6S THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. Rappahannock, and in three or four days they might have joined the army of McClellan. They covered nothing at Fredericksburg, and were so notoriously useless to the federal cause that in the confederate journals they were spoken of as the " fifth wheel of the coach.’’ It was known that MoJJowell desired ardently to give the lie to these railleries by bringing at the decisive moment his assistance to the cause of the Fnion. Accordingly McClellan had no sooner arrived before Richmond than he undertook" to discover what he had to hope for from this quarter. No official advices, either from Washington or from Fredericksburg, had informed him of McDowell’s presence at that pointBmly sixty miles distant, but rumor and probability agreed so well in placing him there that the General-in-Chief resolved to make an attempt to establish communication with him. On the night of the 26th he sent forward General Porter’s division with a few squadrons of cavalry, in a furious storm, to Hanover Court House, a village about twenty miles north of Richmond, where the railway to Fredericksburg crosses the Pamunkey. The troops of Porter moved rapidly, and about midday on the 27th came upon the ho~tile division of Branch, at Hanover Court House. This thev assailed with vigor, dispersed it, and towk one of its guns. Assailed in their turn by confederate troops who had Hdfered them to pass by the woods in which they lay hidden, the federals turned on their new enemies and scattered them abo. This brilliant affair cost the federals 400 men, and left General Porter in possession of a cannon, of 500 prisoners, and of two bridges, one on the Fredericksburg and one on the v rginia Central road. The advanced guard of McDowell was then at Bowling Green, fifteen miles from that of For- t( . It needed only an effort of the will ; the two armies were m '< d, and the possession of Richmond certain ! Alas ! this effort was not made. I cannot recall those tafal moments without a real sinking of the heart. Seated in an orchard in
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