McClellan's one hope, one purpose, was to march his army out of the swamps and escape from the ceaseless Confederate assaults to a point on James river where the resistless fire of the gunboats might protect his men from further attack and give them a chance to rest. To that end, he retreated night and day, standing at bay now and then as the hunted stag does, and fighting desperately for the poor privilege of running away. And the splendid fighting of his men was a tribute to the skill and genius with which he had created an effective army out of what he had described as "regiments cowering upon the banks of the Potomac, some perfectly raw, others dispirited by recent defeat, others going home." Out of a demoralized and disorganized mass reinforced by utterly untrained civilians, McClellan had within a few months created an army capable of stubbornly contesting every inch of ground even while effecting a retreat the very thought of which might well have disorganized an army. For soldiers in retreat do not usually fight as soldiers do when advancing upon an enemy. They are apt to be filled with the sentiment of hopelessness which retreat suggests and to hesitate to risk their lives in contests that seem to offer no adequate return for sacrifice. If McClellan conspicuously failed as an energetic commander, in this his first important campaign, he succeeded at any rate in demonstrating the perfection of that work of organization by means of which he had created the splendid Army of the Potomac out of raw recruits and panic-stricken fugitives from battle. At Gaines's Mill they gallantly endured a loss of no less than 9,000 men, and while they were driven from their position at last, they lost nothing of their morale, but were ready two days later to fight an equally determined battle, though it was the battle of a beaten and broken army which had been driven by force out of a supremely advantageous position and was now seeking safety in a flight that knew no ceasing night or day, except now and then a pause to offer a sullen resistance to an ever-present and pressing foe, and to ward off complete destruction by the offer of battle wherever the ground gave opportunity for resistance. Here was McClellan's reward; here was his glory. This army of his a few months earlier under such a succession of defeats would have broken into panic-stricken rout. Thanks solely to his discipline and his dominant influence, it now endured compulsory and disastrous retreat with fortitude and stubbornly contested every inch of the blood-soaked ground. It outnumbered Lee's force and its equipment was immeasurably superior to his. Under a commander of high gift for field work it might perhaps have beaten Lee and forced its triumphant way into Richmond. Under the commander it had it did itself great honor by retreating in good order and stubbornly resisting the Confederate advance wherever it was permitted to do so.