On

tain number of rounds, would be retired, and others sent forward to act in their places. Such want of system has been recorded as a fault of the General in command. the other hand, during our visit to Washington in January 1863, we found this to be the general opinion of him on the part of those best qualified to judge, President Lincoln included-that we had no better read General in our army, no better judge of the character of a proposed campaign, and few, if any, better qualified to plan one, or to manage a corps anywhere. During the sickness of General McClellan, after he became Commander-in-Chief, and when the President was greatly perplexed as to what should be done in the pressing crisis, General McDowell, with General Franklin, was sent for, for special counsel and advice. What were the difficulties which encircled him, as commander of the Potomac army? We state them as we received them personally from General McDowell himself. When When he took command of this army, he made immediate arrangements to manœuvre them, and train them to act as harmonious parts of a systematised whole. All such measures were absolutely prohibited by General Scott. In urging their importance, General McDowell was charged with desiring to make a show. Hence it was that the regiments which constituted his brigades, his brigades which constituted divisions, and the divisions which constituted his army, never had the least discipline in concerted action, the army being, in reality, constituted of independent parts, with a nominal commander, who could by no possibility command in any proper sense his own forces. The battle had to be fought by regiments at a time, these being the only compact and systematized bodies in the army. Nor was it possible for any General to have given real system to such a body of men on a battlefield, or to be really cognizant of what was going on during its continuance.

In addition to all this, General Scott absolutely refused to furnish General McDowell an adequate cavalry force, though there was an abundance of such troops in Washington. This part of the army was obstinately kept on the north side of the Potomac, the most of those who accompanied the advance on Manassas having been got

over by stealth. Hence it was that all reconnoissances had to be made by infantry, with no adequate amount of cavalry to improve an advantage or to cover a retreat. Such are the real facts of the case before us. Under command, General McDowell took command of this army. Under positive command, he fought an important battle for which he had been absolutely prohibited giving his army the preparation necessary to render success a probability; the cavalry necessary to render a compaign what it should be being also arbitrarily withheld from him.

THE PART WHICH GENERAL PATTERSON DID, OR RATHER DID NOT, ACT IN THIS TRAGIC COMEDY.

In the campaign under consideration, Beauregard counted on the co-operation of Johnston, and McDowell on that of Patterson. How Johnston met the expectations reposed in him we have already seen. The reliance of McDowell, on the other hand, turned out to have been a "broken reed." General Patterson had received positive orders from General Scott to attack and beat Johnston if he (Patterson) was in sufficient force to do it, and if not, to so employ his army as to prevent his Confederate antagonist joining Beauregard. Deeming himself too weak for offensive operations, nothing remained for our commander, then at Bunker Hill, but to keep Johnston where he was, at Winchester. As a means to this end, General Sanford, on Patterson's left, had made all dispositions to occupy the only roads on which Johnston could move to Manassas, so as to be there in time to be of service to his colleague. Sanford's movement was to have been made at four o'clock in the morning. A little after twelve o'clock the same night he received a detailed order from Patterson, to move promptly, not in the direction intended, but at right angles to the same; to make all dispositions on the way, by which our whole army at Bunker Hill should move, not towards Winchester, but make a safe retreat to Charlestown, near Harper's Ferry. So indignant were the men at what they were compelled to do, that when Patterson appeared before them the next day he was received with a loud and universal groan.

The reason for this movement was that a rumour reached the ears of our veteran commander that he was to be attacked by Johnston reinforced by 20,000 men. Thus, while the Confederate General moved on to Manassas, the Union commander, terror-stricken by a rumour, fled precipitately to Charlestown, and from thence brought his disappointed and indignant forces in safety to Harper's Ferry, where he was superseded by General Banks. Thus ended this farcical campaign.

What should have been done in the circumstances.

This campaign smote the North with horror, electrified the Confederacy, and was a presage of the final results of the war in the judgment of Europe. But one thing was required of our supreme military authorities in the crisis -a prompt disposition of all the available Union forces in all parts of the country for a most decisive movement upon the Confederate armies in Virginia, and for the capture of the capital of the Confederacy itself. The action of the army of Manassas after its victcry, their retirement especially before a single division in regular array at Centerville, clearly revealed the utter impotency of that army, if assailed by the united forces under the command of our military authorities. Had the three months' volunteers retired, sufficient forces remained to accomplish what the crisis demanded. Nor would these volunteers have retired, as they were to do, under the disgrace of ignominious defeat, had they been assured that by another month's service they could crown themselves and their country with deathless honour.

What was done under the circumstances.

As

Instead of this, "the great and exceedingly bitter cry" of our Commander-in-Chief everywhere broke upon the ear of the nation, that "the civilians had compelled him to fight a battle before he was prepared for it." a consequence, popular clamour was turned away from its proper object, military imbecility, and vented itself upon the civilians. From that time onward, civilians were to have nothing to say about the conduct of the war. All was to be left to the uncriticised direction of the Generals,

whether they might chance to be wise commanders or fools. To this cry the press succumbed; and hence from this time onward the conduct of the war was without impartial criticism, even what the European military authorities thought of it not being permitted to meet the national eye. This was one of our national calamities during the progress of this war. None but partizan criticisms had place in the columns of the national press. In respect to the conduct of war, as well as other subjects, the unbiased judgment of the people is generally correct, and should have free and full expression through the press. Otherwise, stupidity is about as likely to lead armies as wisdom. The civilians being silenced, however, another and still worse result followed, namely, with few and slight exceptions, the total inactivity of our great armies from the end of July 1861 to the 1st March of the year following; when, with similar exceptions, the conduct of the war, as we shall see, was everywhere as bad as it could have been.

CHAPTER II.

ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL G. B. MCCLELLAN IN THE DEPARTMENT OF WASHINGTON.

In

THE campaign of Bull Run convinced the Administration of the utter incapacity of General Scott to act as Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States in the then existing crisis Yet, in deference to his former services in the cause of his country, he was not formally superseded until the last of October of that year. addition to the facts already stated, he was informed, by telegram from Patterson, of the latter's retreat to Charlestown. On the 20th, the day previous to the battle of Bull Run, he was informed, by another telegram from Patterson, that Johnston had actually retired from Winchester to reinforce Beauregard at Manassas. no order was sent to recall McDowell from a battle in which defeat, under the circumstances, was almost certain.

Yet

General Scott was, de facto, superseded by the appointment of General George B. McClellan to the supreme command of the department of Washington, then created as preparatory to such appointment. At this time, he found under his immediate command in his department, aside from the depletion of the forces previously there, by desertion, defeat, and the mustering out of the three months' volunteers, he found under his immediate command, we say, 50,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, 650 artillery, with 32 field guns. This force was, leaving out of view the army he had left behind him in Western Virginia, that under General Banks in the Shenandoah valley, and under General Butler at Fortress Monroe, more than sufficient to defend the national capital