NORFOLK EVACUATED BY THE REBELS. 127 so that Gen. McClellan's. headquarters only reached White House on the 16th, Tunstall's Station on the 19th, and Coal Harbor on the 22d. Our advanced light troops had reached the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge two days before. 40 camped, though no hostile force had appeared. Next morning, however, a regiment or two of the enemy was descried and shelled from our gunboats; whereupon Gen. Dana, by order of Gen. Slocum, hastened the landing of his men and horses; while the 16th, 31st, and 32d New York, with the 95th and 96th Pennsylvania, were pushed forward into the woods in our front, with orders to drive out the few Rebel scouts who were supposed to be skulking there. They soon found themselves engaged with a far larger force than they had expected, whereof Gen. Whiting's Texan division and Wade Hampton's South Carolina Legion formed a part; and who, with every advantage of position and knowledge of the ground, drove our men out in haste and disorder. Twice the attempt was renewed, with similar results; but at length, our batteries having been landed and posted, they, with the aid of the gunboats, easily silenced the single Rebel battery of small howitzers, which, from an elevated clearing in the woods, had assisted to repel the advance of our infantry; and now that infantry pushed once more into the woods, and found no enemy to contest their possession. We lost in this affair 194 men, mainly of the 31st and 32d New York, including two Captains and two Lieutenants; while the Rebel loss was tri-ed, were valuable; 29 pieces were fling. Gen. Stoneman, with the advance of our main army, moved from Williamsburg on the 8th to open communication with Gen. Franklin, followed by Smith's division on the direct road to Richmond. Rain fell frequently; the roads were horrible; 40 See pages 73-81. The movement of our grand army up the Peninsula, in connection with Burnside's successes and captures in North Carolina, had rendered the possession of Norfolk by the Rebels no longer tenable. To hold it by any force less than an army would be simply exposing that force to capture or destruction at the pleasure of our strategists. Gen. Wool, commanding at Fortress Monroe, having organized an expedition designed to reduce that important city, led it thither on the 10th; finding the bridge over Tanner's creek on fire, but no enemy to dispute possession of Norfolk, which was quietly surrendered by its Mayor. The Navy Yard and Portsmouth were in like manner repossessed; the Rebels, ere they left, destroying every thing that would burn, partially blowing up the Dry Dock, and completely destroying their famous ironclad known to us as the Merrimac." They left about 200 cannon, including 39 of large caliber at Craney Island, and those in the Sewell's Point batteries, which, though spik found mounted on strong earthworks two miles from Norfolk, but deserted. In fact, it had been decided, at a council held at Norfolk some days before, that no attempt should be made to defend that city. The Merrimac, though she never fully recovered from the effects of her strug4 May 11, 5 A. M. 41 gle with the Monitor, had come down | rison Baltimore and Fortress Mon the river and shown fight when our vessels first undertook to shell out the Rebel batteries at Sewell's Point, three days before her self-destruction.42 Two unfinished iron-clads were among the vessels fired by the Rebels ere they left. The serious difference between the Administration and Gen. McClellan respecting the strength of his army, and the detachment therefrom of McDowell's and other forces for service elsewhere, now demands our deliberate consideration. Gen. McClellan, upon first assuming command of the Army of the Potomac, had addressed to the President a memorandum, wherein, in addition to the armies required to make "a strong movement on the Mississippi," to drive the Rebels "out of Missouri," to hold Kentucky, and sustain "a movement through that State into Eastern Tennessee," to guard securely the passes into Western Virginia, "to protect and reopen the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad," to "gar 42 Com. Tatnall, in his official report of the loss of the Merrimac, lays the blame entirely on his pilots, who on the 7th assured him that they could take her to within 40 miles of Richmond if her draft were lessened to 18 feet; but, after five or six hours had been devoted to this work, and she had thus been disabled for action, they, for the first time, declared that, as the winds had for two days been westerly, the water in the James was too low, so that she could not now be run above the Jamestown flats, up to which point each shore was occupied by our armies. He had now no alternative but to fire her, land his crew, and make the best of his way to Suffolk. A Court of Inquiry, presided over by Capt. French Forrest, after an investigation protracted from May 22d to June 11th, decided that her destruction was unnecessary, and that she might, after being lightened to a draft of 20 feet 6 inches, have been taken up James river to Hog roe," and leave 20,000 "for the defense of Washington," he required for his "main army of operations" 225,000 infantry, 25,500 cavalry, 7,500 engineer troops, and 15,000 artillery men, with 600 field guns; in all, 273,000 men. Even this mighty army was deemed by him insufficient, unless aided by a strong naval force.