unite at West Point. Richmond, the objective of the operations of the Army of the Potomac, is on the left bank of the James, at the head of navigation, and by land is distant seventy-five miles from Fortress Monroe.

From Fortress Monroe the advance was made in two columns-General Keyes with the Fourth Corps (divisions of Couch and Smith) formed the left; and General Heintzelman with the Third Corps (divisions of Fitz-John Porter and Hamilton, with Averill's cavalry) and Sedgwick's division of the Second Corps, the right. At the very outset the roads were found nearly impracticable, the season being unusually wet. No resistance of moment was met on the march; but on the afternoon of the 5th of April the advance of each

column was brought to a halt-the right in front of Yorktown and the left by the enemy's works at Lee's Mill. These ob- I structions formed part of the general defensive line of

the Warwick River, which General Magruder had taken up, and which stretched across the isthmus from the York to the James, an extent of thirteen and a half miles. The Confederate left was formed by the fort at Yorktown, the water batteries of which, with the guns at Gloucester Point, on the opposite bank of the York, barred the passage of that river; the right, by the works on Mulberry Island, which were prolonged to the James. Warwick River, running nearly across the Peninsula from river to river, and emptying into the James, heads within a mile of Yorktown. Its sources were commanded by the guns of that fort, and its fords had been destroyed by dams defended by detached redoubts, the approaches to which were through dense forests and swamps. Very imperfect or inaccurate information existed regarding the topography of the country at the time of the arrival of the army, and the true character of the position had to be developed by reconnoissances made under fire.

The Confederate defence of the peninsular approach to Richmond had, almost since the beginning of the war, been committed to a small force, named the Army of the Peninsula, under General Magruder. When the Army of the Potomac landed at Fortress Monroe, this force numbered about eleven thousand men. At Norfolk was an independent body of about eight thousand men under General Huger. The iron-plated Merrimac, mistress of Hampton Roads, barred the mouth of the James, the direct water-line to Richmond.

So soon as his antagonist's movement had become fully developed, General Johnston put his army in motion from the Rapidan towards Richmond, where for a time he kept it in hand. The Confederate leader did not expect to hold the Peninsula; for both he and General Lee, who then held the position of chief of staff to Mr. Davis, pronounced it untenable. Soon after the advent of the Union army, General Johnston went down to Yorktown, examined its line of defences, and urged the military authorities at Richmond to withdraw the force from the Peninsula. Assuming that the Federal commander would, with the aid of the navy, reduce

the fort at Yorktown, thus opening up the York River, and, by means of his numerous fleet of transports, pass rapidly to the head of the Peninsula, Johnston regarded the capture of any force remaining thereon as almost certain. The works at Yorktown he found very defective (though the position was naturally strong); for, owing to the paucity of engineers, resulting from the employment of so many of this class of officers in other arms, they had been constructed under the direction of civil and railroad engineers. In this state of facts, General Johnston wished to withdraw every thing from the Peninsula, effect a general concentration of all available forces around Richmond, and there deliver decisive battle.* These views were, however, overruled, and it was determined to hold Yorktown at least until Huger should have dismantled the fortifications at Norfolk, destroyed the naval establishment, and evacuated the seaboard,-a step that was now felt to be a military necessity. To carry out this policy, in view of which it was determined to hold the lines of Yorktown as long as practicable, re-enforcements were from time to time sent forward from the army at Richmond, and soon afterwards General Johnston went down and personally took command.

In his plans for forcing the enemy's defences, there were two auxiliaries on which General McClellan had confidently counted, and with these he expected to make short work of the operation of carrying Yorktown. The first of these auxiliaries was the navy, by the aid of whose powerful armament he designed to demolish the water-batteries at Yorktown and Gloucester Point, and then push a force upon West Point, at the head of the York River, thus turning the line of defences on the Warwick. But, upon applying to Flag-Officer Goldsborough for the co-operation of the navy, he was in

*This exposition of the views and counsels of General Johnston I derive from himself. It is noteworthy that McClellan expected to do precisely what his antagonist assumed he would do-reduce Yorktown by the aid of the navy, and give general battle before Richmond.

formed by that officer that no naval force could be spared for that purpose, since he regarded the works as too strong for his available vessels.*

The second project was to land a heavy force in the rear of Gloucester Point, turning Yorktown by that method, and opening up the York River. This task he had assigned to McDowell's corps, which was to be the last to embark at Alexandria, and which should execute this operation in case the army found itself brought to a halt by the peninsular defences. But on the very day on which the army arrived before Yorktown, General McClellan was met by an order of the President, to which reference has already been made, detaching McDowell's corps from his command, and retaining it in front of Washington.

That this measure was faulty in principle and very unfortunate in its results, can now be readily acknowledged without imputing any really unworthy motive to President Lincoln. When Mr. Lincoln saw the Army of the Potomac carried away in ships out of his sight, and learnt that hardly twenty thousand men had been left in the works of Washington (though above thrice that number was within call), it is not difficult to understand how he should have become nervous as to the safety of the national capital, and, so feeling, should have retained the corps of McDowell to guard it. In this he acted from what may be called the common-sense view of the matter. But in war, as in the domain of science, the truth often transcends, and even contradicts, common sense. It required more than common sense, it required the

* McClellan Report, p. 79. It is due to say, that Commodore Goldsborough proffered the co-operation of a naval force, provided Gloucester Point should be first turned by the army. Report on the Conduct of the War, p. 632.

This order, dated April 4, and received April 5, is as follows:

"ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, April 4, 1862. "By direction of the President, General McDowell's army corps has been detached from the force under your immediate command, and the general is ordered to report to the Secretary of War. Letter by mail.

"GENERAL MCCLELLAN."

"E. THOMAS, Adjutant-General.

intuition of the true secret of war, to know that the twentyfive thousand men under General McDowell would really avail more for the defence of the capital, if added to the Army of the Potomac on the Peninsula, thus enabling that army to push vigorously its offensive intent, than if actually held in front of Washington. This Mr. Lincoln neither knew nor could be expected to know; and it is precisely because the principles that govern military affairs are peculiar and of a professional nature, that the interference of civilians in the war-councils of a nation must commonly be disastrous. The President, who found himself by virtue of his office made commander-in-chief of all the forces of the United States, and who had, since the supersedure of McClellan as general-inchief, assumed a species of general direction of the war, had passed his life in the arena of politics; and he brought the habits of a politician to affairs in which, unfortunately, their intrusion can only result in a confusion of all just relations. This antagonism between the maxims that govern politics and those that govern military affairs, is strikingly illustrated in a sentence of one of Mr. Lincoln's dispatches to General McClellan about this time. Referring to McClellan's repeated requests that McDowell's force should be sent him, the President says: "I shall aid you all I can consistently with my view of due regard to all points."* Nothing could be more ingenuous than this avowal of the policy of an equable distribution of favors. But however discreet the course may be in politics, it is fatal in war, and is precisely that once-honored Austrian principle of "covering everything, by which one really covers nothing." War is partial and imperious, and in place of having "regard to all points," it neglects many points to accumulate all on the decisive point. The decisive point in the case under discussion was assuredly with the Army of the Potomac confronting the main force of the enemy. The proof of this was not long in declaring itself.

Thus deprived of the two auxiliaries on which he had

McClellan: Report, p. 106.