This victory placed Napoleon directly between Blucher and Sacken. The next day, February 11, he took position at Montmirail, where Sacken attacked him and was defeated with a loss of 4,000 killed, wounded, and prisoners, and 26 pieces of artillery." The remains of his corps, Sacken conducted toward Chateau-Thierry to join York. Finding his retreat intercepted, York fell back to Chateau-Thierry, where on the 12th the two corps were forced across the Marne, but not till they had lost more than 3,000 men. Napoleon next faced about, and striking Blucher who had advanced to Vauchamps, defeated him with a loss of 10 colors, 15 pieces of artillery, and 8,000 men. Blucher now fell back to Chalons, where he was joined by Sacken and York who had made a long detour by Rheims.

A month later, having in the meantime compelled the grand army to retreat from within 25 miles, to more than 75 miles from Paris, leaving the Seine twice behind it, Napoleon again sought Blucher north of the Marne, fought the battles of Craonne and Laon, and on the 13th of March, learning that St. Priest's corps of 12,000 men had arrived at Rheims en route to join Blucher, attacked and routed him with a loss of 11 guns and 4,700 killed, wounded, and prisoners.' The French loss was less than 1,000.

As it cannot be supposed that either General Halleck or General McClellan were ignorant of the principles taught by the foregoing examples, let us ask what inferences they should have drawn from such information as they had actually received.c

Both knew, by the creation of the Army of Virginia and its advance to the Rapidan, that the same inducements for attacking it were offered to the Confederates as had been offered to Napoleon by the march of Blucher to the Marne, but with this important difference, that if they attacked it in front, a defeat would simply drive it back upon the Army of the Potomac, now arriving at Alexandria, where, with superior numbers, the two armies united, might again resume the offensive.

It was the danger of such an attack, recognized by General Porter the moment he learned of the evacuation of Richmond, which caused him to make the forced march from Williamsburg to Fort Monroe, a movement whereby his corps, and his only, was enabled to join the Army of Virginia via Aquia Creek.

The failure to attack this army in front, therefore, signified that General Lee was playing for results at once more brilliant and decisive. If he could cut off General Pope's retreat by interposing his whole army between the Army of Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, he might destroy the former, and then falling upon the latter before it was wholly assembled drive it back, routed and demoralized, to the defenses of the capital.

a Jomini's Life of Napoleon, vol. 4, p. 537.

The principle of interposing between armies the great captain illustrated for the last time in the campaign of 1815. On the 10th of June, as the allies were about effecting a junction, he beat the Prussians at Ligny and drove them, as he supposed, toward Namsur. He then turned in the opposite direction, and on the 18th attacked Wellington at Waterloo, where, as is well known, the sudden reappearance of the Prussians converted a victory into a total defeat. The Prussians did not effect the junction by the highway occupied by the French, but under the advice of Gneisenan, Blucher's chief of staff, they retreated first upon Wavre, and thence, with no enemy to oppose them, marched direct to the battlefield, where, at a critical moment, they arrived in rear of Napoleon's right flank.

c General Halleck, besides being the author of a work on the art of war, was also the translator of the American edition of Jomini's Life of Napoleon.

Such a campaign successfully executed at the moment Bragg's army began its march toward the Ohio River, might have proved fatal to the Union. Such a plan the Confederates attempted to execute when the Army of Virginia lay south of the Rappahannock, but were thwarted by its sudden withdrawal to the north bank. It was such a plan, and such a plan only, that was indicated by the appearance of one-half of the Confederate army in General Pope's rear on the 26th of August. This movement the same day was signaled to General Halleck by the telegraph and by the reports of railroad officials, who withdrew their trains toward Alexandria.

The next morning Taylor's brigade, sent by rail to open communication, met a fate not unlike Sacken's and St. Priest's in the campaign of 1814. The enemy's cavalry, screening his movements like a curtain, now appeared near Burke's Station and at Fairfax Court-House. On the 28th, General Haupt reported 20,000 men in and about Manassas the preceding evening. The same day, a colonel from the front reported a large force of the enemy at Fairfax Court-House. Lee and Stuart at the same time were said to be at Manassas, and rumors placing the enemy's forces at 120,000 men, indicated an immediate advance upon Washington and Baltimore.

