as defending the policy as one necessary
to the safety of Washington. McClellan protested that he had but
eighty-five thousand men at Yorktown. The President insisted that
he had a hundred and eight thousand. "And once more," said the
President, "in conclusion, let me tell you it is indispensable to
you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will
do me the justice to remember that I always insisted that going
down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near
Manassas, was only shifting and not surmounting the difficulty;
that we would find the same enemy and the same or equal intrenchments
at either place. The country will not fail to note (is now noting)
that the present hesitation to move upon the intrenched enemy is
but the story of Manassas repeated. I beg to assure you that I
have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of
feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose of sustaining you so
far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can."

This condition of affairs with the indication of increasing discord
between the Commander-in-Chief and General McClellan boded no good
to the Union cause, and the entire Peninsular campaign was but a
succession of "hopes deferred" that made the heart sick; of
disappointment, of great sacrifice of life and treasure, and in
the end of positive disaster and humiliating retreat.

As General McClellan neared Richmond and needed re-enforcements
for a decisive battle with General Lee's army, the Confederates
used the most admirable tactics for the purpose of alarming the
authorities at Washington and compelling them to withhold help from
the Army of the Potomac. Stonewall Jackson came thundering down
the Shenandoah Valley with a force which the exaggeration of the
day placed far beyond his real numbers. He brushed aside the army
of General Banks at Winchester by what might well be termed a
military cyclone, and created such consternation that our troops
in the Potomac Valley were at once thrown upon the defensive.
McDowell with his corps was at Fredericksburg, hurrying to Hanover
Court-House for the purpose of aiding McClellan. With our forces
thus remote from Washington, and the fortifications around the city
imperfectly manned, something akin to panic seized upon the
Government. General McDowell, by direct order of the President,
was turned from his march on Richmond, to follow or intercept
Jackson. On the 25th of May