of his own division, under General George W. Morrill, and that of General George Sykes (regulars). The Sixth Corps, under Franklin, was to consist of his own division, under General Henry W. Slocum, and that of Smith. The last two corps were organizations authorized by the President. These changes effected, headquarters, with Franklin's command and Porter's corps, marched to Tunstall Station, five miles from the White House, on the 19th of May, and on the 20th Casey's division forded the Chickahominy near Bottom's Bridge, which had been destroyed, occupied the high ground beyond, and began to rebuild the bridge. On the 21st the advance guard had reached New Bridge, eight miles further up the Chickahominy than Bottom's Bridge. On the 24th the village of Mechanicsville, north of the Chickahominy, four miles above New Bridge, was captured, but the bridge between it and Richmond was destroyed by the enemy. On that day also the left wing of the army secured a position south of the Chickahominy, at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks Station, across the Williamsburg road and near the Richmond and York River Railroad. The advance had been exceedingly slow.