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should be called, and the appeal made to him. When he came, he recognized his General; who, praising the soldier for his obedience to instructions, bound them both to secrecy touching his journey.
Having held the desired interview with the Commander-in-Chief, he returned the next day to the line of march pursued by his troops, and led them, the evening of June 25th to the village of Ashland, twelve miles north of Richmond.
To understand the subsequent narrative, the reader must have a brief explanation of the position of the two great armies.
The Chickahominy River, famous for the adventures and capture of Captain John Smith, in the childhood of Virginia, is a sluggish stream of fifteen yards width, which flows parallel to the James, and only five miles north of Richmond.
It is bordered by extensive meadows, which degenerate in many places into marshes, and its bed is miry and treacherous; so that it constitutes an obstacle to the passage of armies far more formidable than its insignificant width would indicate.
During this year, especially, the excessive rains and repeated freshets had converted its little current into an important stream, its marshes into lakes, and its rich, level cornfields into bogs.
But at the distance of half a mile from the channel, the country on each side rises into undulating hills, with farms interspersed irregularly among the tracts of forest, and the coppices of young pine.
General McClellan, taking his departure from the White House, on the Pamunkey, and using the York River Railroad as his line of supply, had pressed his vast army to the east and north of Richmond.
Its two wings, placed like the open jaws of some mighty dragon, the one on the north and the other on the south side of the Chickahominy, almost embraced the northeast angle of the city.
To connect them with each other, he had constructed three or four elaborate bridges across the stream, with causeways leading to them, and along the length of the valley,
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