To sift these reports and rumors, to ascertain where the enemy was and what was his force, there was no cavalry on the 26th and 27th, and up to the 29th, only two squadrons were available to cover the march of any force which might be ordered to repeat Taylor's experiment of the 27th. It is from facts like the above, that military men will judge whether it was likely that an infantry force, destitute of artillery and cavalry, and sent in search of an enemy reported from 20,000 to 120,000 strong, could have accomplished any other result than "the destruction of the troops sent out."

The criticisms on the march of Franklin's corps, have all been based on the assumption that there was a broad pike from Alexandria to Centreville, that this highway was all the time open, and that nothing prevented a junction with the hard-pressed Army of Virginia, save the indifference of the commander of the Army of the Potomac.

The facts as subsequently established were that, from the afternoon of the 26th, till the afternoon of the 28th, from 25,000 to 30,000 Confederates were on the direct line of communication with the Army of Virginia; that from the time General Pope reached Centreville, on the 28th, till the evening of the 29th, no positive information had been received as to his whereabouts; that his cavalry was so used up that not five horses per company could be forced into a trot; that he sent no despatch to the Government till the morning of the 30th, and that Franklin's corps, on the information derived on the night of the 29th, joined him on the 30th, part of it having marched 20 miles.

By no fault of the commander of the Army of Virginia, the opportunity to destroy the Confederate forces was offered and lost on the 28th. On the 29th, the opportunity was alleged to have been lost through the disobedience of General Porter, which has been already discussed. On the 30th, it was affirmed that a victory might still have been gained, had Franklin's corps obeyed the orders of the General in Chief. In answer to the last affirmation, there is but little doubt that had General Pope been able to send a despatch to the General in Chief, immediately on his arrival at Centreville, on the night of the 28th, not only Franklin's corps, but Sumner's, might have joined him,

not on the 30th, but on the 29th. To this want of information, and to nothing else, should be ascribed the failure of the entire Army of the Potomac to participate in the battle that was needlessly forced upon the country, by the effort to unite the two armies along the line of the Rappahannock.

The defenseless condition of the capital on the arrival of Franklin's corps deserves to be noticed. It will be remembered that the sole argument of the advocates of the overland route was that an army advancing in that direction would constantly cover the capital. Led on by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, General Pope testified to the same effect, and in answer to the question whether the forces. in front of Washington "could all have left the city with safety to move upon Richmond," replied: "Every man of them." So strictly were his views in accord with those of the War Department, that he was permitted in August, to reduce the garrison to 5,989 men, of whom 2,235 were militia whose term of service would expire before the end of the month."

Of the remaining 3,700, 2,072 experienced artillerymen were also under orders to move to the front, leaving a total of 1,682 as against the 73,000 designated the previous April by the commander of the Army of the Potomac.

With a garrison thus reduced to less than 20,000 men vaguely relying on the arrival of new levies, the sudden appearance of 25,000 Confederates on the plains of Manassas, is the best proof that can be afforded that the order to withdraw the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula, instead of facilitating the junction of our forces, served no other purpose than to invite the immediate destruction of the Army of Virginia, on whose fate naturally depended the safety of the capital.

« Barnard's Defenses of Washington, p. 105.

CHAPTER XXIV.

RELATIONS OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR TO THE COMMANDER OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

It cannot be supposed that General McClellan, first deposed as General in Chief, was unmoved when he saw the gradual disintegration of his army. He knew, as did the country, by whom it had been done, and when, after vain appeals for reenforcements, he saw himself about to be overwhelmed, as he believed, by an army double his own numbers, he told the Secretary plainly, "The Government has not sustained this army.""

Up to this time, the conflict between the commander and the Secreretary was at least military in appearance, but after the conclusion of the Seven Days' Battles, the unfortunate Harrison's Bar letter introduced a political element which speedily outweighed every military consideration.

