is movement against the Federal right wing
with the bulk of his army, follow the dictates of sound generalship.
In war, something must be risked, and occasions arise which render
it necessary to disregard general maxims. It is one of the first
principles of military science that a commander should always keep
open his line of retreat; but the moment may come when his best policy
is to burn the bridges behind him. Of Lee's movement against General
McClellan's right, it may be said that it was based on the broadest
good sense and the best generalship. The situation of affairs rendered
an attack in some quarter essential to the safety of the capital,
which was about to be hemmed in on all sides. To attack the left of
General McClellan, promised small results. It had been tried and had
failed; his right alone remained. It was possible, certainly, that he
would mass his army, and, crushing Magruder, march into Richmond;
but it was not probable that he would make the attempt. The Federal
commander was known to be a soldier disposed to caution rather than
audacity. The small amount of force under General Magruder was a
secret which he could not be expected to know. That General Lee took
these facts into consideration, as General Magruder intimates, may or
may not have been the fact; and the whole discussion may be fairly
summed up, perhaps, by saying that success vindicated the course
adopted. "Success, after all, is the test of merit," said the brave
Albert Sydney Johnston, and Talleyrand compressed much sound reasoning
in the pithy maxim, "Nothing succeeds like success."

On the 2d of July the campaign was over, and General McClellan must
have felt, in spite of his hopeful general orders to the troops, and
dispatches to his Government, that the great struggle for Richmond had
virtually ended. A week before, he had occupied a position within a
few miles of the city, with a numerous army in the highest spirits,
and of thorough efficiency. Now, he lay on the banks of James River,
thirty miles away from the capital, and his army was worn out by the
tremendous ordeal it had passed through, and completely discouraged.
We have not dwelt upon the horrors of the retreat, and the state of
the army, which Northern writers painted at the time in the gloomiest
colors. For the moment, it was no longer the splendid war-engine it
had been, and was again afterward. Nothing could be done with it,
and General McClellan knew the fact. Without f