Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/215

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his knowledge. This was strikingly illustrated in several important movements. For example, he decided the critical question as to the withdrawal of the Confederate army from Richmond after the battles around that city, in 1862, leaving the large army of General McClellan almt within cannon-shot of the city, trusting to the cor- rectness of his interpretation of a single circumstance and of his esti- mate of the enterprise of his opponent.

When General McClellan was forced to abandon his fortified posi- tion on the Chickahominy and retire to Harrison's landing, on the James, his army was too strong to be left within thirteen miles (as the crow flies) from Richmond, while the army that defended the city moved northward, if there was any reason to apprehend that the Federal commander intended to renew the attempt to capture the place. Immediately after the withdrawal of General McClellan from the Chickahominy to the James, General Lee had dispatched < ieneral Jackson, with his own command and that of General Ewell, followed by that of General A. P. Hill, northward to meet the army of General Pope, then advancing along the line of the Orange and Alexandria railroad. Jackson was instructed to cross the Rapidan and attack Pope's advance.

Among other consequences of the defeat of General McClellan be- fore Richmond, Federal troops had been drawn to his support from various other parts of the country, and among them was a large part of the force under General Burnside, on the North Carolina coast. These troops arrived in Hampton Roads and lay there in transports. Upon them the attention of General Lee was immediately concen- trated. Their movements would decide his. If they sailed up the James to reinforce McClellan, the latter, being reinforced, intended to renew the attack on Richmond, and General Lee must remain there. If, on the other hand, Burnside sailed up the Chesapeake, McClellan, not being reinforced, did not intend to renew his attempt, but the real attack on Richmond must be looked for from the army of General Pope.

LEE'S ACCURATE INTERPRETATION.

Our scouts reported at last that the transports of Burnside had sailed up the Chesapeake, and that night the troops of Longstreet left Richmond and moved northward to the Rapidan, leaving Gen- eral McClellan at Harrison's landing, with the confident expectation on the part of General Lee that the northward movement of his army would lead to the withdrawal of the Federal army from the 14