oment, it appears, when the Federal commander designed
commencing his last advance upon the city. The battle which took place
was one of the most desperate and bloody of the war. Both sides fought
with obstinate courage, and neither gained a decisive advantage. On
the Confederate right, near "Seven Pines," the Federal line was
broken and forced back; but, on the left, at Fair Oaks Station, the
Confederates, in turn, were repulsed. Night fell upon a field where
neither side could claim the victory. The most that could be claimed
by the Southerners was that McClellan had received a severe check; and
they sustained a great misfortune in the wound received by General
Johnston. He was struck by a fragment of shell while superintending
the attack at Fair Oaks, and the nature of his wound rendered it
impossible for him to retain command of the army. He therefore retired
from the command, and repaired to Richmond, where he remained for a
long time an invalid, wholly unable to continue in service in the
field.

This untoward event rendered it necessary to find a new commander for
the army without loss of time. General Lee had returned some time
before from the South, and to him all eyes were turned. He had had no
opportunity to display his abilities upon a conspicuous theatre--the
sole command he had been intrusted with, that in trans-Alleghany
Virginia, could scarcely be called a real command--and he owed his
elevation now to the place vacated by General Johnston, rather to his
services performed in the old army of the United States, than to any
thing he had effected in the war of the Confederacy. The confidence
of the Virginia people in his great abilities had never wavered, and
there is no reason to suppose that the Confederate authorities were
backward in conceding his merits as a soldier. Whatever may have been
the considerations leading to his appointment, he was assigned on the
3d day of June to the command of the army, and thus the Virginians
assembled to defend the capital of their State found themselves under
the command of the most illustrious of their own countrymen.

III.

LEE ASSIGNED TO THE COMMAND--HIS FAMILY AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

Lee had up to this time effected, as we have shown, almost nothing in
the progress of the war. Intrusted with no command, and employed
only in organizing the forces, or superintending the construction of
defences, he had failed to achieve any of those successes in the field