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Other criticisms of Lee referred to his main plan of operations, and the danger to which he exposed Richmond by leaving only twenty-five thousand men in front of it, when he began his movement against General McClellan's right wing, beyond the Chickahominy.
This duty was assigned to me. On the 22d of June I had received my appointment as Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers, superseding my state commission. I had seen the regiments of my brigade going one by one, as fast as they were reorganized for the three years' service, and I had hoped to be ordered to follow them to McClellan's own column.
Friday the 12th was the day fixed for the concentration of Jackson's force for his attack, and it was Saturday when the order fell into McClellan's hands. Three days had already been lost in the slow advance since Lee had crossed Catoctin Mountain, and Jackson's artillery was now heard pounding at the camp and earthworks of Harper's Ferry.
The error in the above assumption would be that McClellan estimated Lee's troops at nearly double their actual numbers, and that what was taken for proof of Lee's superiority in force on the field was a series of partial reverses which resulted directly from the piecemeal and disjointed way in which McClellan's morning attacks had been made.
The army had received large reinforcements since arriving at Harrison's Landing, and now numbered more than one hundred thousand men; not by any means an inconsiderable force, yet too small, in General McClellan's opinion, to warrant another advance.
It must be a part of the big force that made the scout toward our lines. Good thing the forest is just ahead." "And a good thing, too, that night is not far off." "Right, my boy, we need 'em both, the forest and the dark. The Union cavalry is going to pursue us, and I don't mean to turn back. General Jackson sent us to find about McClellan's crossing, and we've got to do it."
They talked of the war, and he told of the delay of Jackson in getting on McClellan's flank, causing the fight at Mechanicsville, which fight he said was unexpected, but was necessary to prevent McClellan from entering Richmond, from the front of which most of the troops had been moved.
The day General Lee's army turned toward the north for the Maryland shore, the President, with the eagerness of a boy, hurried to McClellan's house to shake his hand, bid him God's speed and assure him of his earnest support and good wishes. The absurdity of the ruler of a mighty Nation hurrying on foot to the house of one of his generals never occurred to his mind.
General McClellan's election will be understood by the South and by the whole country as an acknowledgment of the right of secession, an acknowledgment which will resolve the United States into an association for insurance against any risk of national strength and greatness by land or sea. Mr.
The Confederates would then be concentrated on McClellan's right flank should he march on Richmond, ready to take advantage of any opportunity for attack; or, if attack were considered too hazardous, to threaten his communications, and compel him to fall back to the Potomac. The proposed concentration, however, was not immediately carried out.
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