ing to recount in detail the remaining
principal episodes of McClellan's operations to gain possession of the
Confederate capital. The whole campaign is a record of hesitation,
delay, and mistakes in the chief command, brilliantly relieved by the
heroic fighting and endurance of the troops and subordinate officers,
gathering honor out of defeat, and shedding the luster of renown over a
result of barren failure. McClellan wasted a month raising siege-works
to bombard Yorktown, when he might have turned the place by two or three
days' operations with his superior numbers of four to one. By his
failure to give instructions after Yorktown was evacuated, he allowed a
single division of his advance-guard to be beaten back at Williamsburg,
when thirty thousand of their comrades were within reach, but without
orders. He wrote to the President that he would have to fight double
numbers intrenched, when his own army was actually twice as strong as
that of his antagonist. Placing his army astride the Chickahominy, he
afforded that antagonist, General Johnston, the opportunity, at a sudden
rise of the river, to fall on one portion of his divided forces at Fair
Oaks with overwhelming numbers. Finally, when he was within four miles
of Richmond and was attacked by General Lee, he began a retreat to the
James River, and after his corps commanders held the attacking enemy at
bay by a successful battle on each of six successive days, he day after
day gave up each field won or held by the valor and blood of his heroic
soldiers. On July 1, the collected Union army made a stand at the battle
of Malvern Hill, inflicting a defeat on the enemy which practically
shattered the Confederate army, and in the course of a week caused it to
retire within the fortifications of Richmond. During all this
magnificent fighting, however, McClellan was oppressed by the
apprehension of impending defeat; and even after the brilliant victory
of Malvern Hill, continued his retreat to Harrison's Landing, where the
Union gunboats on the James River assured him of safety and supplies.

It must be borne in mind that this Peninsula campaign, from the landing
at Fortress Monroe to the battle at Malvern Hill, occupied three full
months, and that during the first half of that period the government,
yielding to McClellan's constant faultfinding and clamor for
reinforcements, sent him forty thousand additional men; also that in the
opinion of competent critics, both Union