[12] General Wool was in command at Fortress Monroe. It had been originally arranged that General McClellan should draw 10,000 men from him. But this was afterward countermanded. The paragraph in the President's letter has reference to this. [13] A slight obstruction by a battery at Drury's Bluff must have been abandoned instantly upon the approach of a land force. [14] Whose command had been added to McDowell's. [15] Colonel Franklin Haven, who was on General McDowell's staff at the time, is my authority for this statement. He well remembers the reason given by Mr. Lincoln, and the extreme annoyance which the general and his officers felt at the delay. [16] "The expediency of the junction of this [McD.'s] large corps with the principal army was manifest," says General Johnston. _Narr. 131._ [17] Jackson used to say: "Mystery, mystery, is the secret of success." [18] The Comte de Paris is very severe, even to sarcasm, in his comments on the President's orders to Banks (_Civil War in America_, ii. 35, 36, and see 44); and Swinton, referring to the disposition of the armies, which was well known to have been made by Mr. Lincoln's personal orders, says: "One hardly wishes to inquire by whose crude and fatuous inspiration these things were done." _Army of Potomac_, 123. Later critics have not repeated such strong language, but have not taken different views of the facts. [19] Observe the tone of his two dispatches of May 25 to McClellan. McClellan's _Report_, 100, 101. [20] The Comte de Paris prefers to call it a "chimerical project." _Civil War in America_, ii. 45. Swinton speaks of "the skill of the Confederates and the folly of those who controlled the operations of the Union armies." _Army of Potomac_, 122. [21] Yet, if Fremont had not blundered, the result might have been different. Comte de Paris, _Civil War in America_, ii. 47. [22] The Third, under Heintzelman, and the Fourth, under Keyes. [23] Even his admirer, Swinton, says that any possible course would have been better than inaction. _Army of Potomac_, 140, 141. [24] _The Peninsula_, 188. Swinton seems to regard it in the same light. _Army of Potomac_, 147. [25] Gaines's Mill, contested with superb courage and constancy by the Fifth Corps, under Porter, against very heavy odds. [26] McClellan's _Report_, 131, 132. See, also, his own comments on this extraordinary dispatch; _Own Story_, 452. He anticipated, not without reason, that he would be promptly removed. The Comte de Paris says that the two closing sentences were suppressed by the War Department, when the documents had to be laid before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. _Civil War in America_, ii. 112. Another dispatch, hardly less disrespectful, was sent on June 25. See McClellan's _Report_, 121. [27] For a vivid description of the condition to which heat, marching, fighting, and the unwholesome climate had reduced the men, see statement of Comte de Paris, an eye-witness. _Civil War in America,_ ii. 130.