of an army. Whilst guarding themselves against underrating an enemy, it has been the practice of military men of the highest stamp to exalt in the minds of their troops their own resources. But while from the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac the sombre views of its chief as to the enormous strength of the enemy pervaded the camps, and the population of Richmond was panic-stricken at the result of the battle of Fair Oaks, there was found no such weakness in Lee. Reinforcements were summoned from all quarters, Richmond's narrow escape became the entrance upon its final safety, and the golden opportunity of its capture was lost.

The battles in which the Pennsylvania Reserves are about to share were shaped by Jackson's march down the Shenandoah Valley. Owing to that came the diversion of McDowell's command. Widespread panic pervaded the Valley of the Shenandoah and the country beyond as Jackson took his way north. Milroy was driven off with little trouble. The Hon. N. P. Banks, formerly Speaker of the House of Representatives, major-general of volunteers by the grace of folly, was in the latter part of May hustled out of Strasburg and driven through Winchester, bringing up all distraught at Williamsport, whence, a year before, he had started on a triumphal march up the Valley. Jackson had not minded a bit his ruling, or being out of order, or the ghosts of the gavel and mace of authority which he had once wielded in person or by proxy. He had just lifted him up, as Hercules once raised Antæus, and set him down hard at Williamsport. After Banks's defeat the transformation scene presented two small armies, respectively under Fremont and McDowell, in pursuit of the agile and wily Jackson, who, after various vicissitudes, devious courses, engagements, advances and retreats, took up the fateful march towards Richmond with which this account now has

to do. Heaped up consequences, in confusion worse confounded, growing out of inertness at one, and activity at the other end of directly related hostile lines, bring that redoubtable march southward until it passes the right flank of the devoted Pennsylvania Reserves before Richmond, and halts only before the fiery storm from land and water at Malvern Hill.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.-THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES.

By the 24th of June everything was deemed ready by General McClellan for a forward movement, several bridges having been thrown across the Chickahominy, reinforcements having arrived and all other preparations having been made, and on the 25th the picket-line of the left wing advanced from the now well-fortified entrenchments resting on their right near Golding's Farm near the Chickahominy. The engagement that ensued was regarded by McClellan as successful, and he telegraphed the Secretary of War that he had fully gained his point: General Lee denied it. This point was the alleged gain of ground by picket-advance, enabling him with advantage to attack in force on the 26th or the 27th of June. The next day, the 25th, however, came a change over the spirit of his dream, in which one can clearly perceive the influence of his constitutional infirmity of purpose. Although, on the 24th, he had been inclined to believe, upon the testimony of a deserter, that Jackson was approaching from the direction of Gordonsville, he betrayed no particular apprehension, but carried out the plan for the picket-advance of the next day, and as we have seen, contemplated supplementing that by an attack in force on the following day or on the next day but one. But when, on the 25th, he learned through some "contrabands" (slaves manumitted by the fact of war), that Jackson was approaching with thirty thousand men (which ought not to have occasioned surprise, considering his late performances in the Shenandoah Valley), he telegraphed at once to the Secretary of War, "I incline

to think that Jackson will attack my right and rear. The rebel force is stated at two hundred thousand, including Jackson and Beauregard. . . . . I regret my great inferiority in numbers, but feel that I am in no way responsible for it, as I have not failed to represent repeatedly the necessity of reinforcements. . . . . I will do all that a general can do with the splendid army I have the honor to command, and if it is destroyed by overwhelming numbers, can at least die with it and share its fate. But if the result of the action, which will probably occur to-morrow or within a short time, is a disaster, the responsibility cannot be thrown on my shoulders, it must rest where it belongs.' The night of the 25th Jackson was at Ashland.

When the "Merrimac" had been destroyed, on the 11th of May, General Huger evacuating Norfolk on the 10th, it was open to General McClellan to do what he would have done at first if the "Merrimac" had not existed,-to make the James, instead of the Pamunkey, his base of operations. Whether or not he would finally have done so, but for the impending onslaught of Lee, is a question that cannot be positively determined, but the weight of evidence in favor of supposing that he would not have done so preponderates over that in favor of supposing that he would, unmolested, have changed his base. On the one hand, we have reason to believe that he would have done so, because the James had been recognized by him as being, but for the presence of the "Merrimac," preferable to the Pamunkey for a line of communication and depot of supplies. But, on the other hand, stands the fact that, when first notified of the impending attack by the enemy, he concluded to hold on to the Pamunkey, and it was only when some hours had elapsed that he concluded to change his base. It would, therefore, seem that if, when he could have made the change without pressure, he did not conclude to make it, and then, the pressure seeming to

become greater, he concluded to make it, that he would not eventually have made it if by some chance the pressure had been suddenly removed. The fact that the change was determined upon only when there could be no question that the enemy was about to attack in force, therefore points to the belief that the expression, "change of base," was only a euphemism used to cover the word "retreat;" and this view of probability is confirmed by the circumstance that, when the change of base had been successfully crowned by a victory in the last battle which secured it, the commanding-general, although superior in numbers and equipment to the enemy, and supported by the belief of some of his officers in their superiority to the enemy, settled quietly down into a purely defensive attitude, in a position which, from the use of the expression, "change of base," was rightly regarded as one properly belonging to an army acting on the offensive, not on the defensive. It seems tolerably clear, therefore, in the light of the sequence of events just narrated, that McClellan's greatest military defect is admirably covered by Napoleon's characterization of the kind of infirmity of mind which finds in submitting to extraneous action escape from the pain of resolution required for self-prompted action; inspired by the false idea that responsibility for consequences inheres less in a negative than in a positive attitude of will. Speaking of generals who thus evade what seem to their own minds a greater, to accept a less responsibility, he says: "They take up a position, make their dispositions, meditate on combinations, but there begins their indecision, and nothing is more difficult, and yet nothing more precious, than to be able to make up one's mind."

General McClellan had nearly one hundred and fifteen thousand infantry, with admirable artillery. Lee had eightyfive to ninety thousand infantry, including Jackson's and