Without feeling under any obligations for kind intentions on the part of the Government of the North, it was fortunate for us that it did, as its friend the Comte de Paris represents, deceive General McClellan, and prevent him from moving to the south side of the James River, so as not only to secure the coöperation of his gunboats in an attack upon Richmond, but to make his assault on the side least prepared for resistance, and where it would have been quite possible to cut our line of communication with the more Southern States on which we chiefly depended for supplies and reënforcements.
It is hardly just to treat the failure to fulfill the assurance given by President Lincoln about reënforcements as "deceptive promises," for, as will be seen, the operations in the Valley by General Jackson, who there exhibited a rapidity of movement equal to the unyielding tenacity which had in the first great battle won for him the familiar name "Stonewall," had created such an alarm in Washington, as, if it had been better founded, would have justified the refusal to diminish the force held for the protection of their capital. Indeed, our cavalry, in observation near Fredericksburg, reported that on the 24th McDowell's troops started southward, but General Stuart found that night that they were returning. This indicated that the anticipated junction was not to be made, and of this the Prince of Joinville writes:
"It needed only an effort of the will: the two armies were united, and in the possession of Richmond certain! Alas! this effort was not made. I can not recall those fatal moments without a real sinking of the heart." [34]
General McClellan, in his testimony December 10, 1862, before the court-martial in the case of General McDowell, said:
"I have no doubt, for it has ever been my opinion, that the Army of the Potomac would have taken Richmond had not the corps of General McDowell been separated from it. It is also my opinion that, had the command of General McDowell joined the Army of the Potomac in the month of May, by the way of Hanover Court-House, from Fredericksburg, we would have had Richmond within a week after the junction." [35]
Let us first inquire what was the size of this army so crippled for want of reënforcement, and then what the strength of that to which it was opposed. On the 30th of April, 1862, the official report of McClellan's army gives the aggregate present for duty as 112,392;[36] that of the 20th of June—omitting the army corps of General Dix, then, as previously, stationed at Fortress Monroe, and including General McCall's division, which had recently joined, the strength of which was reported to be 9,514—gives the aggregate present for duty as 105,825, and the total, present and absent, as 156,838.[37]
Two statements of the strength of our army under General J. E. Johnston during the month of May—in which General McClellan testified that he was greatly in need of McDowell's corps—give the following results: First, the official return, 21st May, 1862, total effective of all arms, 53,688; subsequently, five brigades were added, and the effective strength of the army under General Johnston on May 31, 1862, was 62,696.[38]
I now proceed to inquire what caused the panic at Washington.
On May 23d, General Jackson, with whose force that of General Ewell had united, moved with such rapidity as to surprise the enemy, and Ewell, who was in advance, captured most of the troops at Front Royal, and pressed directly on to Winchester, while Jackson, turning across to the road from Strasburg, struck the main column of the enemy in flank and drove it routed back to Strasburg. The pursuit was continued to Winchester, and the enemy, under their commander-in-chief, General Banks, fled across the Potomac into Maryland. Two thousand prisoners were taken in the pursuit. General Banks in his report says, "There never were more grateful hearts in the same number of men, than when, at mid-day on the 26th, we stood on the opposite shore."
When the news of the attack on Front Royal, on May 23d, reached General Geary, charged with the protection of the Manassas Gap Railroad, he immediately moved to Manassas Junction. At the same time, his troops, hearing the most extravagant stories, burned their tents and destroyed a quantity of arms. General Duryea, at Catlett's Station, becoming alarmed on hearing of the withdrawal of Geary, took his three New York regiments, leaving a Pennsylvania one behind, hastened back to Centreville, and telegraphed to Washington for aid. He left behind a large quantity of army stores. The alarm spread to Washington, and the Secretary of War, Stanton, issued a call to the Governors of the "loyal" States for militia to defend that city.