service, will be remembered for the excellent disposition of his force, and his repulse of Lee, the previous autumn, at Cheat Mountain, in Western Virginia.* General McCall, also a native of Pennsylvania, a West Point officer, well known for his services in the Florida war, and in Mexico, had resigned his commission in 1853, and at the breaking out of the rebellion was living in retirement. Called by Governor Curtin to organize a reserve corps in his native State, he had entered resolutely upon the undertaking, and on the completion of his work, had served with his command on the Potomac, with the rank of brigadier-general. He was in command at the battle of Dranesville, in December, 1861. Energetic, and impatient of action, his temporary confinement at Richmond as a prisoner of war was sufficiently onerous. General Meade was an engineer officer of reputation in the regular army, had served on the Potomac as brigadier-general of volunteers, and like his associate, just named, was attached to the Pennsylvania Reserves.

By far the heaviest portion of the Union losses, it will be noticed, was sustained by General Porter's corps, a sad record of the severe battle of Gaines' Mill, fought by less than 30,000 men, with from two to three times their number. McCall's division, on the left wing, attacked in force, was broken, and suffered heavily. A number of cannon were abandoned in the retreat. The sacrifice of life was great; but, in the opinion of General McClellan, saved the remainder of his forces. The enemy was prevented from getting on the flank and rear, and time was gained to withdraw the army and its material. When the army finally reached Harrison's bar, what with actual losses, leaves of absence, and other sources of weakness, General McClellan estimated the number of men "with their colors" at not more than 50,000, less than half of the number of * Ante Vol. I., p. 567. Ante pp. 185--6.

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the army a fortnight before, less than a third of all the troops which from the beginning of the campaign had been sent to the Peninsula.* Of the enemy's losses we have no authentic returns; but, admitted to be severe, with the exception of prisoners, they were probably at least as heavy as those of the other side. The stubborn resistance which they everywhere encountered vindicated the courage and discipline, the deservedly high reputation of the Union army. Their columns, from the outset at Beaver Dam and Gaines' Mill, suffered fearfully from the numerous artillery, a main feature in McClellan's army organization. An intelligent observer from the North, who was in Richmond at this time, Mr. W. H. Hurlbert, states, in a review of these affairs, that "on their own side, the most candid, and best-informed Confederates admitted a total loss in killed, wounded and missing, of about 16,000 men." At the closing engagement at Malvern Hill, the Confederate columns under General Magruder were sent in reckless desperation, in vain attempts to withstand the storm of fire unceasingly poured upon them from the batteries. which had been drawn through the swamps with incredible labor, and planted on so advantageous a position, supported, moreover, by the coöperating heavy fire of the gunboats on the James river. Malvern Hill was, indeed, a sad finale to the efforts of the Confederates for the capture of the Federal host, which might have appeared to them at one time fairly within their grasp. They had not only utterly failed to accomplish that, but they had given the enemy the best possible-the only opportunity-to inflict upon them a heavy loss at parting. It would seem that neither side, in this great struggle, was to gain any decided advantage to shorten the war. Richmond was, indeed, saved from capture,

* Report of the War Committee of Congress. Appendix to translation of Prince de Joinville's "Army of the Potomac," etc.

but many and fearful conflicts awaited the Confederate army.

The Prince de Joinville, a witness of this fearful struggle, pays a glowing tribute to the event which crowned the work. "Porter," says he, "occupied a superb position at a place called Turkey Bend by some persons, and Malvern Hill by others. This position was a lofty open plateau sloping gradually down to the roads by which the enemy must debouch. The left rested upon the river, where lay the Galena, the Monitor, and the flotilla of gunboats. The Federal army, then, had nothing to fear from this side, and had, consequently, only one flank to protect, which was easily done with abattis and field works. On the evening of the 30th all the divisions of the army were united in this strong position, and here the whole train, including the siege guns, was sheltered. The army was in communication with its transports and supplies. The grand and daring movement by which it had escaped a serious danger, and changed an untenable base of operations for one more safe and sure, had been accomplished; but, after so prolonged an effort, the troops were worn out; for five days they had been incessantly marching and fighting. The heat had added to their excessive fatigue; many men had been sun-struck; others quitted the ranks and fell into the lamentable procession of sick and wounded which followed the army as well as it could, and as fast as it could. Doubtless, during this difficult retreat, there had been moments of confusion and disorder, but of what army in like circumstances would not this have been true? This one fact remained unassailable; that, attacked in the midst of a difficult and hostile country by twice its own force, the army of the Potomac had succeeded in gaining a position in which it was out of danger, and from which, had it been properly reinforced, had the concentration of the enemy's forces been met by a like concentration,

