water way to Richmond should have been used months earlier by McClellan: his excuse was ever, lack of troops and equipment; the superior strength of the Confederates, and official interference with his plans at Washington.

The approach of the Union fleet caused a panic in Richmond; Davis was suspected by many at the South of designing to abandon his capital; the Confederate archives were transported to a safer place, and many timid people left the city: there is no evidence that either the Confederate government or the State government thought seriously of abandoning Richmond. Alarm in the city quieted down as news came of the repulse of the Union gunboats by the batteries along the James River.

At this time the Union forces in the East were badly scattered. The administration suffered a perilous division of the national arms among political generals: Banks, in the Shenandoah valley and Frémont in western Virginia. General McDowell was at Fredericksburg. Many detachments of from two to four thousand men each were posted here and there; General Schenck, near Franklin; General Milroy at McDowell, some forty miles from Staunton. With General McDowell there were 30,000 men. Military critics have remarked on the strange policy of the government in not concentrating the national armies East, and taking the offensive. The Union forces engaged in the operations in Virginia outnumbered the Confederate in the ratio of three to two.

At this moment Stonewall Jackson took the initiative: he would attack and destroy these scattered detachments of the Union army. He consulted with General Lee, who at this time was military adviser to Davis. At McDowell, Jackson defeated Milroy and Schenck on the 10th and pushed on to fight Banks in the Shenandoah valley; victorious there, Washington might be raided. Lincoln and Stanton seem to have been in ignorance of the peril, and president and secretary visited General McDowell, in camp, to perfect the plan for a movement against Richmond. Meanwhile Jackson,

reinforced by Ewell, was marching northward, threatening the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Lincoln, awake to the peril, ordered McDowell to send 20,000 men to the Shenandoah valley to meet Jackson, but on the 25th, Banks was fleeing up the valley, eager to reach the north bank of the Potomac. Washington was threatened and Lincoln telegraphed to the Northern governors to forward all the available militia. The North was thoroughly alarmed. Lincoln began concentrating the scattered Union forces, hoping to unite them against Jackson near Strasburg: but Frémont failed him. Jackson eluded pursuit and won victories. For thirty days he, with not more than 17,000 men, had discomfited nearly three times that number; had destroyed millions of property, taken many prisoners, and effectively aided McClellan in keeping away from Richmond. Military critics assert that the deflection of half of McDowell's army into the Shenandoah valley to pursue Jackson was a blunder; that McDowell should have been enabled to join McClellan's 100,000, and the advance then have been made against Johnston and Richmond: or, that, even alone, McDowell should have been permitted to carry out his plan and have marched against Richmond. Perhaps the political generals who were retreating before Jackson should not be overlooked as contributory to the failure of the campaign against Jackson. Moreover, McClellan and McDowell were not on friendly terms and co-operation between them was scarcely to be hoped for. Practically, at this time, the Confederate army was a unit: the National, divided and factional. The greatest need of the United States at this time was a great soldier in the field who, as commander-in-chief, should unify all efforts, naval and military. But nations, like individuals, have to pass through the refining process of hard experience before they are capable of understanding or doing.

On the last day of May, the battle of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, was fought. McClellan was defeated on the right wing and was saved from defeat on the left by General

Sumner. General J. E. Johnston, struck by the fragment of a shell, was supposed to have received a fatal wound. On Sunday morning, June 1st, the battle was renewed and the Confederates fell back; McClellan was within four miles of Richmond, but failed to push on. On Sunday night the Army of the Potomac was back in its old quarters before the battle.

On June 1st, Jefferson Davis gave to the Confederacy the chief source of its strength till the end: he made General Robert E. Lee commander-in-chief of the Confederate army. General Lee was not known to the South, at the time, as a great soldier; that distinction the South awarded to General Joseph E. Johnston; but amicable relations between Davis and Johnston were impossible. Whatever Davis's real sentiments toward Lee, he could work with him. Yet, despite the career of Lee, military critics are not wanting who deny that he surpassed Johnston as a soldier. One of the most bitter chapters of the history of the Confederacy tells the story of Davis and Johnston: the long, hopeless quarrel and mutual recrimination which continued between them till death.

At the time of General Lee's appointment McClellan was calling for reinforcements. The church spires of Richmond could be seen from the Union camps. But there was a new force in the field against him; General Lee knew McClellan better than McClellan knew himself: he divined his plans. After the battle of Fair Oaks the weather became fine; by June 13th McClellan had received 21,000 men; he planned to give Lee battle on the 17th or 18th: he would possess himself of "Old Tavern," push up to the city already in sight, bring his heavy guns into action and then carry Richmond by assault. Several of the Confederate generals expected McClellan to do this. General Lee formed his plans to attack McClellan's communications, to trust to McClellan's procrastination, and to leave the Army of the Potomac to fight the swamp fever, for Northern men compelled to inaction and the perils of the climate of Virginia