sickness in those swamps, with little but swamp water to drink, it is safe to affirm that one in four had died. It is perfectly safe to affirm, therefore, that while lying before Yorktown, and on the Chickahominy, the effective force of our army had been diminished by the loss of upwards of 50,000 men. Our only son, who was there as a First Lieutenant, assured us that hardly one in three in that army who were reported as present for duty were, in reality, fit for any hard service. He himself, on the morning of the battle of Gaine's Mill, arose from a sick bed, and, contrary to the absolute prohibition of his physicians, went with his company into the scene of carnage. There he stood with his men during that day, until all his fellow officers, and 40 out of 56 of his men, were dead or disabled around him. As soon, after the order to retreat was given, as he had led those 16 survivors beyond the enemy's fire, the strength of the brave boy gave way, and he fell helpless upon the ground. He was saved from capture by the kindness of his Major, who placed upon his own horse his helpless associate. Eternal thanks for that act to that benefactor! To return from this digression. We would here say that we regard with unspeakable reprobation the conduct of a General who will compel his army to remain idle for more than two months in a condition when it was, and could not but be, far more diminished by disease than by two general battles. Here we find, and not in the infidelity of the Administration, the real cause of the disastrous failure of this campaign, as far as the want of men is concerned. Take one other item, as illustrative of the above statements. On the 20th July, such had been General McClellan's reinforcements, his army numbered in the aggregate, according to the returns in the Adjutant-General's office, 158,314 men. Of these, including the few on special duty and under arrest, 46,623-more than one-third of the wholewere in hospital, or absent almost exclusively from sickness. Is it not just to charge the Administration with grave faults for not putting more men under the command of such a General?

4. If there was any failure on the part of the Administration, as we have seen that there was not, in sending reinforcements to General McClellan, he alone, by his

fabulous representations of the number of men in the Confederate army, is responsible for that failure. The lowest estimate, as we have seen, which he ever put upon the amount of forces confronting him at Washington was 115,000 men. The forces which confronted him before Richmond he uniformly estimated as 200,000 strong. This was the estimate submitted to the President by McClellan and his Generals when the President visited the army at Harrison's Bar. Now the preservation of Washington was a matter of far greater importance to the nation than the capture of Richmond. In view of the data furnished by McClellan himself, and these were the only data for the Administration to act upon, the wonder is, not that so few, but that so many reinforcements were sent to the army of the Potomac. Why, the question is often asked, was not McDowell sent down, after the retreat of Jackson down the Shenandoah? If there was an army 200,000 strong before Richmond, every prudent military man would have concluded that Jackson's raid was made by the advanced body of an army of 100,000 men, that he had merely fallen back upon the main body, and would soon be back again in full force for the capture of the national capital. To send McDowell away under the circumstances would have been most presumptuous. The perpetual cry of McClellan for more men looks far more like a deliberate intent to uncover Washington to the Confederates, than the call of a prudent commander for what should have been granted.

To understand rightly this whole subject, we need to ponder carefully here the question whether General McClellan did, in reality, credit his own avowed estimates of the number of men in the Confederate armies. To suppose him sincere in those estimates, I, for one, am compelled to regard him as one of the most stupid Generals that ever commanded an army; palpable facts which were constantly presenting themselves always demonstrating the real number to be less by one half, at least, than the estimated one. Now facts quite significant pretty clearly indicate that he had one estimate for the Administration and the public, and quite another and different one for his own private use. On the 8th March, for example, he gave a formal estimate of the Confederate forces in his

front as consisting of 115,000 men. According to General Barnard's pamphlet on the Peninsula Campaign, in the council of war held six days previous to this date General McClellan located, "in the language of Victor, vol. iii., page 48, the enemy's force with such precision as to prove himself to have been in possession of full information of the enemy's disposition and strength. In that exhibit he figures 50,500 men as the utmost aggregate of the troops in his front." When at Harrison's Bar, for example, he proposed to move directly upon Richmond, provided he could be reinforced by 20,000 men; the Confederate forces there being, at the same time, estimated by him to have been 200,000 strong. Would he, assuming him not to have been demented, have seriously entertained the idea of moving with 120,000 men against an army really estimated as 200,000 strong, and such an army behind most formidable entrenchments, and commanded by such a General as Lee?

