[268] wild and confused. Franklin hurriedly fell back before an inferiour force, and did not halt until under the guns of his flotilla. The incidents of Williamsburg and Barhamsville had been Confederate successes; and Johnston's movement to the line of the Chickahominy turned out a most brilliant piece of strategy. He had secured the safe retreat of his army, together with his baggage and supply train, and, although forced by the configuration of the land, and the superiourity of the enemy on the water, to abandon the peninsula of Yorktown, he had done so in a manner which illustrated his genius, and insured the safety and efficiency of his army.
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[268] wild and confused. Franklin hurriedly fell back before an inferiour force, and did not halt until under the guns of his flotilla. The incidents of Williamsburg and Barhamsville had been Confederate successes; and Johnston's movement to the line of the Chickahominy turned out a most brilliant piece of strategy. He had secured the safe retreat of his army, together with his baggage and supply train, and, although forced by the configuration of the land, and the superiourity of the enemy on the water, to abandon the peninsula of Yorktown, he had done so in a manner which illustrated his genius, and insured the safety and efficiency of his army.
1 The circumstances of the evacuation of Norfolk were made the subject of an investigation in the Confederate Congress. Commodore Forrest testified as follows before the committee making the investigation:
I understood that it was the intention of the Government to withdraw the troops under Gen. Huger, for the protection of Richmond, and that the navy-yard and public buildings were to be destroyed. Upon learning this, I had a conference with the Secretary of the Navy. I stated to him that I did not see any necessity for such a proceeding, and that if he would allow me to return, I could assure him that I would protect the yard and Norfolk from any attack that the enemy might make. He asked me particularly in what manner I could do it. I explained to him that I had eleven hundred employees at the navy-yard, good and true men, that they had been exercised at great guns and small arms weekly for several months, and that there were guns mounted in what is called Forrest entrenchments, in lunette-four in all, containing each three or four guns of forty-one hundred weight, 82-pounders, and that I did not apprehend anything disastrous from Burnside's force; that by placing the steamer Virginia in a proper position, I thought she might very well protect the harbour, and even if Gen. Huger's army was taken away, I thought the citizens would all turn out to man the batteries. To this he replied, they would starve us out. I informed him that they could not very well do that for some time to come, that we had four hundred barrels of pork, and four hundred barrels of beef stowed in the yard; that the forage there had been collected for three months for the cattle. To this he replied, that it had been determined upon as a military necessity, and must be carried out. Mr. Foote. What was the value of the navy-yard? What do you conjecture the amount of the injury to be which we suffered from the destruction of the navy-yard? Commodore Forrest. There is a printed schedule taken by a commissioner appointed by the Governour of the State of Virginia, which could be had from the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth. In that schedule it mentions the value of the public property to be $6,500,000, or thereabouts.
1866.
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