CHAPTER V.

McClellan's march up the Peninsula.-Recollections of the "White House.'-Battle of Seven Pines.-Review of condition of the Confederacy.-An act "t, disband the armies of the Confederacy."--Carnival of misrule.-Gen. Lee in command of the forces around Richmond.-Nearly two-thirds of his army raw conscripts.His adoption of Gen. Johnston's idea of concentration.-Manners of Lee as a commander.-The great battle joined.-Beaver-Dam Creek.-Gen. Lee resting at a farm-house. The glory of Gaines' Mills.-Brilliant audacity of Gen. Lee in delivering this battle.-Retreat of McClellan.-Frazier's Farm.-Malvern Hill.The circuit of Lee's victories broken.-His official summary of "the Seven Days' battles."

In the early days of May, 1862, McClellan, with his numerous and bedraggled army, was toiling up the peninsular shape of land formed by the James River and the estuary of the York, while Johnston, in command of the Confederate forces, fell back towards Richmond with admirable precision, leaving no considerable trace of disaster on his retreat. On this memorable march, the advanced guard of the Federals occupied the White House on the Pamunkey River, formerly the property and home of George Washington, and which had come into the possession of Gen. Lee when he married Miss Custis. Since the war it had been designated by Gen. Lee as his family seat, and was occupied by his wife until the enemy approached, and she fled towards Richmond for safety. It is a remarkable circumstance, and one much to the honour of McClellan, who was steadily opposed to all private spoliation in the war, that he respected the historical associations of the place, and protected the property from all ravages of the soldiery. It was here the "Father of his Country" had lived, and within a few miles stood the church in which he had been married. When Mrs. Lee departed from the house on the approach of the Federal army, she left a note on a table which read: "Northern soldiers who profess to reverence Washington, forbear to desecrate the home of his first married life, the property of his wife, now owned by her descendants." It happened that almost the first officer who entered the

house was a cousin of the Lee family, who had continued to serve in the United States army, and commanded a regiment of cavalry. Gen. McClellan strictly complied with the request of the owners of the house, and not only forbade any of his troops to enter the premises, but even abstained from doing so himself, preferring to encamp in the adjoining field. Upon the wall of the room where Mrs. Lee's note had been found, one of the guard wrote an answer: "A Northern officer has protected your property, in sight of the enemy, and at the request of your officer."

This incident is a very pleasant one; so exceptional to the usual conduct of the Federal armies, and in such honourable contrast to what afterwards ensued in the war of incendiarism, plunder, and wanton destruction. But as an illustration of the rancour at Washington, it may be mentioned that this little exhibition of leniency by McClellan, called forth many animadversions, and was even brought to the attention of Congress, where occasion was taken to accuse him of want of patriotism, and a false sentimentalism towards those in arms against the government. The entire circumstance, slight in itself, is interesting as indicating a line of dispute in the conduct of the war, on one side of which a violent party clamoured for measures of savage revenge, and would even have obliterated all respect for the landmarks of history in a wild scene of indiscriminate ruin.

Near the White House the final depôt of stores was organized by McClellan, and a base of operations established for a direct advance on Richmond. By the close of May he had advanced on the Chickahominy, and made an unopposed march to within a few miles of the Confederate capital. On the 30th May Johnston made dispositions for an attack on the left wing of the Federals, which had been thrown forward to a point within six miles of Richmond, and fought the brilliant battle of "Seven Pines," severely punishing the enemy's divisions, but gaining no permanent ground. In this engagement Gen. Johnston was struck down with a severe wound. In consequence of this casualty, President Davis yielded to a common desire, and on the 3d June appointed Gen. R. E. Lee to take chief command of the Confederate forces around Richmond.

At this critical period of the Confederate arms it will be well to make a brief review of the general situation, and especially of certain radical changes about this time taking place in the military

system of the South. When Gen. Lee took command at Richmond the condition of the Confederacy was decidedly gloomy, and its military fortunes for many months had been evidently on the decline. The Border States, which had at first borne the brunt of battle, had given way; Kentucky, Missouri, and Western Virginia had gradually been occupied by the enemy's troops; and the coasts of the Confederacy, assailed by fleets to which they had but little to oppose, had yielded a footing to the Federal armies. New Orleans had been captured, and the curtain had fallen on the policy of Europe, either as regarded recognition or intervention. Richmond was threatened by an army within a few miles of her limits, the strict effective of which was 115,000 men; whilst converging on the apparently devoted city from the west and north marched the three distinct armies of Fremont, Banks and McDowell, making an aggregate of little less than 200,000 men threatening the capital of the Confederacy.

