This text is part of:
[180]
General Barnard, was against an assault?
Would. not such a storm of indignation have been raised against General McClellan as would have compelled his sacrifice at the hands of an Administration not inclined — perhaps not able — to resist that sweeping power of public opinion which moves and rages with more than “the force of winds and waters pent” ?1
On the 22d of April, while the siege of Yorktown was going on, General Franklin's division, forming part of General McDowell's corps, arrived, and reported to General McClellan.
These troops were kept on board the transports, and not employed for some days.
It was General McClellan's purpose to act on Gloucester by disembarking this division on the north bank of the York River, under the protection of the gunboats, but subsequent events rendered the movement unnecessary.
Our batteries would have been ready to open upon Yorktown on the morning of the 6th of May at latest; but in the nights of the 3d and 4th of May, that position and the Confederate lines of the
1 “Many of Lord Wellington's proceedings might be called rash, and others timid and slow, if taken separately: yet, when viewed as parts of a great plan for delivering the whole Peninsula, they will be found discreet or daring, as the circumstances warranted. Nor is there any portion of his campaigns that requires this wide-based consideration more than his early sieges, which, being instituted contrary to the rules of art, and unsuccessful,--or, when successful, attended with a mournful slaughter,--have given occasion for questioning his great military qualities, which were, however, then most signally displayed.” --Napier.
Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 1864.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.