The commander, as we have seen, wrote to the President, "a declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidily disintegrate our present armies.

He did not realize that opinions had changed. Thousands who voted for the President in the preceding November were opposed to slavery, but had no thought of disturbing it where it already existed. The war opened their eyes; the people at once became radical, radical as to the Union and radical as to slavery, which, thoroughly at variance with the underlying principles of our institutions, was now threatening to destroy them.

The events of this period cannot be comprehended without a glance at our political history. From the beginning to the end of the War of 1812 both parties maneuvered for the Presidential succession. At the beginning of the Mexican War, the General in Chief, a Presidential aspirant in the opposition party, was left unemployed for nearly six months. When finally given the command of the army, which he so brilliantly led to the enemy's capital, he scarcely ever differed in opinion from the Administration, without impugning its motives and attributing its action to political considerations."

Although a recognized and avowed Presidential candidate, a circumstance which must always serve to discredit a commander, it could not be supposed, in a foreign war, that a General in Chief would forego

a Despatch to the Secretary of War, June 28, 1862.

"It happened in the Mexican War that the two heroes, Generals Scott and Taylor, entertained political opinions opposed to the Administration. Both, during the war, were mentioned for the Presidency, and at times both reproached the Administration with the desire to sacrifice themselves and their armies. To appropriate the credit for closing the war, the supporters of the Administration at one time proposed to create the office of Lieutenant-General, to be filled not by a soldier, but by the distinguished Senator, Thomas H. Benton.

any opportunity to strike for the honor of his flag. There might be politics in the Cabinet and in Congress, but there could be no politics in an army facing the foe. Equally absurd would it be to accuse an Administration of wishing to sacrifice a commander. Military triumphs might not insure political success, but to encourage defeat would be simply political suicide.

While an Administration might safely trust a political opponent to command an army in a foreign war, the case in a civil war was entirely different. Party lines, which were at first drawn for the Union, were now drawn for the Union and the extirpation of slavery.

It is a well-known fact that in all representative governments professional party leaders usually care more for power than principle. This class within the Administration, already recognized the commander of the Army of the Potomac as the favorite of the opposition. They remembered, too, that notwithstanding the successful termination of the Mexican War, the opposition captured the Presidency by taking a soldier for a leader. It was not surprising, therefore, that they should have demanded that the future candidate be removed at once. But behind the leaders who wished to serve the party, were thousands of life-long antagonists of slavery who saw with alarm, the opposition of a powerful army commander and urged his opponents on.

From this moment there was but one way to escape political execution. Regardless of the lives of his soldiers, he must act act even should every advantage be against him. If victorious, he might silence his foes; if defeated, he could expect no charity; incompetency would pass for treachery; if he delayed or suspended operations, however satisfactory his reasons, he could plausibly be charged either with playing into the hands of the enemy or seeking to protract the war for personal aggrandizement. Such was the situation he created for himself by stepping outside of his duties to volunteer political views obnoxious to the civil policy of the Government.

It was at this period of the campaign that General Halleck appeared on the scene. Had he been an actual General in Chief, a soldier of the Jacksonian type, he could have cleared at once the military and political horizon. His appointment was evidence that the President was tired of military command. Exactly when the determination to relieve General McClellan was formed, cannot be definitely stated, but the indications are that General Halleck was aware of the purpose before he visited Harrison's Landing.

As has already been stated, when General Porter arrived at Williamsburg he telegraphed that all Confederate troops were leaving Richmond for the North. He then doubled his speed, and on his own responsibility hastened forward to Fort Monroe, en route to the Army of Virginia. Up to his arrival at Williamsburg all of the Army of the Potomac, stripped of its sick and surplus stores, and in the best marching condition, was within a compass of about 45 miles from Richmond.

To the mind of any professional soldier, the plan would have suggested itself to use the Army of Virginia to decoy the Confederates as near as possible to Washington, and then strike with the Army of the Potomac for the Confederate capital." Writing after the fact, it

« Harrison's Landing was one of the best on the James River. It was on the left bank, about 25 miles below Richmond.-EDITORS.