carted out of Norfolk. Things are moving now." Again at 2 o'clock he telegraphed as follows:

The President is at this moment at Fort Wool witnessing the gunboats shelling the rebel batteries on Sewall's Point. At the same time heavy firing up the James River indicates that Rodgers and Morris are fighting the Jamestown and Yorktown. The boom of heavy cannonading strikes the ear every minute. The Sawyer gun in Fort Wool has silenced one battery on Sewall's Point. The James rifle does good work.

It was a beautiful sight to see the boats moving on Sewall's Point and one after another open fire and blaze away every minute.*

The troops will be ready to move in an hour. The ships engaged are the Dacotah, Savannah, San Jacinto, Monitor, and Stevens. The Merrimac is expected out every minute. A rebel tug came over this morning and said the Merrimac was at Norfolk when they left.

Soon after, the terror-inciting Merrimac came out, but seeing the Vanderbilt draw away for the purpose of getting up great speed to run her down, skulked under shelter, and was blown up by her commander at daylight on the following morning, producing what Stanton described as "one of the most beautiful sights ever beheld."

A suitable landing having been found, Stanton gave orders for the troops to forward march and at midnight was able to telegraph to Watson:

Norfolk and Portsmouth are ours; also the navy-yard. General Wool having completed the landing of his forces at 9 this morning on Willoughby's Point, marched with 5,000 men. Secretary Chase accompanied. At 5 this evening our forces within a short distance of Norfolk were met by a delegation of citizens and the city was formally surrendered. Our troops then marched in; we have possession; General Vielet is in command as military governor.

After Stanton had administered the oath of allegiance to hundreds of Virginians, the party returned to Washington Monday morning. Thus, in one hundred and twenty hours from the time

*"As soon as Stanton heard firing in every direction where there were rebel forts or forces, his delight knew no bounds," says General Viele.

"Before leaving for Norfolk, Secretary Stanton said to me: 'I am going down to take Norfolk. I want you to go along prepared to act as military governor after the capture.' I went; he took Norfolk and everything else in that vicinity, and I was made military governor that very night. That shows what kind of a man Mr. Stanton was," says General Viele.

fixed for leaving Washington (twenty-six of which were required for the journey to Fortress Monroe) Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, and the surrounding points were captured, never to be recovered by the insurgents; the Merrimac was driven to suicide; the United States navy-yard was recovered, and the James River completely blockaded, all according to Stanton's plans and under his personal direction.

When Commander Goldsborough made his report to the Navy Department he stated that he had acted on "orders from the Honorable Edwin M. Stanton," and accompanied the document by Lincoln's written statement that he had "verbally approved the movement in advance."

When Secretary Welles wished to occupy the Norfolk navyyard, his own property, he was compelled to apply to Stanton for permissionn to do so. Secretary Chase wrote to Horace Greeley:

I cut this slip from the Republican this morning about Mr. Stanton. It is less than justice to him. Not only did he urge the order to move on the 22d of February, but he proposed to the President and myself the trip to Fortress Monroe; he proposed and urged the sending of Rodgers up the river, the landing of the troops by General Wool, and the march upon Norfolk. The next day witnessed the march, a panic, the capture of Norfolk, and the following morning the blowing up of the Merrimac. Nothing of all this, I verily believe, would have occurred but for Mr. Stanton's great energy of thought and action.*

In execution and results, Stanton's Norfolk expedition was undeniably one of the signal triumphs of the war. It is the only instance in American history where the secretary of war assumed personal command of both army and navy and actively directed the combined operations of both in battle.

"If Mr. Stanton had been a military man," says General T. M. Vincent, "the brilliant and decisive character of his Norfolk expedition would have filled the world with his fame."

*For years his partisans have claimed that the operations of McClellan caused the surrender of Norfolk. McClellan himself did not think so, for he sent an early telegram of congratulation to Stanton-the only one of this character he ever was known to send to the Secretary.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE LOFTY DYER LETTER.