it might have rapidly resumed the offensive. As we have said, each of its necessarily scattered sections had for five days been called upon to resist the most furious assaults, and had done so with vigor. Now that it was assembled as a whole upon Malvern Hill, the Confederate army, also reunited, might possibly make a last effort against it. So, in the night of the 30th of June and 1st of July, McClellan prepared himself for this eventuality. He put his whole artillery, at least three hundred guns, into battery along the heights, arranging them in such wise that their fire should not interfere with the defence by the infantry of the sort of glacis up which the enemy would be obliged to advance to the attack. The artillery was to be reinforced by the 100-pounders of the gunboats, which were ordered to flank the position. It was mere madness to rush upon such obstacles; but the Confederates attempted it. Again and again during the day of the 1st of July they undertook to carry Malvern Hill, but without the slightest chance of success. The whole day for them was an idle butchery. Their loss was very heavy; that of the Federals insignificant. This success was due to two causes. First, to the fortunate foresight of the general, who, in spite of numerous natural obstacles to the passage of artillery, had spared nothing to bring his on, and next, to the firmness of his troops, Men do not make such a campaign, and go through such experience as they had endured, without coming out more or less formed to war. If their primitive organization had been better, the survivors of this rude campaign I do not fear to assert, might be regarded as the equals of the best soldiers in the world."

Reviewing the incidents of this retreat, we find it to have been skillfully planned by General McClellan, and carried out, taking all the circumstances into account, with extraordinary ability and success by the leading officers entrusted with its

White House itself, the building which had given name to the locality, and the occupation of which had occasioned no inconsiderable discussion, was, with the rest, committed to the flames. A popular notion had prevailed that this edifice had been occupied by General Washington for a time after his marriage, and a certain romantic and patriotic association was thus connected with it. It was, however, an earlier house on the same site, owned by Mrs. Custis, which was entitled to this distinction, the present White House being of recent erection. It was a small and commonplace wooden structure, surrounded by a field shaded by locust trees, on the banks of the Pamunkey. The ownership of the property still remaining in the Custis family, it was now held by the wife of the rebel General Lee, the heir of the late G. W. P. Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington, and had been of late occupied by a son of General Lee, also in the Confederate army. On the arrival of the Union troops, General McClellan, with the punctilious regard for private property which was chivalrously observed in the advance of the army of the Potomac, ordered that the house and yard should not be occupied by his men. "I have taken," he wrote "every precaution to secure from injury this house where Washington passed the first portion of his married life. I neither occupy it myself, nor permit others to occupy it or the grounds in immediate vicinity." So far as the memory of Washington was concerned, there was nothing to be said against this special act of protection; but, as the property of a rebel in arms, there was some dissatisfaction with the order of the general, who, especially when it was bruited about that the accommodation was wanted for hospital purposes, was held to account in the newspapers for overscrupulous tenderness to the property of rebels. The subject even engaged the attention of Congress, and a resolution was passed in the

House of Representatives calling for information on the subject. This brought out a correspondence between the Secretary of War and General McClellan, in which the latter stated the motive that had dictated his order, and showed that the place was really of less value for hospital purposes than had been represented. It was finally, however, at the request of Secretary Stanton, turned over to this use, and at the time of the evacuation was occupied as the private quarters of those beneficent attendants upon human misery in many lands, the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity.*

More cheering news from the army of the Potomac for the celebration of the 4th of July, might have been desired than the broken details of the Seven Days' Battles, which were that day spread over the northern newspapers, with those sad inventories of killed and wounded, long bulletins of death in solid columns of closely printed small type, with which the country was so sadly familiar. Disappointment throughout the North and West, undoubtedly, chilled the accustomed fervor of the hour, as the nation, roused by the call of the President for a new army of 300,000 men, seriously looked into the future. Yet there was no great depression. country, inured to the struggle, and confident of the final result, was learning to accept good and evil fortune with equanimity.

The

On the banks of the James, General McClellan embraced the occasion of the national anniversary to address to his troops now beginning to recover their shattered strength in their secure encampment at Harrison's Landing, with words of encouragement and promise; speaking for the whole land when he assured his followers of a final triumph "Soldiers of the army of the Potomac !

*Letter of Mr. B. J. Lossing to the New York Evening Post, July 2, 1862. Correspondence of Secretary Stanton and General McClellan, submitted to Congress, July 9, 1862.