ng limbs, and which he had
been dragging through every mile of that long march. He had complained,
it is true, from Williamsburgh, of the insufficiency of his force for
the great end in view; but he was known to be a cautious man, and when
he had won Williamsburgh, forced the evacuation of Yorktown and
afterwards won Fair Oaks, all fears for him and for the army had been
gradually dismissed.

He had been set down to win--to take Richmond: that had formed the great
culmination of the programme--the red fire and flourish of trumpets on
which the curtain of the rebellion was to go down. If any one had spoken
disapprovingly or doubtfully of his long delay in the swamps of the
Chickahominy, the reply had been: "Wait patiently! McClellan is slow,
but sure. He will take Richmond before he ends the campaign, and that is
enough!" Such had been public confidence--the confidence of a public who
perhaps did not know the General, but who certainly did not know the
government directing and overruling his every action. At last even the
time of the great capture had been fixed. Officers leaving on short
furlough had been admonished to return quickly, "if they expected to
take part in the capture of Richmond." What else could this mean, than
confidence on the part of the commanding general, that the approaches to
the rebel capital had been made sufficiently close to ensure its
capture, and that the prize was at length in his grasp? Then the Fourth
of July had been seized upon as the auspicious period, and the whole
country had grown ready to celebrate the National Anniversary in the
loyal cities, simultaneously with the shouts and bonfires of the Union
Army that should then be treading the streets of the conquered capital
and opening the prison-doors of the loyal men who had been suffering and
starving in the tobacco-warehouses.

Such had been the supposed aspect of affairs in the field, up to the
last week of June, and young orators preparing their Fourth of July
orations had introduced rounded periods referring to the added glory of
the day and the new laurels wreathing the brows of the Union commanders.
Those who contemplated speaking on the great day, and had not made any
allusion to the fall of Richmond in their prepared orations, had already
seen cause to repent the omission. One, who had incautiously mentioned
in a city passenger-car that "he hoped Richmond would not be taken until
after the Fourth," and who had lacked time to g