army should have been destroyed. Its escape is due to the
causes already stated. Prominent among them is the want of timely and
correct information. This fact, attributed chiefly to the character
of the country, enabled General McClellan skilfully to conceal his
retreat, and to add much to the obstruction with which Nature had
beset the way of our pursuing columns. But regret that more was not
accomplished, gives way to gratitude to the Sovereign Ruler of the
Universe for the results achieved."

The reader will form his own opinion whether Lee was or was not
to blame for this want of accurate information, which would seem,
however, to be justly attributable to the War Department at Richmond,
rather than to an officer who had been assigned to command only three
or four weeks before. Other criticisms of Lee referred to his main
plan of operations, and the danger to which he exposed Richmond by
leaving only twenty-five thousand men in front of it, when he began
his movement against General McClellan's right wing, beyond the
Chickahominy. General Magruder, who commanded this force of
twenty-five thousand men left to guard the capital, expressed
afterward, in his official report, his views of the danger to which
the city had been exposed. He wrote:

"From the time at which the enemy withdrew his forces to this side
of the Chickahominy, and destroyed the bridges, to the moment of his
evacuation, that is, from Friday night until Saturday morning, I
considered the situation of our army as extremely critical and
perilous. The larger portion of it was on the opposite side of
the Chickahominy. The bridges had been all destroyed; but one was
rebuilt--the New Bridge--which was commanded fully by the enemy's guns
from Goulding's; and there were but twenty-five thousand men between
his army of one hundred thousand and Richmond.... Had McClellan massed
his whole force in column, and advanced it against any point of our
line of battle, as was done at Austerlitz under similar circumstances
by the greatest captain of any age, though the head of his column
would have suffered greatly, its momentum would have insured him
success, and the occupation of our works about Richmond, and
consequently the city, might have been his reward. His failure to do
so is the best evidence that our wise commander fully understood the
character of his opponent."

To this portion of General Magruder's report General Lee appended the
following "Remarks" in