546

FROM THE PENINSULA TO ANTIETAM.

close of the Seven Days’ battles, the Army of the Potomac was firmly estab-lished on its proper line of operations, the James River.

So long as life lasts the survivors of those glorious days will remember withquickened pulse the attitude of that army when it reached the goal for whichit had striven with such transcendent heroism. Exhausted, depleted innumbers, bleeding at every pore, but still proud and defiant, and strong inthe consciousness of a great feat of arms heroically accomplished, it stoodready to renew the struggle with undiminished ardor whenever its com-mander should give the word. It was one of those magnificent episodes whichdignify a nation’s history, and are fit subjects for the grandest efforts of thepoet and the painter.

[Many years ago it was my good fortune, when in Europe , to make theacquaintance of a charming old Westphalian baron who was aide-de-camp toKing Jerome in the days of his prosperity. In 1813 my friend was sent byhis king with important dispatches to the Emperor , and, as it happened,arrived while the battle of Lutzen was in progress. He approached fromthe rear and for miles passed through crowds of stragglers, feeling nodoubt that the battle was lost, and that he was about to witness the crush-ing defeat of the French . Still keeping on and on, he at last found theEmperor at the front, and to his great surprise discovered that the battlewas won. Thus it very often happens in war that there are on each sidetwo armies in the field, one of the fighting men with the colors, the other ofstragglers and marauders in the rear; the relative strength of these twoarmies depends upon the state of discipline and the peculiar circumstancesof the time.] %

At the close of such a series of battles and marches the returns of the killed,wounded, and missing by no means fully measure the temporary decrease ofstrength; there were also many thousands unfitted for duty for some days byillness, demoralization, and fatigue. The first thing to be done was to issuesupplies from the vessels already sent to the James, and to allow the mensome little time to rest and recover their strength after the great fatigue andnervous tension they had undergone.

In order to permit a small number to watch over the safety of the wholearmy, and at the same time to prepare the way for ulterior operations,so that when the army advanced again upon Richmond by either bank ofthe James its base of supplies might be secure with a small guard, theposition was rapidly intrenched, the work being completed about the 10thof July.

Prior to the 10th of July two brigades of Shields’s division, numberingabout 5300 men, had joined the army, bringing its numbers for duty up to89,549, officers and men, about the same strength as that with which itentered upon the siege of Yorktown, the reenforcements received in the shapeof the divisions of Franklin and McCall, the brigades of Shields, and a fewregiments from Fort Monroe having slightly more than made good the losses

The paragraph inclosed hy brackets was in the first sketch of the article, but was omitted by GeneralMcClellan in the final manuscript.— W. C. P.