110 APPENDIX, wisdom of trying the experiment of a naval excursion from Portress Monroe to Rocketts; and to the confederates the propriety of fortifying the river banks. It produced neither the one nor tlie other effect. A couple of war steamers sent up the James when the army of McDowell advanced from Washington, might have neutralized the southern victory at Bull Run ; and I have the authority of a southern naval officer for saying that the banks of the James were never adequately protected against the passage of even a single powerful gunboat until the works at Drewry’s Bluff were extemporized in Mav, 1S62. These works were thrown up so hastily, and so little was known or believed at Richmond of their capacity to resist a serious attack, that the excitement which reigned throughout the city during the dull gray morning of the day in which the heavy guns of the attack and defence were heard sullenly booming down the river, more nearly approached a panic than anything else which I witnessed during the whole time of my detention there. The preparations of the governments, state and confederate, for evacuating the cit * had been hurried forward with great earnestness from the time when the sacrifice of Norfolk and the Merrimac became a probable military necessity: but there was such a conflict of councils in both governments that the successful passage of Drewry’s Bluff would unquestionably have brought on a tremendous general catastrophe. Note G.—Pnge 67. "TUB PARTISAN JACKSON.” It is singular enough that so many even of those who ought to be well informed in respect to the history and present position of the southern leaders should persist in writing and talking of “ Stonewall Jackson ” as a “ partisan.” He is scarcely
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