Richmond campaign, Lee had
seventy-five thousand men, McClellan one hundred thousand. Round numbers
are here given, but they are taken from official sources. A high opinion
has been expressed of the strategy of Lee, by which Jackson's forces
from the Valley were suddenly thrust between McDowell and McClellan's
right, and it deserves all praise; but the tactics on the field were
vastly inferior to the strategy. Indeed, it may be confidently asserted
that from Cold Harbor to Malvern Hill, inclusive, there was nothing but
a series of blunders, one after another, and all huge. The Confederate
commanders knew no more about the topography of the country than they
did about Central Africa. Here was a limited district, the whole of it
within a day's march of the city of Richmond, capital of Virginia and
the Confederacy, almost the first spot on the continent occupied by the
British race, the Chickahominy itself classic by legends of Captain John
Smith and Pocahontas; and yet we were profoundly ignorant of the
country, were without maps, sketches, or proper guides, and nearly as
helpless as if we had been suddenly transferred to the banks of the
Lualaba. The day before the battle of Malvern Hill, President Davis
could not find a guide with intelligence enough to show him the way
from one of our columns to another; and this fact I have from him.
People find a small cable in the middle of the ocean, a thousand fathoms
below the surface. For two days we lost McClellan's great army in a few
miles of woodland, and never had any definite knowledge of its
movements. Let it be remembered, too, that McClellan had opened the
peninsular campaign weeks before, indicating this very region to be the
necessary theatre of conflict; that the Confederate commander (up to the
time of his wound at Fair Oaks), General Johnston, had been a
topographical engineer in the United States army; while his successor,
General Lee--another engineer--had been on duty at the war office in
Richmond and in constant intercourse with President Davis, who was
educated at West Point and served seven years; and then think of our
ignorance in a military sense of the ground over which we were called to
fight. Every one must agree that it was amazing. Even now, I can
scarcely realize it. McClellan was as superior to us in knowledge of our
own land as were the Germans to the French in their late war, and owed
the success of his retreat to it, although credit must be given to