When the news of the battle reached Richmond there was great consternation, which was increased by the news of the blowing up of the Merrimack on the morning of the 11th of May. "In the President's mansion about this time all was consternation and dismay," says Pollard, the Southern historian.[19] [Footnote 19: Southern History of the War, Vol. II. p. 31.] Jefferson Davis's niece wrote a letter to a friend in Vicksburg, but the mail-bag was captured by the Yankee pickets. "General Johnston," said the young lady, "is falling back from the Peninsula, and Uncle Jeff thinks we had better go to a safer place than Richmond. O mother! Uncle Jeff is miserable. He tries to be cheerful and bear up against such a continuation of troubles, but oh! I fear he cannot live long, if he does not get some rest and quiet. "Our reverses distressed him so much, and he is so weak and feeble, it makes my heart ache to look at him. He knows that he ought to send his wife and children away, and yet he cannot bear to part with them, and we all dread to leave him too. Varina and I had a hard cry about it to-day. "O, what a blow the fall of New Orleans was! It like to have set us all crazy here. Everybody looks depressed, and the cause of the Confederacy looks drooping and sinking; but if God is with us, who can be against us? Our troops are not doing as well as we expected.... The regiments most apt to run are from North Carolina and Tennessee.... I am afraid that Richmond will fall into the hands of the enemy, as there is no way to keep back the gunboats. James River is so high that all obstructions are in danger of being washed away, so that there is no help for the city.... "Uncle Jeff was confirmed last Tuesday in St. Paul's Church, by Bishop Johns. He was baptized at home, in the morning, before church."[20] [Footnote 20: Southern History, Vol. II. p. 31.] The Confederate Congress adjourned hastily. They sent off their families. The railroad trains going out were crowded with passengers. The public documents were boxed up and sent away. Mrs. Jefferson Davis took down her window-curtains, tore up the carpets, packed her silver plate and pictures, and left the city.[21] The Treasury Department removed its printing-presses to Georgia, and everybody prepared to leave the city, which they feared was doomed to fall into the hands of the Yankees. [Footnote 21: Estvan's War Pictures from the South, p. 271.] When the Merrimack was blown up, the James River was open to the gunboats to Fort Darling, within ten miles of Richmond. The fort mounted four guns. Three of the gunboats bombarded it on the 13th, but were not able to silence the guns. General McClellan's transports were at Yorktown and Fortress Monroe,--an immense fleet. His army was within five miles of the James. It will be for the future historian to inquire whether the army ought not to have been sent up the James instead of the Chickahominy.