55 °

FROM THE PENINSULA TO ANTIETAM.

was impossible to save tlie city, and I repeated my firm conviction that Icould and would save it. They then left, the President verbally placing mein entire command of the city and of the troops falling back upon it fromthe front.

I at once sent for my staff-officers and dispatched them on various duties;some to the front with orders for the disposition of such corps as they met,others to see to the prompt forwarding of ammunition and supplies to meetthe retreating troops. In a very short time I had made all the requisitepreparations and was about to start to the front in person to assume com-mand as far out as possible, when a message came to me from GeneralHalleck informing me that it was the President’s order that I shouldnot assume command until the troops had reached the immediate vicinityof the fortifications. I therefore waited until the afternoon, when I rodeout to Upton’s Hill, the most advanced of the detached works coveringthe capital.

Soon after arriving there the head of Hatch’s command of infantry arrived,immediately followed by Generals Pope and McDowell escorted by a regi-ment, or part of a regiment, of cavalry. I obtained what information I couldfrom General Pope and dispatched the few remaining aides with me to meetthe troops on the roads leading in on the left, with final orders to them, whenquite a heavy distant artillery firing broke out in the direction of the Chan-tilly and Vienna road. Asking General Pope what that was, lie replied it wasprobably an attack on Sumner, who commanded the rear-guard in that direc-tion; in reply to another question he said that he thought it probably aserious affair. He and McDowell then asked if I had any objection to theirproceeding to Washington. I said that they might do so, but that I was goingto the firing. They then proceeded on with their escort while, with a singleaide (Colonel Colburn) and three orderlies, I struck across country to interceptthe column on our right by the shortest line. It was a little after dark whenI reached the column.

I leave to others who were present the description of what then occurred:the frantic cheers of welcome that extended for miles along the column; thebreaking of ranks and the wild appeals of the men that I should then andthere take them back on the line of retreat and let them snatch victory out ofdefeat, | Let it suffice to say that before the day broke the troops were all inposition to repulse attack, and that Washington was safe.

4 - In November, 1887, George Kimball of Boston wrote to the editors :

“ Though a quarter of a century has passed since‘those darkest clays of the war,’I still retain a vividremembrance of the sudden and complete changewhich came upon the face of affairs when GeneralMcClellan was restored to command. At the time, Iwas serving in Company A, 12th Massachusetts Volun-teei’S, attached to Ricketts’s division of the First ArmyCorps. The announcement of McClellan ’s restorationcame to us in the early evening of the 2 d of September,1862, just after reaching Hall’s Hill, weary from longmarching and well-nigh disheartened by recent reverses.The men were scattered about in groups, discussing theevents of their ill-starred campaign, and indulging incomments that were decidedly uncomplimentary to

those who had been responsible for its mismanagement.We did not know, of course, the exact significance of allthat had happened, as we afterward learned it, butbeing mainly thinking men, we were able to form prettyshrewd guesses as to where the real difficulty lay.Suddenly, while these mournful consultations were infull blast, a mounted officer, dashing past our bivouac,reined up enough to shout, ‘ “ Little Mac ” is back hereon the road, boys!’ The scene that followed can bemore easily imagined than described. From extremesadness we passed in a twinkling to a delirium ofdelight. A Deliverer had come. A real ‘ rainbow ofpromise ’ had appeared suddenly in the dark politicalsky. The feeling in our division upon the return ofGeneral McClellan had its counterpart in all the others,for the Army of the Potomac loved him as it neverloved any other leader. In a few days we started upon