At night, instead of sending them reinforcements, they were ordered to retreat. That was "strategy!" The moment they commenced their retreat, as is said in the dispatches, the enemy fought like demons. Of course they would. Who ever heard of a retreating army that was not pursued by the victors like demons, except in the case of rebel retreats? No other nation but ours was ever guilty of stopping immediately after a victory. Other armies fight like demons after a victory, and annihilate the enemy, but we do not. Our left wing and center remained intact. A feint was made upon the left and center, and I have here, not the sworn testimony, but the statement of one of the bravest men in the whole Army of the Potomac--I will not give his name, but a more highly honorable man lives not--that when his regiment was ordered under arms, he had no doubt that he was going to march into Richmond. He believed the whole force of the enemy had attacked our right wing; he believed there was nothing but a screen of pickets in front; and he thought that now our great triumph was to come off. His men sprang into line with avidity, prepared to rush into Richmond and take it at the point of the bayonet. He never discovered his error until he saw a million and a half dollars' worth of property burned in front of his regiment, and then he began to think that an advance upon Richmond was not intended. And it was not! We had been at work there and had lost 10,000 men in digging intrenchments; we had spent months in bringing up siege guns, and we abandoned those intrenchments without firing one gun. Our army was ordered to advance on the gunboats instead of on Richmond. This colonel told me that his regiment fought three days and whipped the enemy each day, and retreated each night. The left wing and center were untouched until they were ordered to retreat. No portion of our vast force had been fought except the right wing under Porter, and they whipped the enemy the first day.