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M'CLELLAN REACHES THE JAMES.

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some of them repeated three or four times, and every time a concentrated fire on the attacking column and a bloody repulse. The men themselves began to see the hopelessness of it, while their officers were still urging them to renewed efforts. 'Come on, come on, my men," said one Confederate colonel, with the grim humor of a soldier; "do you want to live forever?" There were some brief counter-charges, in one of which the colors were taken from a North Carolina regiment; but in general the National troops only maintained their ground, and though fighting was kept up till nine o'clock in the evening, the line-as General Webb, then assistant chief of artillery, tells uswas never for one instant broken or the guns in danger. This battle cost Lee five thousand men, and at its close he gave up the pursuit. The National loss was less than one third as great. That night McClellan withdrew his army to Harrison's Landing, on the James, where he had fixed his base of supplies and where the gunboats could protect his position. This retreat is known as the Seven Days, and the losses are figured up at 15,249 on the National side, and somewhat over 19,000 on the Confederate.

From this time there was an angry controversy as to the military abilities of General McClellan and the responsibility for the failure of the campaign, and partisanship was never more violent than over this question. The General had won the highest personal regard of his soldiers, and they were mostly unwilling or unable to look at

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THE M'CLELLAN CONTROVERSY.

[1862.

the matter in the cold light of the criticism that simply asks What was required? and What was accomplished? The truth appears to be, that General McClellan, like most men, possessed some virtues and lacked others. He organized a great army, and to the end of its days it felt the benefit of the discipline with which he endowed it. But with that army in hand he did not secure the purpose of its creation. He was an accomplished engineer, and a gigantic adjutant, but hardly the general to be sent against an army that could move and a commander that could think. There can be no doubt that the Administration was overanxious about the movements in the Shenandoah, and should have sent McDowell's corps to McClellan at once; but neither can there be much doubt that if Little Mac, the Young Napoleon, as he was fondly called, had been a general of the highest order, he would have destroyed Lee's army and captured the Confederate capital with the ample forces that he had. It was not General McClellan alone that was in a false position when his army was astride the Chickahominy, but the Administration and the people of the loyal States as well. Their grand strategy was radically vicious, for they stood astride of the great central question of the war itself.

CHAPTER XI.

POPE'S CAMPAIGN.

WHILE McClellan was before Richmond, it was determined to consolidate in one command the corps of Banks, Frémont, and McDowell, which were moving about in an independent and ineffectual way between Washington and the Shenandoah Valley. General John Pope, who had won considerable reputation by his capture of Island No. 10, was called from the West and given command (June 26, 1862) of the new organization, which was called the Army of Virginia. Frémont declined to serve under a commander who had once been his subordinate, and consequently his corps was given to General Sigel. General Pope, on taking command of this force, which numbered all told about thirty-eight thousand men, and also of the troops in the fortifications around Washington, had the bad taste to issue a general order that had three capital defects: it boasted of his own prowess at the West, it underrated his enemy, and it contained a bit of sarcasm pointed at General McClellan, the commander of the army with which his own was to co-operate. Pope says in his report, that he wrote a cordial letter to McClellan, asking for his views as to the best plan of campaign, and offering to render him any

HALLECK MADE GENERAL-IN-CHIEF.

[1862.

174 needed assistance; and that he received but a cold and indefinite reply. It is likely enough that a courteous man and careful soldier like McClellan would be in no mood to fall in with the suggestions of a commander that entered upon his work with a gratuitous piece of bombast, and seemed to have no conception of the serious nature of the task. When it became evident that these two commanders could not act sufficiently in harmony, the President called General Henry W. Halleck from the West to be General-in-Chief, with headquarters at Washington, and command them both. Halleck had perhaps more military learning than any other man in the country, and his patriotic intentions were unquestionably good; but in practical warfare he proved to be little more than a great obstructor. He had been the bane of the Western armies, preventing them from following up their victories, and had almost driven Grant out of the service; and from the day he took command at Washington (July 12) the troubles in the East became more complicated than ever.

McClellan held a strong position at Harrison's Landing, where, if he accomplished nothing else, he was a standing menace to Richmond, so that Lee dared not withdraw his army from its defence. He wanted to be heavily reënforced, cross the James, and strike at Richmond's southern communications, just as Grant actually did two years later; and he was promised reënforcements from the troops of Burnside and Hunter, on the coast of North and South Carolina. Lee's anxiety was

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M'CLELLAN LEAVES THE PENINSULA. 175

to get McClellan off from the peninsula, so that he could strike out toward Washington. He first sent a detachment to bombard McClellan's camp from the opposite side of the James; but McClellan crossed the river with a sufficient force and easily swept it out of the way. Then Lee sent Jackson to make a demonstration against Pope, holding the main body of his army ready to follow as soon as some erratic and energetic movements of Jackson had caused a sufficient alarm at Washington to determine the withdrawal of McClellan. The unwitting Halleck was all too swift to cooperate with his enemy, and had already determined upon that withdrawal. Burnside's troops, coming up on transports, were not even landed, but were forwarded up the Potomac and sent to Pope. McClellan marched his army to Fort Monroe, and there embarked it by divisions for the same destination.

Pope's intention was to push southward, strike Lee's western and northwestern communications, and cut them off from the Shenandoah Valley. He first ordered Banks (July 14) to push his whole cavalry force to Gordonsville, and destroy the railroads and bridges in that vicinity. But the cavalry commander, General Hatch, took with him infantry, artillery, and a wagon train, and consequently did not move at cavalry speed. Before he could get to Gordonsville, Jackson's advance reached it, and his movement was frustrated. He was relieved of his command, and it was given to General John Buford, an able cavalry leader.