The Confederates here encountered a very obstinate resistance and they were not able to force the position until Jackson came up and joined in the assault. It was a critical moment of the war. Had McClellan been able to hold this position the Confederate campaign of offense must have completely collapsed, and with a superior force, the Federal general would have been free to conquer Richmond at that leisure which his engineering soul so greatly loved. But with Jackson's force added to the commands of Longstreet and Hill, the Confederates, after a very determined and bloody contest, drove the Federals from their position and made themselves prospective masters of McClellan's sole line of communication with his only depot of supplies at the White House. There was nothing now for McClellan to do but retreat as best he could to the James river at Harrison's Landing and make that, instead of the White House, a base of supplies. To do that was exceedingly difficult, as McClellan had open to him only one road and that a very bad one, while the Confederates on his flank had many roads by which to intercept and annoy his retreat. During the course of that retreat, which was attended at every step by bloody contests, McClellan wrote in great bitterness of spirit to the Secretary of War in Washington (Mr. Stanton) on the twenty-eighth of June: "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington [obviously meaning Mr. Lincoln]. You have done your best to sacrifice this army." McClellan, with an overwhelmingly superior force, had invested Richmond on the east and north. There he had strongly fortified himself. He had pushed his advance to within four miles of the Confederate capital. He had brought up tremendous siege guns and had apparently made himself complete master of the situation. Then Jackson, the two Hills, Longstreet and Ewell, under direction of Robert E. Lee, had fallen upon his flank and rear and had driven him out of one position after another with fearful slaughter, until his White House communication was cut off, and nothing remained to him but retreat to a new base on James river. The Confederates confidently calculated upon cutting off that retreat also and compelling the surrender of an army superior to their own in numbers, arms, resources and everything else except fighting ability. This they would very probably have accomplished if McClellan had not developed in answer to a pressing need a fighting quality which he had not before shown, and his army a resolute determination to endure punishment such as none but the best of veterans are expected to show.