Front Royal with 10,000 troops, following up and supporting, as I understand, the force now pursuing Banks. Also, that another force of ten thousand is near Orleans, following on in the same direction. Stripped bare, as we are here, I will do all we can to prevent them crossing the Potomac at Harper's Ferry or above. McDowell has about twenty thousand of his forces moving back to the vicinity of Port Royal, and Fremont, who was at Franklin, is moving to Harrisonburg, both these movements intended to get in the enemy's rear.

One more of McDowell's brigades is ordered through here to Harper's Ferry; the rest of his forces remain for the present at Fredericksburg. We are sending such regiments and dribs from here and Baltimore as we can spare to Harper's Ferry, supplying their places in some sort, calling in militia from the adjacent States. We also have eighteen cannon on the road to Harper's Ferry, of which arm there is not a single one at that point. This is now our situation.

If McDowell's force was now beyond our reach, we should be entirely helpless. Apprehensions of something like this, and no unwillingness to sustain you, has always been my reason for withholding McDowell's forces from you.

Please understand this, and do the best you can with the forces you have.

Major-General MCCLELLAN.

A. LINCOLN, President.

Jackson continued his triumphant march through the Shenandoah valley, and for a time it seemed as if nothing could prevent his crossing the Potomac, and making his appearance in rear of Washington. The President promptly announced this state of things to General McClellan in the following dispatch:

WASHINGTON, May 25, 1862-2 P. M.

The enemy is moving north in sufficient force to drive General Banks before him; precisely in what force we cannot tell. He is also threatening Leesburg and Geary on the Manassas Gap Railroad, from both north and south; in precisely what force we cannot tell. I think the movement is a general and concerted one. Such as would not be if he was acting upon the purpose of a very desperate defence of Richmond. I think the time is near when you must either attack Richmond or give up the job, and come to the defence of Washington. Let me hear from you instantly. A. LINCOLN.

To this General McClellan replied that, independently of the President's letter, "The time was very near when he should attack Richmond." He knew nothing of Banks's position and force, but thought Jackson's movement was designed to prevent re-enforcements being sent to him.

On the 26th, the President announced to General McClellan the safety of Banks at Williamsport, and then turned his attention, with renewed anxiety, to the movement against Richmond, urging General McClellan, if possible, to cut the railroad between that city and the Rappahannock, over which the enemy obtained their supplies. The general, on the evening of the 26th, informed him that he was "quietly closing in upon the enemy preparatory to the last struggle"-that he felt forced to take every possible precaution against disaster, and that his arrangements for the morrow were very important, and if successful would leave him free to strike on the return of the force attacked." The movement here referred to was one against a portion of the rebel forces at Hanover Court-House, which threatened McDowell, and was in position to re-enforce Jackson. The expedition was under command of General FitzJohn Porter, and proved a success. General McClellan on the 28th announced it to the Government as a 66 complete rout" of the rebels, and as entitling Porter to the highest honors. In the same dispatch he said he would do his best to cut off Jackson from returning to Richmond, but doubted if he could. The great battle was about to be fought before Richmond, and he adds: "It is the policy and the duty of the Government to send me by water all the well-drilled troops available. All unavailable troops should be collected here." Porter, he said, had cut all the railroads but the one from Richmond to Fredericksburg, which was the one concerning which the President had evinced the most anxiety. Another expedition was sent to the South Anna River and Ashland, which destroyed some bridges without opposition. This was announced to the Government by

General McClellan as another "complete victory” achieved by the heroism of Porter,―accompanied by the statement that the enemy were even in greater force than he had supposed. "I will do," said the dispatch, "all that quick movements can accomplish, and you must send me all the troops you can, and leave to me full latitude as to choice of commanders." In reply, the President sent him the following:

WASHINGTON, May 28, 1862.

I am very glad of General F. J. Porter's victory; still, if it was a total rout of the enemy, I am puzzled to know why the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad was not seized again, as you say you have all the railroads but the Richmond and Fredericksburg.

