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Yorktown: the Peninsula Campaign.
A shattered and discomfited army were the hosts of
McDowell when they reached the banks of the
Potomac, after that ill-fated July Sunday at
Bull Run.
Dispirited by the sting of defeat, this motley and unorganized mass of men became rather a mob than an army.
The transformation of this chaos of demoralization into the trained, disciplined, and splendid troops of the
Grand Army of the Potomac, was a problem to challenge the military genius of the century.
Fresh from his victories in the mountains of
West Virginia, imbued with the spirit of
Carnot, that “military discipline is the glory of the soldier and the strength of armies,”
General George Brinton McClellan began the task of transmuting the raw and untutored regiments into fighting men who were to bear the brunt of the conflict, until the victory should be theirs at
Appomattox.
Never, since the days of
Baron Steuben at
Valley Forge, had the American citizen soldier received such tuition in the art of war. It was a gigantic attempt; but with the flower of the youth of the
North, the winning personality of a popular and efficient commander, in whom lived the enthusiasm of the creator and master whose soul was in his work — all deeply imbued with patriotism — there sprang up as if by magic, in the vacant fields about the capital city, battalions of infantry, batteries of artillery, and squadrons of cavalry.
Washington has become a camp.
Day after day the trains bring from the shops and farms the inexperienced sons of the Northland.
All during the
summer and
autumn months, the new recruits continue to march through the streets, with flags flying and bands playing.
They come, two hundred thousand strong, that the “Young
Napoleon” may forge them into a