5. But one real cause can be rationally assigned for the failure of this campaign—the unaccountable indecision of its General in command. No man had ever before been placed over such an army as that of the Potomac, and no General ever had more golden opportunities to cover himself and army with immortal honour, than General McClellan; yet whenever such opportunity presented itself, he was not ready to avail himself of it. In every exigency his army was too small, and that of the enemy too large for him to risk a battle. His mental state, when such opportunities occurred, is well illustrated by that of a certain hunter the first time he stood in the presence of a deer. The man had in his hands a splendid rifle, and there stood a splendid buck in open daylight, but a few rods away, and with his broadside fully confronting his antagonist. As soon as the hunter saw the majestic animal, however, he began to soliloquise thus with himself: "Oh, my good fellow, if I only had a gun now, would I not send a blue pill through your sides, about the quickest? I tell you, if I only had a gun, how soon would I bring down that deer!" Well, the animal standing until his patience was quite exhausted, "took up its legs" and moved off, leaving the hunter to find

his gun as best he could. So with General McClellan. When before Washington with 200,000 brave men around him, and an enemy well known to him to be not more than 50,500 strong, he was, as he felt, without an army. He must have at least 240,000 before he could safely advance. When before Yorktown with more than 100,000 men, and but 11,000 in his front, he could not turn the position by a flank movement. He had not an army with which to make the movement. If McDowell could be sent down,

at least Franklin's division, then he should “have a gun,' and all would go right. As soon as Franklin did arrive, however, our veteran commander again forgot that he “had a gun," and all was quiet before Yorktown until the enemy chose to retire. The same farce was repeated before Williamsburg and on the Chickahominy. If McCall's division should come down, he would act. As soon as McCall had arrived, however, he forgot again that he had an army, and called for McDowell. When about to take final leave of the Chickahominy, he sent this querulous message to the President:-"Had I 20,000, or even 10,000, fresh troops to use to-morrow, I could take Richmond; but I have not a man in reserve, and shall be glad to cover my retreat and save the material and personnel of the army. When he sent this he was encircled with more than 100,000 men, not one-third of whom had been in battle for a long time; and the enemy was less than 50,000 strong in his rear, and wearied out at that, and not over 25,000 strong in his front. Yes, General McClellan, when the occasion presented itself, you always forgot that you "had a gun," and this was the sole cause of the sad failure of your great campaign.

CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL HALLECK'S MEASURES AND CAMPAIGN IN MISSOURI.

On the 12th November General Halleck assumed command in the Western Department; General Buell about the same time assuming command in Kentucky. But for the absolute order of the President requiring our armies to make a positive advance by the 22nd February, 1862, we have, from what was actually done, no good reason to suppose that had McClellan, Halleck, and Buell been continued undisturbed in their respective commands, and had the war been thus protracted, all would not have remained, even unto this day, " quiet on the Potomac," quiet in Kentucky, quiet in Missouri, and all the West. That either of these men seriously intended, without absolute compulsion from their superior in command, to move against the enemy, cannot be shown from any of their acts. In Missouri, after Hunter, with more than 40,000 men, had fled from the presence of Price, who had been retreating before General Fremont, and had in command an army less than 30,000 strong, Price was allowed to re-take and hold quiet possession of all South-western and Central Missouri, to re-occupy Lexington, burn Warsaw, and to break up nearly 100 miles of railroad in the southern part of the State, and to perpetrate untold barbarities on the defenceless Union citizens in all the territory referred to. In addition to all this, the spirit of rebellion instigated by the presence of Price in the State became so general that martial law had to be declared even in St. Louis; and the burning of bridges, breaking up of railroads, and destruction of property, became so general that an order was