THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 65 an important event of good augury to the federal cause. Tho Merrimac, which was no longer commanded by the brave Buchanan, and which had now no place of refuge, was burned by her new captain. Henceforth James river was opened to the federals, but unfortunately it was opened just too late. The iron-clad gunboats Galena, Naugatuck and Monitor, ran up to within seven miles of Richmond : there they found the river barred by a stockade which could not be forced, and its lofty banks defended by a battery of heavy guns, which could not be silenced. The great gun of the Naugatuck burst: the Monitor could not give her cannon elevation enough to reach the batteries of “ Fort Darling.” As to the Galena, her cuirass, three inches and a half thick, failed to protect her against conical 100-ponnders, and she was forced to retire, after a heroic fight, with a large number of her crew placed hors du combat. A land attack upon the forts was found to be necessary, if the passage was to be forced; but in the face of the confederates, massed at a short distance before Richmond, such an operation could only have been attempted by the whole army. To accomplish it, the moment the news of the destruction of the Merrimac reached General McClellan, he should have abandoned the plan of campaign which he had begun to execute, and sought the James river by a rapid oblique march, in order to combine his operations with those of the navy upon that river. To-day, with the added experience of the events which actually occurred, I am inclined to think this would have been a wiser course to pursue. Of course, the passage from the Pamnnkey to the James would have been dangerous; the passage of the lower Cliick- ahominy, or of the Lower James, according as it might have been determined upon to operate up the right or up the left bank of the latter river, would have been a difficult and delicate ihing to attempt, with the grand army of the confederates hanging upon the flank of the federals. Yet this risk would 5
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