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north or south of the Pamunkey River, and he directed McClellan to extend his right wing north of Richmond in order to establish this communication as soon as possible. This command, declares McClellan, is the reason why I did not operate on the line of the James. Yet the statement is effectually disproved by his official and private correspondence at the time, in which there is not the slightest allusion to a desire to make such a movement; in fact, the tenor of all his despatches and letters, is that he expected to fight Johnston's army between the Chickahominy River and Richmond. Moreover, he knew of the destruction of the Merrimac May 11, and he did not get the notice of the promised reinforcement by McDowell until the 18th, giving him a full week to consider and adopt the plan of moving on to Richmond by the line of the James River, which he had unhampered power to do and which is exactly what he should have done.

As soon as the destruction of the Merrimac was known, the Monitor and several gunboats started up the James. Their approach to Richmond caused more of a panic in that city than did any direct menace of McClellan's army of 100,000 during the whole of the Peninsular Campaign. There were indeed anxious hearts in the capital city when the Union troops first appeared before Yorktown; but when McClellan, instead of attacking the Confederates, went on with his scientific siege operations, anxiety gave way to wonder and to contempt for his generalship. The fall of New Orleans was a blow, and the destruction, a fortnight later, of the Merrimac - "that great gift of God and of Virginia to the South"1-seemed disaster crowding upon disaster. Although McClellan's military ability was despised, the march towards the capital of the Confederacy of his well-trained and equipped army could not be looked on without apprehension. While there was a quiet confidence in Johnston, strictures on Jefferson Davis were not uncommon. Of him who became the greatest Southern commander and who was now acting as military adviser to his President, the Richmond Examiner said: "Evacuating Lee, who has never yet risked a single battle with the invader, is commanding general;" and, after Yorktown had been given up, it sneered at "the bloodless and masterly strategy of Lee." We must bear all these circumstances in mind to understand the trepidation with which the people heard that the Monitor and the Federal gunboats were at City Point, afterwards within twelve miles and then within eight miles of Richmond. Davis had himself baptized at home and the rite of

1 Richmond Examiner, May 13.

confirmation administered to him in the Episcopal Church of St. Paul's. He had appointed by public proclamation a day for solemn prayer. A victim to anxiety, he insisted that his wife and family should go to Raleigh. The families of the cabinet secretaries fled to their homes. These facts, and the adjournment of the Confederate Congress the previous month, seemed to lend confirmation to a report now gaining ground that Richmond would be abandoned. . The packing of trunks was the work of every household; refugees crowded the railroad trains. People fled in panic from the city with nothing but the clothes they had on; and their action was not from baseless fear. New Orleans, they thought, had been ignobly surrendered. What should save Richmond? Davis's letters to his wife breathe discouragement. "I have told the people," he wrote, “that the enemy might be beaten before Richmond or on either flank, and we would try to do it, but that I could not allow the army to be penned up in a city." The evidence seems good that the government archives had been sent to Lynchburg and to Columbia.

May 15, the Monitor and the Federal gunboats reached Drewry's Bluff, eight miles below Richmond, on the James River. There they encountered a heavy battery and two separate barriers formed of spiles, steamboats, and sail vessels, and found the banks of the river lined with sharpshooters. As the boats advanced, the Confederates opened fire; this was soon returned, and the battle was on. Richmond heard the sound of the guns, yet consternation did not reign. The panic-stricken had left the city, and resolute citizens had stemmed the current of alarm. The day previous, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth resolved that the capital should be defended to the last extremity, and appointed a committee to assure President Davis that all loss of property by the state and by the citizens involved in such a determination would be cheerfully submitted to. Davis said to the committee: "It will be the effort of my life to defend the soil of Virginia and to cover her capital. I have never entertained the thought of withdrawing the army from Virginia, and abandoning the state. If the capital should fall, the necessity of which I do not see or anticipate, the war could still be successfully maintained on Virginia soil for twenty years." To the sound of the enemy's guns, Governor Letcher affixed his hand and seal to a call for a meeting at the City Hall for the purpose of providing for the defence of Richmond. Before the time of the meeting, the news came that the Federal gunboats had been repulsed, and this added joy to the enthusiasm with which the assembled citizens listened to the

pledges of the governor and the mayor that the city should never be surrendered. Confidence was restored, and not again during this campaign of McClellan was it so rudely disturbed. There had been a fine chance for an energetic Union general who knew his enemy. After the naval engagement of May 15, it was the opinion of Seward, then on a visit to the scene of operations, that a force of soldiers to co-operate with the navy on the James River "would give us Richmond without delay." While McClellan failed to take advantage of the favors which fortune lavished upon him, the public of the Confederacy, as well as its generals, had their opinion of this Fabian commander confirmed, and they could not conceal their derision at his lack of enterprise.