I am puzzled to see how, lacking that, you can have any, except the scrap from Richmond to West Point. The scrap of the Virginia Central, from Richmond to Hanover Junction, without more, is simply nothing. That the whole of the enemy is concentrating on Richmond, I think, cannot be certainly known to you or me. Saxton, at Harper's Ferry, informs us that large forces, supposed to be Jackson's and Ewell's, forced his advance from Charlestown to-day. General King telegraphs us from Fredericksburg that contrabands give certain information that fifteen thousand left Hanover Junction Monday morning to re-enforce Jackson. I am painfully impressed with the importance of the struggle before you, and shall aid you all I can consistently with my view of the due regard to all points. A. LINCOLN.

Major-General MCCLELLAN.

To a dispatch reporting the destruction of the South Anna Railroad bridge, the President replied thus:

WASHINGTON, May 29, 1862.

Your dispatches as to the South Anna and Ashland being seized by our forces this morning is received. Understanding these points to be on the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad, I heartily congratulate the country, and thank General McClellan and his army for their seizure. A. LINCOLN.

On the 30th, General McClellan telegraphed to the Secretary of War, complaining that the Government did not seem to appreciate the magnitude of Porter's victory, and saying that his

army was now well in hand, and that "another day will make the probable field of battle passable for artillery."

On the 25th of May, General Keyes with the Fourth Corps had been ordered across the Chickahominy, and was followed by the Third, under General Heintzelman-one Division of the Fourth, under General Casey, being pushed forward within seven miles of Richmond, to Seven Pines, which he was ordered to hold at all hazards. On the 28th, General Keyes was ordered to advance Casey's Division three-quarters of a mile to Fair Oaks. General Keyes obeyed the order, but made strong representations to head-quarters of the extreme danger of pushing these troops so far in advance without adequate support, and requested that General Heintzelman might be brought within supporting distance, and that a stronger force might be crossed over the Chickahominy to be in readiness for the general engagement which these advances would be very likely to bring on. These requests were neglected, and General Keyes was regarded and treated as an alarmist. On the afternoon of the 30th he made a personal examination of his front, and reported that he was menaced by an overwhelming force of the enemy in front and on both flanks, and he again urged the necessity for support, to which he received a very abrupt reply that no more troops would be crossed over, and that the Third Corps would not be advanced unless he was attacked. At about noon the next day he was attacked on both flanks and in front, General Casey's Division driven back with heavy loss, and in spite of a stubborn and gallant resistance on the part of his corps, General Keyes was compelled to fall back with severe losses, some two miles, when the enemy was checked, and night put an end to the engagement. On hearing the firing at head-quarters, some four miles distant, General McClellan ordered General Sumner to hold his command in readiness to move. General Sumner not only did so, but moved them at once to the bridge, and on receiving authority

crossed over, and, by the greatest exertions over muddy roads, reached the field of battle in time to aid in checking the rebel advance for the night. Early the next morning the enemy renewed the attack with great vigor, but the arrival of General Sumner, and the advance of General Heintzelman's Corps, enabled our forces, though still greatly inferior, not only to repel the assault, but to inflict upon the enemy a signal defeat. They were driven back in the utmost confusion and with terrible losses upon Richmond, where their arrival created the utmost consternation, as it was taken for granted they would be immediately followed by our whole army.

General McClellan, who had remained with the main body of the army on the other side of the Chickahominy during the whole of the engagements of both days, crossed the river after the battle was over, and visited the field. "The state of the roads," he says, "and the impossibility of manoeuvring artillery, prevented pursuit." He returned to head-quarters in the afternoon. On the next day, June 2d, General Heintzelman sent forward a strong reconnoitering party under General Hooker, which went within four miles of Richmond without finding any enemy. Upon being informed of this fact, General McClellan ordered the force to fall back to its old position, assigning the bad state of the roads as the reason for not attempting either to march upon Richmond or even to hold the ground already gained. In a dispatch to Washington on the 2d, he states that he "only waits for the river to fall to cross with the rest of the army and make a general attack. The morale of my troops," he adds, "is now such that I can venture much. I do not fear for odds against me." It seems to have been his intention then, to concentrate his forces for an immediate advance upon the rebel capital, though in his report, written more than a year afterwards, he says the idea of uniting the two wings of the army at that time for a vigorous move upon Richmond was "simply absurd, and was probably never