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CH. XXIII. he was informed that McCall's force was expected to be restored to McDowell's corps, when that army joined him, he bitterly resented it. He said it did not show a proper spirit in McDowell; and added sullenly, "If I cannot fully control all his troops, I want none of them, but would prefer to fight the battle with what I have, and let others be responsible for the results." These petulant outbursts were met with unwearied patience and kindness on the part of the President. On the 15th of June he wrote:

W.R. Vol. XI., Part I., p. 48.

1862.

Lincoln,
MS.

The Secretary of War has turned over to me your dispatch about sending McDowell to you by water, instead of by land. I now fear he cannot get to you either way in time. Shields's division has got so terribly out of shape, out at elbows, and out at toes, that it will require a long time to get it in again. I expect to see McDowell within a day or two, when I will again talk with him about the mode of moving. McCall's division has nearly or quite reached you by now. This, with what you get from General Wool's old command, and the new regiments sent you, must give you an increase, since the late battles, of over twenty thousand. Doubtless the battles, and other causes, have decreased you half as much in the same time; but then the enemy have lost as many in the same way. I believe I would come and see you were it not that I fear my presence might divert you and the army from more important matters.

From this it will be seen that McClellan had no right to delay operations an hour after McCall's arrival from any pretended expectation of the immediate coming of McDowell; and, indeed, he admits in his report 1 that as early as the 7th of

1

1 "As I did not think it probable that any reënforcements would be sent me in time for the advance on Richmond, I stated in the fore

going dispatch [of June 7] that I should be ready to move when General McCall's division joined me."-W. R. Vol. XI., Part I., p. 46.

[graphic][merged small]

W. R.

Part III.,

p. 238.

1862.

June he had given up any such expectation. With CH. XXIII. no reason, therefore, for delay, but with every conceivable incentive to action, with an army amounting, after McCall joined him, to the imposing figure of 156,838, of whom an aggregate present of 127,327 is reported by McClellan himself as of the 20th of June, though he makes a reduction to 114,691 vol. XI., of those "present for duty equipped,” — he wasted the month of June in a busy and bustling activity which was in its results equivalent to mere idleness. He was directly invited to attack by the fine weather of the middle of the month, which he describes as "splendid" in a dispatch of the 17th, and Ibid., p. 232. by the absence of Stonewall Jackson in the Valley with his 16,000 veterans, reënforced by 10,000 troops from Lee's army, as McClellan himself believed and reported on the 18th. The President, by a dispatch of the same date, urged him to take advantage of this opportunity, saying:

Ibid.

If this is true, it is as good as a reënforcement to you of an equal force. I could better dispose of things if I could know about what day you can attack Richmond, and would be glad to be informed, if you think you can Ibid., p. 233. inform me with safety.

The terms in which General McClellan answered this inquiry are worthy of quotation as an illustration of that air of energy and determination which he so often introduced into the expression of his intentions, while leaving, as in the last lines of this dispatch, a loophole for indefinite delay:

Our army is well over the Chickahominy, except the very considerable forces necessary to protect our flanks and communications. Our whole line of pickets in front runs within six miles of Richmond. The rebel line runs VOL. V.-27

CH. XXIII. within musket range of ours.

W. R. Vol. XI., Part III., p. 233.

Each has heavy support at hand. A general engagement may take place any hour. An advance by us involves a battle more or less decisive. The enemy exhibit at every point a readiness to meet us. They certainly have great numbers and extensive works. If 10,000 or 15,000 men have left Richmond to reënforce Jackson, it illustrates their strength and confidence.

This is a singularly characteristic view. The fact of a large detachment having left Lee affords him no encouragement; it simply impresses him all the more with the idea of his enemy's strength.

After to-morrow we shall fight the rebel army as soon as Providence will permit. We shall await only a favorable condition of the earth and sky, and the completion of some necessary preliminaries.

As usual, it was the enemy that startled McClellan out of his procrastination. On the 13th of June, General J. E. B. Stuart, with some twelve hundred Confederate cavalry and a few guns, started to ride around McClellan's army; touching on his way the South Anna Railroad bridge, Hanover Court House, Tunstall's Station on the York River Railway, and thence to Jones's Bridge on the Chickahominy, which he stopped to repair, crossing it on June, 1862. the 15th, and entering Richmond by the river road the next day. It has rarely been the fortune of a general to inflict such an insult upon an opponent without injury. General McClellan did not seem to feel that any discredit attached to him for this performance. On the contrary he congratulated himself that Stuart had done so little harm.

The burning of two schooners laden with forage, and fourteen Government wagons, the destruction of some

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