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but many and fearful conflicts awaited the Confederate army.

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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 offen-
sive. As we have said, each of its ne-
cessarily 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, Mc-
Clellan prepared himself for this eventu-
ality. 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 ob-
stacles; 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 fore-
sight of the general, who, in spite of nu-
merous 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 cam-
paign, 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

AFFAIR AT WHITE HOUSE.

503

the trees ahout White House and its vicinity were cut down to entangle the enemy should they advance, and afford free play to the gunboats which were stationed at the landing ready for action. Preparations were also made to fire the stores accumulated on the shore should they be suddenly attacked. There was great bustle and activity in preparations for departure among the seven hundred vessels of all descriptions gathered in the Pamunkey. Reports and rumors meanwhile were arriving of the threatened movements of the enemy on the right, and the actual conflicts going on at Beaver Dam and Gaines' Mill; wounded men were brought down, and their wants supplied. The first dispatches from the battle fields on the Chickahominy were favorable-not unmingled with anxious instructions from the commander-inchief. On Friday, when the army before Richmond was withdrawing its trains for the retreat, the evacuation of the military post at White House was in full progress. There was panic, and no little confusion, among sutlers, and the contrabands who eagerly sought a refuge on the freight boats and transports. General Stone

execution. An army so encumbered probably never extricated itself with better fortune, or with less profit to the enemy. from so disastrous a situation. The transfer of stores and materials of war from the stations on the railway and at York river, to the James, and the passage of the trains with the heavy artillery through White Oak Swamp, were admirably accomplished, exhibiting a rare tact and administrative ability in the officers, with a ready coöperation on the part of the men. General McClellan, as we have seen, while expecting to try the fortune of war in a general engagement with the army of Richmond, had already determined to change his base of operations from the York river to the James. It was, doubtless, the calculation of the enemy, when Jackson had returned from the Shenandoah, and Stuart had proved the practicability of the scheme, by suddenly throwing a sufficient force on the flank of the Union army, to intercept and capture their vast stores of supplies at the stations on the railway, and at White House, where the provisions and merchandise of a great city were gathered. In this expectation, if it was entertained, the rebels were disap-man, cut off from the main army by the pointed.

As early as Tuesday the 24th, in accordance with the orders of General McClellan, army transports on the York and Pamunkey rivers were leaving for James river, where, it will be remembered, the Union gunboats had possession up to Fort Darling, in the vicinity of Richmond. No new supplies were landed at White House, and the immense stores at Dispatch station, eleven miles in advance on the railway, were being steadily reduced. Ammunition only was sent forward. No civilians were allowed to go to the front. On Wednesday, General Casey arrived from Headquarters to take command of the small force, about six hundred men, at White House, and assist Colonel Ingalls in their removal. As a precautionary measure of defence,

movements of the enemy on the right, meanwhile, arrived with his cavalry in the vicinity, prepared to protect the final retreat. Saturday, the 28th, saw the last of the occupation of the station on the Pamunkey for that campaign. The cars sent out on the railway in the forenoon, were turned back from Dispatch station in consequence of reports of the approach of the enemy, and in the afternoon the report was confirmed by a significant piece of Billingsgate, an insulting message brought over the telegraph line. At evening a body of rebels made their appearance, to be greeted by the smoke of the burning refuse, and scanty remains of the Union camps, and the fire of the gunboats, which swept the desolated plain.

In the midst of the wreck and ruin, the

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. 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.

Yet

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.

