For Lee and Jackson, by massing their scattered forces, rendered the city impregnable. Whenever fresh danger seemed to threaten Richmond, Lee made a demonstration toward Washington, which caused a rushing of Federal regiments to repel the supposed danger and rendered a mass attack on Richmond out of the question. So, through a terrible summer of non-achievement, the once redoubtable army of the Potomac lay for the most part in Chickahominy Swamp. Lay there and rotted. Pestilence did not “stalk” through the camps. It swept through them like the lightning breath of the death-angel. To one man who died in battle four died of disease. A locality that even the heat-hardened Virginians were wont to shun in summer, Chickahominy Swamp exacted horrible toll of lives from the Northern invaders. Thus rested, wearily inactive, the army that was the hope and pride of the Union. And at every turn Lee and Jackson outgeneraled its leaders; the Confederate force opposing to the ill-led Northerners’ greater bulk a speed and deftness that paralyzed its foe. So that at last the North, which had so excitedly shouted “On to Richmond!” beheld in growing amaze the reverses of its bravest sons, and clamored vainly for a change. From Washington, too, came first protests, then rebukes, then an imperative command that the peninsula campaign be brought to an end and the army of the Potomac remove from the Chickahominy pesthole. Back from the swamp and to less fatal ground, farther away from the lost goal of its ambition, the huge army was withdrawn, the Confederates working havoc upon their retreating foes. It was in one of these flank attacks--a mere fleabite for the main body of the army, but as vital as Gettysburg itself to the army corps directly concerned in it--that Lieutenant James Dadd won his captaincy for gallant conduct in the face of the enemy. A week later the demi-corps to which his regiment was attached chanced to be far to the left of the massed army on special detail, and was returning to headquarters. The regiments, marching in close formation, were ascending the long, gradual slope of an almost interminable hill when their videttes appeared over the summit, riding back like mad, while at almost the same moment from a wood to their left, and slightly to their rear, broke out an irregular line of white smoke. A masked battery in the forest, supported by several regiments of Confederate riflemen, had opened fire on them. Before the nearest Federal ranks could wheel to repel the attack the flying videttes from in front reported a large body of Confederates who had somehow gotten between the detachment and the main army, and were approaching at the “double” from the far side of the hill up which the line of march led.