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distance of one another, and some of the brigades and divisions were badlyorganized and in a more or less demoralized condition. This was especiallythe case in the army corps of General Fremont, as shown in the report ofGeneral Sigel which was sent me when he had assumed command of it.
My first object was, therefore, to bring the three corps of the armytogether, or near enough together to be within supporting distance of oneanother, and to put them in as efficient a condition for active service aswas possible with the time and means at my disposal. When I assumed thiscommand, the troops under General Stonewall Jackson had retired from thevalley of the Shenandoah to Richmond , so there was not at that time anyforce of the enemy of any consequence within several days’ march of mycommand. I accordingly sent orders to General Sigel to move forward, crossthe Shenandoah at Front Royal, and, pursuing the west side of the BlueRidge to Luray, and then crossing it at Thornton’s Gap, take post at Sperry-ville. At the same time I directed General Banks to cross the Shenandoah atFront Royal and proceed by way of Chester Gap to Little Washington. Rick-etts’s division of McDowell’s corps, then at and beyond Manassas Junction, wasordered to move forward to Waterloo Bridge, where the turnpike from War-renton to Sperryville crosses the Rappahannock, there known as Hedgman’sRiver. In deference to the wishes of the Government, and much againstmy opinion, King’s division of the same corps was kept at Fredericksburg.The wide separation of this division from the main body of the army notonly deprived me of its use when, as became plain afterward, it was muchneeded, but left us exposed to the constant danger that the enemy mightinterpose between us.
The partial concentration of the corps so near to the Blue Ridge and withopen communications with the Shenandoah Valley seemed to me best to ful-fill the object of covering that valley from any movements from the directionof Richmond with any force less than the army under my command. Theposition was one also which gave most favorable facilities for the intendedoperations toward Gordonsville and Charlottesville.
At the date of my orders for this concentration of the army under my com-mand,! the Army of the Potomac under General McClellan occupied bothbanks of the Chickahominy, and it was hoped that his advance againstRichmond , so long delayed, might be facilitated by vigorous use of the Armyof Virginia.
During the preparation for the march of the corps of Banks and Sigeltoward Sperryville and Little Washington, began the series of battles whichpreceded and attended the retreat of General McClellan from the Chicka-hominy toward Harrison’s Landing.
When first General McClellan began to intimate by his dispatches that hedesigned making this retreat toward the James River, I suggested to thePresident the impolicy of such a movement, and the serious consequences
4-The President’s order constituting the Army of McClellan ’s right near Mechanicsville. GeneralVirginia is dated June 26th. On that day the Pope took command on the 27th ; on that day wassecond of the Seven Days’ battles referred to in fought the battle of Gaines’s Mill, and the marchthe next paragraph began with Lee’s attack on to the James began that night.— Editors.