3. McClellan was to take the largest army by water from Washington to Fort Monroe, and then march up the peninsula formed by the York and James rivers to the neighborhood of Richmond, where McDowell was to join him.
Landing at the lower end of the peninsula early in April, McClellan moved northward to Yorktown, and captured it after a long siege. McClellan then hurried up the peninsula after the retreating enemy, and on the way fought and won a battle at Williamsburg. [16]
THE SHENANDOAH CAMPAIGN, 1862.—It was now expected that McDowell, who had been guarding Washington, would join McClellan, but General T. J. Jackson [17] (Stonewall Jackson), who commanded the Confederate forces in the Shenandoah, rushed down the valley and drove Banks across the Potomac into Maryland. This success alarmed the authorities at Washington, and McDowell was held in northern Virginia to protect the capital. Part of his troops, with those of Banks and Fremont, were dispatched against Jackson; but Jackson won several battles and made good his escape.
[Illustration: THOMAS J. JACKSON.]
END OF PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.—Though deprived of the aid of McDowell, General McClellan moved westward to within eight or ten miles of Richmond; but the Confederate General J. E. Johnston now attacked him at Fair Oaks. A few weeks later General R. E. Lee, [18] who had succeeded Johnston in command, was joined by Jackson; the Confederates then attacked McClellan at Mechanicsville and Gaines Mill and forced him to retreat, fighting as he went (June 26 to July 1), to Harrisons Landing on the James River. There the Union army remained till August, when it went back by water to the Potomac.
[Illustration: ROBERT E. LEE.]
LEE'S RAID; BATTLE OF ANTIETAM, 1862.—The departure of the Union army from Harrisons Landing left General Lee free to do as he chose, and seizing the opportunity he turned against the Union forces under General Pope, whose army was drawn up between Cedar Mountain and Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock River. Stonewall Jackson first attacked General Banks at the western end of the line at Cedar Mountain, and beat him. Jackson and Lee then fell upon General Pope on the old field of Bull Run, beat him, and forced him to fall back to Washington, where his army was united with that of McClellan. [19] This done, Lee crossed the Potomac and entered Maryland. McClellan attacked him at Antietam Creek (September, 1862), where a bloody battle was fought (sometimes called the battle of Sharpsburg). Lee was beaten; but McClellan did not prevent his recrossing the Potomac into Virginia. [20]
FREDERICKSBURG, 1862.—McClellan was now removed, and General A. E. Burnside put in command. The Confederates meantime had taken position on Marye's Heights on the south side of the Rappahannock, behind Fredericksburg. The position was impregnable; but in December Burnside attacked it and was repulsed with dreadful slaughter. The two armies then went into winter quarters with the Rappahannock between them.
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.—Ever since the opening of the year 1862, the question of slavery in the loyal states and in the territories had been constantly before Congress. In April Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and set free the slaves there with compensation to the owners. In June it abolished slavery in the territories and freed the slaves there without compensation to the owners, and in July authorized the seizure of slaves of persons then in rebellion.
In March Lincoln had asked Congress to help pay for the slaves in the loyal slave states, if these states would abolish slavery; but neither Congress nor the states adopted the plan. [21] Lincoln now determined, as an act of war, to free the slaves in the Confederate states, and when the armies of Lee and McClellan stood face to face at Antietam, he decided, if Lee was beaten, to issue an emancipation proclamation. Lee was beaten, and on September 22, 1862, the proclamation came forth declaring that on January 1, 1863, "all persons held as slaves" in any state or part of a state then "in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, and forever free." The Confederate states did not return to their allegiance, and on January 1, 1863, a second proclamation was issued, declaring the slaves within the Confederate lines to be free men.