This text is part of:
[265]
his assistant adjutant-general to be in readiness to march.
On the 5th, despite holding back and suppression by the War Department, we knew that the Army of the Potomac was driven back to Harrison's Landing, and that its struggles for Richmond had, for a time, ended.
This adversity caused such a departure from the plan Pope had formed, that it was now, not how to aid the Army of the Potomac in the capture of Richmond, but how to unite the two armies to save the national capital, and provide for a further prosecution of the attack upon Richmond.
After consideration, it was determined to use the Army of Virginia mainly, while covering the front at Washington and securing the valley of the Shenandoah, in forcing such heavy detachments from the main body of the enemy as to enable the Army of the Potomac to withdraw from its position at Harrison's Landing, and take shipping for Aquia Creek or Alexandria,1 and so to embarrass the enemy, should he move northward, as to give all time possible for the Army of the Potomac to arrive behind the Rappahannock.2
On the sixth of July, with our part in the coming tragedy not yet revealed, we took up our line of march, halting the first night one mile south of the town of Front Royal.
The next day we crossed the Blue Ridge at Chester Gap, and began our campaign within the region bounded by those mountains and the sea. We rested at night in a pleasant woods, just before reaching the little town of Flint Hill, where I had an amicable discussion with a Virginian
1 The general-in-chief, accompanied by General Burnside, who had come from North Carolina to Fortress Monroe with his army, visited General McClellan at Harrison's Bar. The question of the withdrawal of that army was submitted to a council of officers, and, against the wishes and protests of McClellan, was determined upon. It was to be removed at once to Fredericksburg. See Report of Congressional Committee, Operations of the Army of the Potomac, p. 13.
James R. Osgood and Company, 1883.
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.