st by
tactical mistakes, occasioned by want of knowledge of the theatre of
action, and it is to be feared that Time, when he renders his verdict,
will declare the gallant dead who fell at Gaines's Mill, Cold Harbor,
Frazier's Farm, and Malvern Hill, to have been sacrificed on the altar
of the bloodiest of all Molochs--Ignorance.

The crisis of my illness now came in a paralysis of the lower limbs, and
I was taken to Richmond, where I learned of my promotion to
major-general, on the recommendation of Jackson, for services in the
Valley, and assignment to a distant field.

* * * * *

Having expressed an opinion of McClellan as an organizer of armies, I
will now treat of his conduct as a commander in this and his subsequent
campaign. His first operations on the peninsula were marked by a
slowness and hesitancy to be expected of an engineer, with small
experience in handling troops. His opponent, General Magruder, was a man
of singular versatility. Of a boiling, headlong courage, he was too
excitable for high command. Widely known for social attractions, he had
a histrionic vein, and indeed was fond of private theatricals. Few
managers could have surpassed him in imposing on an audience a score of
supernumeraries for a grand army. Accordingly, with scarce a tenth the
force, he made McClellan reconnoiter and deploy with all the caution of
old Melas, till Johnston came up. It is true that McClellan steadily
improved, and gained confidence in himself and his army; yet he seemed
to regard the latter as a parent does a child, and, like the first
Frederick William's gigantic grenadiers, too precious for gunpowder.

His position in front of Richmond, necessitated by the establishment of
his base on York River, was vicious, because his army was separated by
the Chickahominy, a stream subject to heavy floods, which swept away
bridges and made the adjacent lowlands impassable. Attacked at Fair Oaks
while the river was in flood, he displayed energy, but owed the escape
of his two exposed corps to Johnston's wound and the subsequent blunders
of the Confederates. To operate against Richmond on the north bank of
the James, his proper plan was to clear that river and rest his left
upon it, or to make the Potomac and Rappahannock his base, as the line
of rail from Aquia and Fredericksburg was but little longer than the
York River line. This, keeping him more directly between the Confederate
army and Washi