GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.
The Western victories, important as they were, did not remove the pressure in the East. The popular interest was more largely concentrated in the success of the Army of the Potomac, which would secure the safety of the National Capital, and possibly the possession of the capital of the Confederacy. High hopes had been staked upon the issue. Elaborate preparations had been made and the utmost care had been taken in the organization and discipline of the army.
General George B. McClellan was intrusted with the command. He was a native of Pennsylvania, a distinguished graduate of West Point, a man of high personal character. His military skill was vouched for by older officers whose opinions would have weight with the President. But he had been six months in command of the Army of the Potomac and had done nothing in the field. The autumn had passed in inaction, the winter had worn away, and the spring had come without finding him ready to move. Whatever might be the justification for delay, it was his misfortune to become the subject of controversy. There was a McClellan party and an anti-McClellan party, in the press, among the people, in Congress, and in the army. How far this may have impaired the efficiency of his command cannot be known, but it no doubt seriously undermined him in the confidence of the War Department. Before he had fired a gun in the Peninsular campaign he was in a disputation with both the President and Secretary Stanton. On the 9th of April (1862) Mr. Lincoln wrote him, "Your dispatches complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much." General McClellan had complained that the President had detained McDowell's corps, and thus weakened the strength of his army, and the President was defending the policy as one necessary to the safety of Washington. McClellan protested that he had but eighty-five thousand men at Yorktown. The President insisted that he had a hundred and eight thousand. "And once more," said the President, "in conclusion, let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember that I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting and not surmounting the difficulty; that we would find the same enemy and the same or equal intrenchments at either place. The country will not fail to note (is now noting) that the present hesitation to move upon the intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated. I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose of sustaining you so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can."
This condition of affairs with the indication of increasing discord between the Commander-in-Chief and General McClellan boded no good to the Union cause, and the entire Peninsular campaign was but a succession of "hopes deferred" that made the heart sick; of disappointment, of great sacrifice of life and treasure, and in the end of positive disaster and humiliating retreat.
As General McClellan neared Richmond and needed re-enforcements for a decisive battle with General Lee's army, the Confederates used the most admirable tactics for the purpose of alarming the authorities at Washington and compelling them to withhold help from the Army of the Potomac. Stonewall Jackson came thundering down the Shenandoah Valley with a force which the exaggeration of the day placed far beyond his real numbers. He brushed aside the army of General Banks at Winchester by what might well be termed a military cyclone, and created such consternation that our troops in the Potomac Valley were at once thrown upon the defensive. McDowell with his corps was at Fredericksburg, hurrying to Hanover Court-House for the purpose of aiding McClellan. With our forces thus remote from Washington, and the fortifications around the city imperfectly manned, something akin to panic seized upon the Government. General McDowell, by direct order of the President, was turned from his march on Richmond, to follow or intercept Jackson. On the 25th of May the Secretary of War telegraphed to the governors of the Loyal States: "Intelligence from various quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are marching on Washington. You will please organize and forward immediately all the militia and volunteer forces in your State." The governors in turn issued alarming proclamations, some of which were eminently calculated to spread the contagion of fear prevailing at Washington. Governor Andrew, with evident apprehension of the worst, informed the people of Massachusetts that "The wily and barbarous horde of traitors to the people, to the Government, to our country, and to liberty, menace again the National Capital: they have attacked and routed Major-General Banks, are advancing on Harper's Ferry, and are marching on Washington. The President calls on Massachusetts to rise at once for its rescue and defense." Throughout the entire North there was for several days a genuine belief that the National Capital might soon be in possession of the Confederate army, and the senators and representatives in Congress be seized as prisoners of war.
STONEWALL JACKSON'S STRATEGY.
Meanwhile Stonewall Jackson having marched to the very banks of the Potomac and shelled Harper's Ferry, and having succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectation in the object which he had in view, deliberately began his retreat. He was followed up the Shenandoah Valley by the commands of four Major-Generals and one Brigadier- General of the Union army. He drew these united forces after him precisely as he desired, for the benefit of Lee's army at Richmond. He did not fly from them as if dreading a battle, for that would have been to dismiss the large Union force to the aid of General McClellan. Occasionally detailing a fraction of his command to engage in a skirmish with his pursuers, who far outnumbered his whole force, he managed to keep his main body at a safe distance, and to reserve it for a more important work ahead. After thus drawing our troops so far up the valley that it was impossible for them to retrace their steps in season for concentration on Richmond, he rapidly transported the main body of his own troops by rail from Staunton, and rejoined General Lee in time to take part in the final and memorable series of engagements which, by the close of June, had compelled General McClellan to take refuge on the banks of the James, where he could have the co-operation of the gunboats which lay at Harrison's Landing.
General Halleck took command as General-in-Chief of the army directly after the Army of the Potomac had closed its campaign against Richmond. He visited Harrison's Landing on the 24th of July to make personal inquiry into the situation, and the result was an order for the transfer of the army to Acquia Creek. General McClellan protested earnestly, and, in the judgment of many of the most skilled in military science, wisely, against this movement. The Army of the Potomac, he said, was "within twenty-five miles of Richmond, and with the aid of the gunboats we can supply the army by water during its advance to within twelve miles of Richmond. At Acquia Creek we would be seventy miles from Richmond, with land transportation all the way." He thought the government had ample troops to protect Washington and guard the line of the Potomac, and he could not see the wisdom of transporting the Army of the Potomac two hundred miles at enormous cost, only to place it three times as far from Richmond as it then was. General Halleck's position was sustained by the President, and the Secretary of War, and the argument of General McClellan, convincing and conclusive as it seems, was overruled by the peremptory mandate of his military superiors.
The failure of the Peninsular campaign will always be a subject of controversy. At the time it was one of prolonged and angry dispute. Where military critics so widely differ, civilians gain the right to a personal judgment. The weakness of that great military movement was the lack of cordiality and confidence between the commander and the Administration at Washington. The seeds of distrust had been sown and a bountiful crop of disaster was the natural growth. The withdrawal of McDowell's corps was a fatal blow to McClellan. Before a military court which was inquiring into the transaction, General McClellan stated under oath that he had "no doubt that the Army of the Potomac would have taken Richmond had not the corps of General McDowell been separated from it; and that, had the command of General McDowell in the month of May joined the Army of the Potomac by way of Hanover Court-House, we would have had Richmond a week after the junction." He added, with evident reference to Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton, "I do not hold General McDowell responsible for a failure to join me on that occasion."