** Nearly three months later, in a letter to the Secretary of War, he so modified this demand as to evince a willingness to begin offensive operations with a total effective force on the Potomac and in Maryland-but not including the garrison of Fortress Monroe-of 208,000 men and 488 guns; but to secure this, he calcu lated, would require an aggregate of 240,000 men on his muster-rolls, including the sick and absent, while he had but 168,318, with 228 field guns, present, and 6 more batteries on the way from New York. Thus his army, which by December 1st had been swelled nearly to 200,000, and for the three months succeeding Island. Part of the blame, however, was laid on the hasty retreat from Norfolk of the military under Gen. Huger. 43 August 4, 1861. 44 He says: "Its general line of operations should be so directed that water transportation can be availed of, from point to point, by means of the ocean and the rivers emptying into it. An essential feature of the plan of operations will be the employment of a strong naval force, to protect the movements of a fleet of transports intended to convey a considerable body of troops from point to point of the enemy's sea-coast, thus either creating diversions, and rendering it necesorder to protect such of their cities as may be sary to detach largely from their main body in threatened, or else landing and forming establishments on their coast, at any favorable places that opportunity might offer. This naval force should also cooperate with the main army, in its the Rebels."-McClellan's Official Memorandum. efforts to seize the important sea-board towns of WASHINGTON CITY TO BE COVERED. averaged about 220,000 men," was at no time large enough, according to his computation, to justify a determined offensive, since he persisted in computing the Rebel army confronting him at no less than "150,000 strong, well drilled and equipped, ably commanded and strongly in Now, the movement first contemplated, by way of the Rappahannock and Urbana-still more, that ultimately decided on by way of Fortress Monroe and the Peninsula-involved a division of this army, and the reservation of a considerable part of it for the protection of Washington, as also the securing of Maryland and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from desolating raids down the Shenandoah Valley. President Lincoln had reluctantly given his assent to this circumlittoral advance, on these expressed conditions: “EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, "March 8, 1862. "PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER, No. 3: “Ordered, That no change of the base of operations of the Army of the Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about Washington such a force as, in the opinion of the General-in-Chief and the commanders of army corps, shall leave said city entirely secure. "That no more than two army corps (about 50,000 troops) of said Army of the Potomac shall be moved en route for a new base of operations until the navigation of the Potomac, from Washington to the Chesapeake Bay, shall be freed from the enemy's batteries, and other obstructions, or until the President shall hereafter give express permission. "That any movement as aforesaid, en route for a new base of operations, which may be ordered by the General-in-Chief, and which may be intended to move upon the Chesapeake Bay, shall begin to move upon the bay as early as the 18th of March instant; and the General-in-Chief shall be responsible that it so moves as early as that day. 45 Dec. 1, 198, 213; Jan. 1, 219,707; Feb. 1, 222,196; March 1, 221,987. VOL. II.-9 | 129 "Ordered, That the army and navy cooperate in an immediate effort to capture the enemy's batteries upon the Potomac between Washington and the Chesapeake Bay. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General.” Gen. McClellan's chief of spies had by this time reduced the force of the Rebels in Northern Virginia" to 115,500 men, with 300 field and 26 to 30 siege-guns-quite a formidable army, if its leader should conclude, after Gen. McClellan's embarking the bulk of his forces for Fortress Monroe, to make a rush upon Washington from behind the Rappahannock. Five days later, Secretary Stanton wrote, as we have already seen, to Gen. McClellan, that the President made no objection to his plan of operations, provided he would "1st. Leave such force at Manassas Junc tion as shall make it entirely certain that the enemy shall not repossess himself of that position and line of communication. "2d. Leave Washington entirely secure. "3d. Move the remainder of the force down the Potomac-choosing a new base at Fortress Monroe, or anywhere between here and there; or, at all events, move such remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the enemy by some route." Just before starting for the Peninsula, Gen. McClellan received, "with surprise," the following note, involving a subtraction, he estimates, of 10,000 troops from the force which he expected to have transferred to the Peninsula: |