William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac

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[128] result. Without gaining a single tactical victory he had yet achieved a great strategic victory, for by skilfully manoeuvring fifteen thousand men he succeeded in neutralizing a force of sixty thousand. It is perhaps not too much to say that he saved Richmond; for when McClellan, in expectation that Mc-Dowell might still be allowed to come and join him, threw forward his right wing, under Porter, to Hanover Courthouse, on the 26th of June, the echoes of his cannon bore to those in Richmond who knew the situation of the two Union armies the knell of the capital of the Confederacy.¹ McDowell never went forward—was never allowed, eager though he was, to go forward. Well-intentioned though we must believe the motives to have been of those who counselled the course that led to the consequences thus delineated, the historian must not fail to point out the folly of an act that must remain an impressive illustration of what must be expected when men violate the established principles of war.

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Iv. The battle of Fair Oaks.

It is easy to see the perilous position in which the events just recited placed the Army of the Potomac. Had McClellan been free immediately after the battle of Williamsburg, when the destruction of the Merrimac opened up the James River as a highway of supplies, to transfer his army to that line, it is easy to see that he would have avoided those dangers of the other line whereof the enemy finally took such energetic advantage. I have already set forth the circumstances that dictated his advance by the line of the York and the Pamunkey—to wit, the expected march of McDowell's column from Fredericksburg for the purpose of joining the Army of the Potomac—and I have detailed the events whereby that column was prevented from making its anticipated