Such we may suppose to be the reflections of General Barnard, when he points out the mistakes which were made in the Army of the Potomac while on the Chickahominy. He does not, indeed, bring to our view the mistakes of the enemy. That would have been travelling outside of the record in the report of the operations falling under his supervision, and such criticism is wisely left for some of the enemy's engineers, or for a more general history. In speaking of the difficulties of crossing the Chickahominy immediately after the battle of the thirty-first of May, General Barnard says,—"There was one way, however, to unite the army on the other side; it was to take advantage of a victory at Fair Oaks, to sweep at once the enemy from his position opposite New Bridge, and, simultaneously, to bring over by the New Bridge our troops of the right wing, which would then have met with little or no resistance"; and again, in a more general criticism of the campaign, he says,—"The repulse of the Rebels at Fair Oaks should have been taken advantage of. It was one of those 'occasions' which, if not seized, do not repeat themselves. We now know the state of disorganization and dismay in which the Rebel army retreated. We now know that it could have been followed into Richmond. Had it been so, there would have been no resistance to overcome to bring over our right wing."
But the "occasion" which the morning of the first of June presented of uniting the two wings of the army, and thus achieving a great victory, was not seized, because, as General Barnard says, "we did not then know all that we now do." At the moment when the New Bridge became passable, 8.15, a. m., it is not probable the Commanding General knew it. Nor did he know, that, at this very moment, the enemy was retreating to Richmond in a "state of disorganization and dismay." Besides, the troops of the left wing had fought a hard battle the preceding afternoon, and they had been up all night, throwing up works of defence, and making dispositions to resist another assault by the enemy. They were not in a condition to assume the offensive against an enemy who was supposed to be in force and in position, himself preparing to resume the attack of the previous day, however competent they may have been to pursue a demoralized foe flying from the field. The propitious moment was lost, not to return,—for, during the day, the rising flood rendered all the bridges, except the railroad-bridge, impassable.
The necessity for more substantial bridges to connect the two wings of the army had now been made manifest, and two fine structures, available for all arms, were completed by the nineteenth. At the same time two foot-bridges were made, the other bridges repaired, and their approaches made secure, though the enemy still held the approaches of the three upper bridges on the right bank.
While these bridges were being made, mostly by the right wing of the army, the left wing was engaged in constructing a strong line of defence, stretching from the White-Oak Swamp to the Chickahominy, consisting of six redoubts connected by rifle-pits or barricades. General Barnard says,—"The object of these lines (over three miles long) was to hold our position of the left wing against the concentrated force of the enemy, until communications across the Chickahominy could be established; or, if necessary, to maintain our position on this side, while the bulk of the army was thrown upon the other, should occasion require it; or, finally, to hold one part of our line and communication by a small force, while our principal offensive effort was made upon another." At the same time, several batteries were constructed on the left bank of the river in the neighborhood of the upper bridges, either to operate on the enemy's positions in their front, or to defend these bridges.
All these preparations were made with the understood purpose of driving the enemy from his positions in front of New Bridge; and they appear to have been about completed, for on the night of the twenty-sixth "an epaulement for putting our guns in position" to effect this object was thrown up. But it was too late. Lee's guns had been heard in the afternoon, in the neighborhood of Mechanicsville, attacking the advance of our right wing, and Jackson was within supporting distance. The battle of the twenty-seventh of June, on which "hinged the fate of the campaign," was to be fought to-morrow. This battle, or rather the policy of fighting it, or suffering it to be fought, has been more criticized than any other battle of the campaign. We fought a battle which was decisive against us with less than one-third of our force.
General Barnard is severe in his criticisms. In his "retrospect, pointing out the mistakes that were made," he says,—
"At last a moment came when action was imperative. The enemy assumed the initiative, and we had warning of when and where he was to strike. Had Porter been withdrawn the night of the twenty-sixth, our army would have been concentrated on the right bank, while two corps at least of the enemy's force were on the left bank. Whatever course we then took, whether to strike at Richmond and the portion of the enemy on the right bank, or move at once for the James, we would have had a concentrated army, and a fair chance of a brilliant result, in the first place; and in the second, if we accomplished nothing, we would have been in the same case on the morning of the twenty-seventh as we were on that of the twenty-eighth,—minus a lost battle and a compulsory retreat; or, had the fortified lines (thrown up expressly for the object) been held by twenty thousand men, (as they could have been,) we could have fought on the other side with eighty thousand men instead of twenty-seven thousand; or, finally, had the lines been abandoned, with our hold on the right bank of the Chickahominy, we might have fought and crushed the enemy on the left bank, reopened our communications, and then returned and taken Richmond.
"As it was, the enemy fought with his whole force, (except enough left before our lines to keep up an appearance,) and we fought with twenty-seven thousand men, losing the battle and nine thousand men.
"By this defeat we were driven from our position, our advance of conquest turned into a retreat for safety, by a force probably not greatly superior to our own."
It is to be hoped that the forthcoming report of General McClellan will give us the reasons which induced him to risk such a battle with such a force, and modify, to some extent at least, the justice of such outspoken censure.