towards Washington he might be
compelled to fight General Pope protected by the extensive
fortifications on the south side of the Potomac, leaving Richmond
at the same time uncovered, with the possibility that McClellan,
re-enforced by Burnside's corps which lay at Fortress Monroe, would
renew his attack with an army of ninety thousand men. But as soon
as the Confederates ascertained that McClellan was ordered back to
the Potomac, they saw their opportunity and made haste to attack
Pope. Fault was found with the slowness of McClellan's movements.
His judgment as a military man was decidedly against the transfer
of his army from the point it occupied near Richmond, and it cannot
be said that he obeyed the distasteful order with the alacrity with
which he would have responded to one that agreed with his own
judgment.

AGGRESSIVE COURSE OF THE CONFEDERATES.

No reason can be assigned why if the Army of the Potomac was to be
brought back in front of Washington it should not have been
transferred in season to re-enforce General Pope and give a crushing
blow to Lee. General McClellan was directed on the third day of
August to withdraw his whole army to Acquia Creek, and as General
Halleck declares, "in order to make the movement as rapidly as
possible General McClellan was authorized to assume control of all
the vessels in the James River and Chesapeake Bay, of which there
was then a vast fleet." General McClellan did not begin the
evacuation of Harrison's Landing until the 14th of August--eleven
days after it was ordered. General Burnside's corps was ordered
on the 1st of August to move from Newport News to Acquia Creek,
and an estimate of the transportation facilities at command of
General McClellan, may be formed from the fact that Burnside's
whole corps reached their destination in forty-eight hours. General
Lee knew at once by this movement that it was not the design to
attack Richmond, and he made haste to throw his army on Pope before
the slow moving army from Harrison's Landing could re-enforce him.
General McClellan did not himself reach Acquia Creek until the 24th
of August. The disasters sustained by General Pope in the month
of August could not have occurred if the forces of the Union,
readily at command, had been brought seasonably to his aid. It
was at this crisis that the unfortunate movements were made, the
full responsibility for which, perhaps the exact charact