CHAPTER V.

THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

THE longest period has its termination. So it was with the listless quietude of our armies. A general order issued by the President January 27th, 1862, absolutely required "that the 22nd day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces." The particular day was specified because it was the birthday of the father of our country,-a very inadequate reason, surely, for a determination of the time for the movement of great armies. On the 31st of the same month the President issued another order absolutely requiring a movement of the army of the Potomac upon the Confederate forces at Manassas prior to "the 22nd day of February next." These orders disturbed the stolid immobility of our Commanderin-Chief. A movement in some direction must be made, and "that right early." But whither, and in what form, shall the movement be made, were questions about which the sagacious mind of General McClellan seemed to have come to no positive decision. Up to a short time previous he had avowed an intention to let his first blow fall upon the Confederates at Manassas. But when the period for action drew near, another plan suggested itself—a surprise of the enemy, by moving his great army, by water, around to Urbana on the Rappahannock, or to Fortress Monroe, and from thence move upon Richmond before the enemy at Manassas could know what was being done. The chief matter of surprise in such a case is that the suggestion that such an army could be moved by such means, and the enemy not know it, did not convince the President and his

advisers of the utter incompetency of the General in command to plan a campaign or move an army anywhere. The idea of the new movement, however, took full possession of the mind of its originator, and in a council of war with his twelve division commanders he gained a vote of eight in its favour; one given conditionally and four against it,-Generals McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Barnard voting in the negative, and General Keyes conditionally in its favour. The great impediment now arose to gain the assent of the President and his immediate advisers to such an obviously ill-advised measure, a measure to which their repugnance was well nigh irresistible. That repugnance, however, was at length overcome, the President and Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, consenting on the express conditions-that the navigation of the Potomac should be previously opened; that a sufficient force should be left behind to render the city of Washington perfectly secure against effective attacks from the enemy; and that the contemplated movement should "begin as early as the 18th March instant." This permission, dated March 8th, was accompanied with an absolute order "that the army and navy co-operate in an immediate effort to capture the enemy's batteries upon the Potomac between Washington and the Chesapeake Bay." This order was accompanied by another of the same date, requiring that the army of the Potomac, now consisting, according to official report, of 222,196 men, be divided into five army corps, to be commanded by Generals McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, Keyes, and Banks; and that this order should be executed with such promptness as not to "delay the commencement of the operations already directed to be undertaken by the army of the Potomac."

While these matters were going on, the army and the authorities and people at Washington were startled with rumours that the enemy had wholly withdrawn their forces from Manassas and Northern Virginia. Careful reconnoissance soon verified these rumours, and our grand army moved out and took possession of the formidable places in their front; thereby gaining important experience, as our commander stated, in the business of breaking up camps

and making marches. After reposing for four days amidst "the Quaker guns" by which this great General had been previously overawed, that grand army marched back again to their former cantonments.

While our army lay at Manassas, we wrote on to a member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War the following plan for the coming campaign-that General Banks should move his corps rapidly down the Shenandoah valley; that when he had arrived opposite our grand army he should be reinforced by another corps of sufficient numbers to render his force from 60,000 to 80,000 strong; that while the grand army should move directly upon the army in their front, the right wing of our central force being kept in constant communication with that under General Banks, the latter force should, by forced marches, move down the valley, capture Staunton, and then seize the Richmond and Tennessee railroad. This being done, all our forces, flanking the enemy on both wings, should press his forces into Richmond, when their capture would be only a question of time. In the same communication we stated definitely that no important movement should be made up the Peninsula from Fortress Monroe. To do this, we remarked, was to make a movement of greater peril than any other, and one also which, if effective, would merely drive the Confederate armies off into the country and render their capture more difficult than now. When we made this suggestion, we had never heard even a rumour that any fundamental movement in that direction had been thought of. At that time, also, we were ignorant, though we had often inquired upon the subject, that Burmuda Hundred was left unfortified by the Confederates. As soon as we learned this, we ever after contended that all movements upon Richmond should be made by a central army moving down as above indicated; while another army, 60,000 or 80,000 strong, should be landed at the point designated, and, by a movement westward from thence, should seize all the Confederate communications south of James river. Every reflecting mind will perceive at once, however, that had the plan which we suggested and stated above been adopted, and executed with vigour, the whole Confederate army in Virginia would have been at our

mercy in four weeks' time. Our great army, upwards of 200,000 strong, would have been kept together; all its movements and actions would have been unified and centralized for the one great issue before it; and success would have been as certain as anything future, and dependent upon human agency, can be. When we learned that the plan of transporting our central army down to that Lower Peninsula had been adopted, we wrote on to Washington that no parallel could be found for such a measure in the history of all past ages, and that I was quite sure that the future of the world would furnish no event at all like it.

FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIONS TO THIS MEASURE.

We are now fully prepared to consider the character of the measure under consideration; a measure which, as all now admit, the question "Who is to blame for the results?" aside, did, in fact, issue most calamitously to the nation. While we may safely challenge the world to offer a single valid consideration in favour of the movement, multitudinous objections of the most obvious and weighty character lie against it. One of its main merits, as presented by its author, was, that it would be a surprise to the Confederate commanders. In one respect it was a surprise to them, and to all the world, viz., that so crazy a plan could ever have dawned in the brain of any rational man. the respect intended, the folly of our commander's calculations becomes manifest in the fact that three days after President Lincoln assented to the movement, the whole programme was discussed in the Richmond Enquirer. Let us now look directly at the fundamental objections which lie against this movement. We give these objections almost in the words in which they are found in the paper which we read before President Lincoln and others in January 1863.

In

1. While time was then most precious, and while, by the movement we have indicated, our army could have been brought in decisive collision with the enemy in less than two weeks, nearly one month passed before the army, transported to Fortess Monroe, was able to begin a movement towards Richmond. In the absence of considerations

of the most weighty character-and none such existedsuch delay is inexcusable.

2. By this measure, the grand army of the Potomac, one of the grandest that ever existed, was, instead of being unified and centralised in the relations of its parts, wholly broken up, and its independent fragments located at unsupporting distances from each other, and this on a line of nearly 300 miles in extent. When the movement by the Lower Peninsula was determined on, General McClellan, we must bear in mind, was relieved from his responsibility as Commander-in-Chief, and assigned to one exclusive command, the forces sent with him to Fortress Monroe; his authority not even extending to General Wool, who commanded at this fortress. Let us, for a moment, consider this new status of this grand army. At Fortress Monroe we have one independent command under General Wool; in the Peninsula, a second under General McClellan; south of Washington, under General McDowell, a third ; in the Shenandoah valley, a fourth under General Banks; in Western Virginia, a fifth under General Fremont; and at Washington, a sixth under General Wadsworth. Let any one take a map and look over the situation here presented, and compare it with the status of this grand army before this senseless dispersion occurred, and he will perceive at once that no army can be conceived to be in a better condition for offensive action than ours was before this dispersion occurred, or in a worse condition for offence. or defence than was ours after it was thus broken into fragments. Only two of these bodies, those at Fortress Monroe and Washington, were safe for a moment from a concentrated assault from all the united armies of the Confederacy, armies located anywhere in Virginia and the Carolinas; while the body assaulted could not be aided at all by any other portion of the grand army. Any one can perceive, also, the absolute impossibility of unity of action in the parts of an army thus broken up, and thus distributed,-action for offensive or defensive operations. For this unparalleled dispersion of this army, General McClellan is to be held exclusively responsible, the arrangement being reluctantly assented to by the President and his advisers, and protested against, in the council of war