If the hopeful North and the anxious South could have known McClellan's inward thoughts during these days, there would have been reason neither for hope on one side nor anxiety on the other. In his letters to his wife, he spoke of his defeat at Williamsburg as a "brilliant victory," and asserted that he had given the Confederates "a tremendous thrashing." May 12 he asked, “Are you satisfied, now, with my bloodless victories?" and May 15 he wrote, "I think that the blows the rebels are now receiving and have lately received ought to break them up."

This is the story of six weeks, or of one-half of the Peninsular Campaign; for it was confessedly a failure when, in the last days of June, McClellan retreated with his shattered army to the James River. In the two battles of Fair Oaks and Gaines's Mill, fought almost a month apart, his tactics were timid and disjointed. He showed himself incompetent to manage an army of 100,000. Nor is this surprising. In June, 1862, it may well be doubted whether, in either the Union or the Confederate army, there was an officer who could handle so large a number of troops to the very best advantage. From Savannah, in January, 1865, William T. Sherman wrote his brother, saying that he did not care to accept the commission of lieutenant-general. "Of military titles," he added, "I have now the maximum, and it makes no difference whether that be major-general or marshal. It means the same thing. I have commanded 100,000 men in battle and on the march successfully and without confusion, and that is enough for my reputation." This letter suggests what may be said in defence of McClellan. It is nevertheless certain that in June, 1862, there were several men South and several men North who could have handled that army better than did McClellan.

The consideration of McClellan's mistakes does not exhaust the chapter of blunders. Stonewall Jackson's brilliant raid into

the Shenandoah valley brings into relief the blunders of Banks and of Frémont. It shows, too, that the story of this campaign cannot be truly told without animadverting on the error of the President in putting such men as Banks and Frémont into places of military responsibility.

JAMES FORD RHODES.

RECENT MEMOIRS OF THE FRENCH DIRECTORY

1895.)

3 vols.

Mémoires de Larevellière-Lépeaux, membre du Directoire de la République Française et de l'Institut National, publiés par son fils, sur le manuscrit autographe de l'auteur, et suivis des pièces justicatives et de correspondances inédites. (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie. Memoirs of Barras, Member of the Directorate, edited, with a general introduction, prefaces, and appendices, by George Duruy. 4 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers. 1895-1896.) Mémoires du général baron Thiébault, publiés sous les auspices de sa fille Mlle. Claire Thiébault, d'après le manuscrit original, par Fernand Calmettes. Vol. II. 1795-1799. (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie. 1894.)

Mémoires du général baron Roch Godart (1792-1815), publiés par J. B. Antoine. (Paris: E. Flammarion.

1895.)

STUDENTS of modern history, and more particularly students of the modern history of France, have been for years anxiously awaiting the publication of the memoirs of the two men who played the most conspicuous part in the phase of revolutionary history. which lies between the government of the National Convention and the restoration of order in France during the Consulate. The period of the Directory has hitherto been strangely neglected by histo、 ⚫rians. Although histories of the French Revolution and histories. of the government of Napoleon abound, the only reputable work devoted to a narrative of the history of France during the government of the Executive Directory is the old-fashioned and commonplace Histoire du Directoire by M. de Barante. This neglect is in part due to the fact that writers upon the history of the French Revolution seem to have exhausted their energy by the time they have told the tale of the Reign of Terror, and their accounts of the period of the Directory, and even of the period of the Thermidorian government which succeeded the fall of Robespierre and preceded the election of the first Directors, generally read like spiritless and tiresome sequels to their earlier chapters. This attitude is natural enough. The period of the Directory, like the period of

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