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Your achievements of the last ten days reward of their long toils in coveted indehave illustrated the valor and endurance pendence: "To the army in Eastern of the American soldier, attacked by su- Virginia-Soldiers: I congratulate you perior forces, and without hope of rein- on the series of brilliant victories which, forcements. You have succeeded in under the favor of Divine Providence, changing your base of operations by a you have lately won, and, as the Presiflank movement, always regarded as the dent of the Confederate States, do heartmost hazardous of military experiments. ily tender to you the thanks of the counYou have saved all your material, all try, whose just cause you have so skillyour trains, and all your guns, except a fully and heroically served. Ten days few lost in battle, taking, in return, guns ago, an invading army vastly superior and colors from the enemy. Upon your to you in numbers, and in the material march you have been assailed day after of war, closely beleaguered your capital, day with desperate fury by men of the and vauntingly proclaimed its speedy same race and nation skillfully massed conquest; you marched to attack the and led. Under every disadvantage of enemy in his entrenchments; with wellnumber, and, necessarily, of position also, directed movements and death-defying you have in every conflict beaten back valor you charged upon him in his posiyour foes with enormous slaughter. tions, drove him from field to field over Your conduct ranks you among the cele- a distance of more than thirty-five miles, brated armies of history. No one will and, despite his reinforcements, compelnow question that each of you may led him to seek shelter under the cover always with pride say: 'I belong to the of his gunboats, where he now lies, cowarmy of the Potomac.' You have reach-ering before the army he so lately deed the new base complete in organization and unimpaired in spirit. The enemy may at any time attack you. We are prepared to meet them. I have personally established your lines. Let them come, and we will convert their repulse into a final defeat. Your government is strengthening you with the resources of a great people. On this, your nation's birthday, we declare to our foes, who are rebels against the best interests of mankind, that this army shall enter the capital of the so-called Confederacy; that our National Constitution shall prevail; and that the Union, which can alone insure internal peace and external security to each State, 'must and shall be preserved,' cost what it may, in time, treasure, and blood."

Nor should we forget the parallel address of President Davis at Richmond, in which he also promised his army the

rided and threatened with entire subjugation. The fortitude with which you have borne toil and privation, the gallantry with which you have entered in each successive battle, must have been witnessed to be fully appreciated; but a grateful people will not fail to recognize you, and to bear you in loved remembrance. Well may it be said of you, that you have 'done enough for glory;' but duty to a suffering country, and to the cause of constitutional liberty, claims from you a yet further effort. Let it be your pride to relax in nothing which can promote your future efficiency; your one grand object being to drive the invader from your soil, and carrying your standards beyond the outer bounds of the Confederacy, to wring from an unscrupulous foe the recognition of your birthright, community, independence."

CHAPTER LXXII.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE NATIONAL CONGRESS, JULY 17, 1862.

Acts," will show the rapid progress the nation was making at this time in the formation of opinions, strengthened, on the instant, into resolutions, and corroborated by the performance of serious and onerous duties.

In a previous chapter we chronicled | perusal of its two hundred "Public the important communications made at the opening of the session by the President and heads of departments, representing the political, military, and financial condition of the country at the close of the year 1861. It was the turning point in the history of the war, when it was to be decided whether the nation, disappointed of its hopes of a speedy suppression of the rebellion, would gird itself, at whatever sacrifices it might cost, for a mighty and portentous struggle in the future in maintaining against half a continent in arms the cause of the Union, with all that it involves of moral and material well-being. The answer to this question was given in the affirmative. Of the necessity which led to it, of the method by which the problem was solved there can be no more instructive commentary than the debates of the second session of the 37th Congress. For nearly eight months in the Senate and the House, the war, in one or other of its aspects, was the main subject of discussion; how best to carry it on ; the patriotic demands of the time upon public men; the new exigencies of statesmanship; the new demands upon generals in the field; the new relations of slavery to the government :-these and other topics were continually debated; what could not be learned within doors, from argument, was taught by rapid experience in the great march of events in the field. When the Congress met there was considerable uncertainty on many important points; when it adjourned they were practically determined by its legislation. A glance at its debates, a few minutes spent in the

* Chapter L., ante pages 186-200.

The sensitiveness of both houses was shown in the consideration, on several occasions, of the alleged disloyal acts or expressions of members. In the preceding extra session, it will be remembered, the expulsion of Mason, Hunter, and other absentee senators in open rebellion against the nation, had not passed without serious debate. An unwillingness was shown to wound the reputation of men compelled, perhaps, by State necessity, to take part against the government to which they had pledged allegiance. There was less hesitation of this kind now. One of the earliest acts of the Senate, on the 4th of December, was to expel the "traitor," as he was branded in the resolution, John C Breckinridge, who, after the expiration of his term as Vice President, had been elected to that body, and occupied his seat in the previous session. The preamble stated that "he had joined the enemies of his country, and is now in arms against the government he had sworn to support." He had sent no resignation to the Senate, but in an address "to the people of Kentucky" in October, dated at Bowling Green, had, as he expressed it, "returned his trust into their hands," with the declaration that he "exchanged with proud satisfaction, a term of six years in the United States Senate for the musket of a sol

* Ante Vol. I., pp. 498–9.

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