THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 41 arrested by forces apparently formidable and before a position not easily to be carried. But this case had been foreseen. In order to gain time, and avoid the tedium of a siege, General McClellan had thought out the means of turning the position. The enemy held the James, with the Merrimac and his gun boats; the York was closed by the Yorktown and Gloucester Point batteries. Nevertheless, by a disembarkation on the Severn, beyond Gloucester, we might carry the latter position and open the way of the federal gunboats into the river York. A subsequent movement up the left bank, in the direction of West Point, would put ns so far in the rear of the army charged with the defence of the lines of Yorktown, that it would have been in a most perilous position. This accomplished, the confederates'must have abandoned Gloucester, and fallen back hastily upon Richmond. The execution of this coup de main had been left to a corps of the army commanded by General McDowell. This corps was to be the last to embark at Washington, and it was calculated that it ought to reach Yorktown in a body on its transports at the moment when the rest of the army, moving by land, should appear before that post from Fortress Monroe. Instead of finding it, we received the inexplicable and as yet unexplained intelligence that this corps, 35,000 strong, had been sent to another destination. The news was received in the army with stupefaction, although the majority could not foresee the deplorable consequences of a step taken, it must be supposed, with no evil intention, but certainly with inconceivable recklessness. Fifteen days before, this measure, although it must always have been injurious, would have been much less so. We might have made arrangements upon a new basis. Taken when it was it deranged a whole system of machinery fairly at work. Among the divisions of McDowell’s corps, there was one, that of Franklin, which was more regrettel than all the others, as well on account of the troops
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