OUR MARCH AGAINST POPE.

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as they floated high, up in the air, well out of the range of our guns. Whilewe were longing for the balloons that poverty denied us, a genius arose forthe occasion and suggested that we send out and gather together all the silkdresses in the Confederacy and make a balloon. It was done, and soon we hada great patchwork ship of many and varied hues which was ready for use inthe Seven Days’ campaign. We had no gas except in Richmond , and it wasthe custom to inflate the balloon there, tie it securely to an engine, and runit down the York River Railroad to any point at which we desired to send itup. One day it was on a steamer down the James when the tide went outand left vessel and balloon high and dry on a bar. The Federals gatheredit in, and with it the last silk dress in the Confederacy. This capture wasthe meanest trick of the war and one I have never yet forgiven.

By the Seven Days’ fighting around Richmond General Lee frustratedMcClellan’s plans for a siege. At the end of that campaign Lee retired toRichmond and McClellan withdrew his forces to West-over Landing, whereintrenchments and gun-boats made him secure from attack. As his new posi-tion, thus guarded and protected by the navy, was not assailable, General Lee ,resuming the defensive at Richmond , resolved to strike out by his left in thedirection of Washington, with the idea that the Army of the Potomac mightbe forced to abandon the James River, in defense of its own capital, threat-ened by this move.

Contemporaneously with our operations on the Chickahominy, the Wash-ington authorities had been organizing the Army of Virginia of three effi-cient corps d’armee; and, continuing the search for a young Napoleon , hadassigned General Pope, fresh from the West, with his new laurels, to commandthis select organization. This army, under its dashing leader, was at the sametime moving toward Richmond by the Orange and Alexandria Railway, sothat our move by the left had also in view the Army of Virginia, as the firstobstacle in the way of relief to Richmond —an obstacle to be removed, if pos-sible, before it could be greatly reenforced from other commands.

The assignment of General John Pope to command was announced in Rich-mond three days after the orders were issued in Washington, and the flourishof trumpets over the manner in which the campaign was to be conducted soonfollowed. He was reported to have adopted a favorite expression of GeneralWorth’s, “ Headquarters in the saddle, sir! ” and to be riding with as muchconfidence as that old chieftain when searching the everglades of Florida forthe Seminole Indians. J Lee had not known Pope intimately, but acceptedthe popular opinion of him as a boastful man, quite ambitious to accomplishgreat results, but unwilling to study closely and properly the means necessaryto gratify his desires in that direction. Pope was credited with other expres-sions, such as that he cared not for his rear; that he hoped in Virginia to seethe faces of the rebels, as in the West he had been able to see only theirbacks.

When General Lee heard of these strange utterances his estimate of Pope was considerably lessened. The high-sounding words seemed to come from

/ See General Pope’s denial, p. 493 ; and the text of his address, p. 530.— Editors.