Stanton hoped that going in person to capture Norfolk and Lincoln's ceaseless prodding would compel McClellan to move, but he was mistaken. The press continued to ridicule the situation by the daily use of the words in exaggerated head-lines, "All Quiet on the Potomac." McClellan's partisans the while poured broadsides of abuse upon Stanton, declaring that he was responsible for the repeated failures of the campaign in Virginia.

These attacks on Stanton were so persistent and vicious that his old friend and beloved tutor in Kenyon College, the Reverend Heman Dyer of New York, wrote a letter in reference to them, which drew forth this remarkable communication:

My Dear Friend:

Washington, D. C., May 18, 1862.

Yours of the 10th is welcome as an evidence of the continued regard of one whose esteem I have always been anxious to possess.

I have been very well aware of the calumnies busily circulated against me in New York and elsewhere respecting my relations to General McClellan, but am compelled from public considerations to withhold the proofs that would stamp the falsity of the accusations and the base motives of the accusers, who belong to two classes:

First-Plunderers who have been driven from the Department when they were gorging millions;

Second-Scheming politicians, whose designs are endangered by an earnest, resolute, and uncompromising prosecution of this war as a war against rebels and traitors.

A brief statement of facts of official record, which I can make to you confidentially, will suffice to satisfy yourself that your confidence in me has not been misplaced.

When I entered the cabinet I was and had been for months the sincere and devoted friend of General McClellan, and to support him and, so far as I might, aid and assist him in bringng the war to a close, was a chief inducement for me to sacrifice my personal happiness to a sense of public duty. I had studied him earnestly with an anxious desire to discover the military and patriotic virtue that might save the country, and,

if in any degree disappointed, I had hoped on, and waited for time to develop.

I went into the cabinet about the 20th of January. On the 27th the President made his Order No. 1, requiring the Army of the Potomac to move. It is not necessary, nor perhaps proper, to state all the causes which led to that order, but it is enough to know that the Government was on the verge of bankruptcy, and at the rate of expenditure the armies must move or the Government perish. The 22d of February was the day fixed for movement, and when it arrived there was no more sign of movement on the Potomac than there had been for three months before. Many, very many earnest conversations I had held with General McClellan, to impress him with the absolute necessity of active operations or that the Government would fail because of foreign intervention and enormous debt.

Between the 22d of February and the 8th of March the President had again interfered, and the movement on Winchester and to clear the blockade of the Potomac was promised, commenced, and abandoned. The circumstances cannot yet be revealed.

On the 8th of March the President again interfered, ordered the Army of the Potomac to be organized into army corps, and that operations should commence.

Two lines of operations were opened-one moving directly on the enemy at Manassas and forcing him back to Richmond, beating and destroying him by superior force, and all the time keeping the capital secure by lying between it and the enemy. This was the plan favored by the President. The other plan was to transfer the troops by water to some point on the lower Chesapeake, and thence advance to Richmond. This was General McClellan's plan.* The President yielded his own views, although they were supported by some of the best military men in the country, and consented that the General should pursue his own plans. But by a written order he imposed a special condition that the army should not be removed without leaving a sufficient force in and around Washington to make the capital perfectly secure against all danger, and the force required should be determined by the judgment of all the commanders of the army corps.

In order to enable General McClellan to devote his whole energy to the movement of his own army (which was quite enough to tax the ability of the ablest commander in the world) he was relieved from the charge of the other military Departments, it being supposed that the respective commanders were competent to direct the operations in their own Depart

ments.

To enable McClellan to transport his force, every means and power of the Government were placed at his disposal and unsparingly used. When a large part of his force had been transferred to Fortress Monroe, and the whole of it about to go in a few days, information was given to me by various persons that there was great reason to fear that no adequate force

*Which left Washington open to capture; and Lee could well afford to pawn Richmond for Washington.