William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac

---

[108] known, however, that no portion of General McClellan's milttary career has given rise to a greater amount of criticism, or criticism founded less on the intrinsic merits of the case.

The critique of operations before Yorktown will turn on the solution of the question whether the siege should have been made at all, or whether the Confederate position should not have been either broken or turned.

It has already been stated that the latter course — to wit, the turning of Yorktown—was General McClellan's original plan. To this duty McDowell's corps was assigned; but on the very day he arrived before Yorktown he received the order detaching McDowell's force from his command. The effect of this measure is set forth with much emphasis by General McClellan. ‘To me,’ says he, ‘the blow was most discouraging. It frustrated all my plans for impending operations. It fell when I was too deeply committed to withdraw. It left me incapable of continuing operations which had been begun. It compelled the adoption of another, a different and less effective plan of campaign. It made rapid and brilliant operations impossible. It was a fatal error.’ There will probably be no question as to the merits of the proposed movement by which it was designed to turn Gloucester Point and open up the York River; and the verdict will be equally clear as to the ill-judged policy—to put it at the mildest—which, at such a moment, took out of the commander's hand a corps destined for a duty so important. But it is not entirely clear that ‘rapid and brilliant operations’ were not still feasible. General McClellan before he began the siege had with him a force of eighty thousand men; and it may be queried whether he could not from this force have still detached a corps of twenty-five thousand men to execute the movement designed for McDowell. The holding of his line in front of Yorktown—a line of seven or eight miles—would, to make it secure against offensive action on the enemy's part, require about forty thousand men. Now, the detachment of a column of twenty-five thousand would still have left him fifty-five thousand men. Moreover, one