In the internal condition of the South there had been yet more serious causes of alarm and anxiety; and the Confederate armies may be described as having just narrowly escaped annihilation by demagogical laws, and as passing through the severe and critical period of a new organization and morale, acquiring for the firsttime the substance and integrity of real armies. In December, 1861, the weak Provisional Congress at Richmond had passed an act, the true title of which would have been "to disband the armies of the.-Confederacy." This law, inspired by the lowest demagogism, permitted the men to change their arm of the service, to elect new officers, and to reorganize throughout the army. It was said that the soldiers claimed the letter of their contract, to leave the service at the expiration of one year; and the weak legislators at Richmond thought it necessary to indulge what was called their democratic sense of individualism, by allowing them to reduce the organization and discipline of the army to whatever standards would content them, and to convert their camps into a carnival of misrule, and into the vilest scenes of electioneering for commissions. This socalled "reorganization" had gone on in the face of an enemy, who, if he had taken timely advantage of it, would have found little else than demoralized men disgracing the uniform of soldiers, covering the most vital points of the Confederacy. Every candidate who was anxious to serve his country with braid on his shoulders plied

the men with the lowest arts of the cross-roads politician, even tc the argument of whiskey, and contributed to the general demoralization; until the men, feeling the power to dethrone their present officers, lost all respect for their authority, and became the miserable tools of every adventurer and charlatan who imposed upon their confidence.

On this scene of disorder-upon which the enemy had happily not broken-followed the rigorous act of conscription, which at once dated a new military era in the Confederacy, and enabled it to recruit and reorganize its forces, at least in time to meet the tardy steps of the enemy in Virginia. But the forces which came under Lee's hands were raw; there was no time to season the new recruits; and the commander of the forces around Richmond had to contend with all the disadvantages incident upon the transition period in the military affairs of the Confederacy. The reader will doubtless be surprised by the authentic statement, that of the force gathered by Lee for the encounter before Richmond, nearly twothirds were new conscripts, who had never been under fire, and were only half instructed. This fact affords a pregnant commentary on McClellan's delays; and it indicates-what we shall presently see in the battles around Richmond-a singular want of mobility in Lee's army, that curtailed the plans of the commander, diminished his victory, and deprived him of more than half the expected fruits of his own consummate generalship.

After the battle of Seven Pines both armies intrenched themselves. McClellan erected field-works, and threw up a line of breastworks, flanked with small redoubts, extending from the White Oak Swamp in a semicircle to the Chickahominy, and inclosing within the lines the railway and the several roads and bridges constructed to afford communication with his right wing, which continued to hold the country in the neighbourhood of Mechanicsville and Cold Harbour. It was now declared that the circumvallation, as far as designed, was complete, and that the echoes of McClellan's cannon bore the knell of the capital of the Confederacy.

It is but just to observe here, that that theory of action to which the Southern Confederacy most owed its safety, viz.: to draw in its forces around the capital, concentrate there all its available resources, and then fall with crushing weight upon the enemy,

had originated in Gen. Johnston's clear and masterly mind; while Lee, without a thought of rivalry, readily conceived the merit of his predecessor's plan, and determined to continue the same line of action. It is also to be observed that an unfortunate prejudice of President Davis against Johnston had embarrassed his plans, and cross-questioned all his generalship; but, that when Lee took command at Richmond, he was favoured to the utmost in the prosecution of the design that Johnston had initiated, was authorized to draw in the Confederate detachments scattered along the coast and throughout Virginia, and was by this means, and the growing results of the conscription, enabled to raise his effective to about ninety thousand men. It remained, however, for Gen. Lee to fill up the general outline of action his predecessor had traced; he had to make his own immediate plan of battle against the extended front of the enemy; and this he did, as we shall see, not only with the consummate skill of a great mind, but with an audacity that astonished his countrymen, and took the enemy completely by surprise.

There was an early popular supposition that Lee was rather too much of the Fabian stamp of a commander, and disinclined to the risks of battle. For several weeks after he had assumed his important command, his quiet manners, the absence of all bustle about him, and a singular appearance of doing nothing, when in fact he was most busy, confirmed the popular impression of his slowness and unwillingness to deliver battle, and inclined the people of Richmond to believe that he was awaiting the attack of the enemy, which he would at least meet with all the resources of a prudent and skilful commander. They little imagined that he was meditating taking the initiative himself, and putting the insolent enemy on the defensive. The quiet, thoughtful commander never admitted an improper person into his confidence; he was annoyed by politicians and Congressional delegations who wanted information of his plans, but never obtained it; he was assailed by foolish clamours of demagogues, whose interests in the Confederacy appeared to be inclosed within the boundaries of their Congressional districts or counties, and who complained that particular parts of the country had been stripped of troops to defend Richmond; he was pursued by popular impatience for a battle; but to all he was the imperturbable gentleman, opposing to curiosity and clamour a placid man