28 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. cast a cloud upon the firmest mind. But the General’s reso lution was promptly taken. To follow the confederates by land to Richmond at this season cf the year was a material impossibility. An incident bad just proved this to be so. (Jem Stoneman, with a flying column, had been sent in pursuit of the enemy. This column came up with the enemy on the llappahannock, along the railway to Gordonsville, and had two engagements with him of no great importance. Then came the rain. The fords were swollen, the bridges carried away, the water-courses could no longer be passed by swimming; they were torrents. Stoneman's column began to suffer for want of provisions, and its situation was perilous. In order to communicate with the army Stoneman had to send two of McClellan’s aides-de-camp, who hail accompanied him, across a river on a raft of logs tied together with ropes. Such was the country before the army. Furthermore, the enemy was burning and breaking np all the bridges. Now with the wants of the American soldier and the usual extravagance of his rations, and with the necessity of transporting everything through a country where nothing is to be found, and where the least storm makes the roads impassable, no army can lix-c unless it supports its march upon a navigable water-course or a railway. In Europe our military administration assumes that the transportation service of an army of one hundred thousand men can only provision that army for a three days’ march from its base of operating In America this limit must be re<Iiiec<l to a single day. An American army, thereibre cannot remove itself more than one day’s march from the railway or the water-course by which it is supplied ; mid it' the road which it is taking happens lobe interrupted by broken bridges it must wait 1 ill they are repaired, or inure forward without food and without ammtmi lion. I need only add that npor (he roads which led to Rich
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