His indecision was brought to an end by General Johnston.  Discovering that the force in his front, near “Seven Pines,” on the southern bank of the Chickahominy, was only a portion of the Federal army, General Johnston determined to attack it.  This resolution was not in consequence of the freshet in the Chickahominy, as has been supposed, prompting Johnston to attack while the Federal army was cut in two, as it were.  His resolution, he states, had already been taken, and was, with or without reference to the rains, that of a good soldier.  General Johnston struck at General McClellan on the last day of May, just at the moment, it appears, when the Federal commander designed commencing his last advance upon the city.  The battle which took place was one of the most desperate and bloody of the war.  Both sides fought with obstinate courage, and neither gained a decisive advantage.  On the Confederate right, near “Seven Pines,” the Federal line was broken and forced back; but, on the left, at Fair Oaks Station, the Confederates, in turn, were repulsed.  Night fell upon a field where neither side could claim the victory.  The most that could be claimed by the Southerners was that McClellan had received a severe check; and they sustained a great misfortune in the wound received by General Johnston.  He was struck by a fragment of shell while superintending the attack at Fair Oaks, and the nature of his wound rendered it impossible for him to retain command of the army.  He therefore retired from the command, and repaired to Richmond, where he remained for a long time an invalid, wholly unable to continue in service in the field.

This untoward event rendered it necessary to find a new commander for the army without loss of time.  General Lee had returned some time before from the South, and to him all eyes were turned.  He had had no opportunity to display his abilities upon a conspicuous theatre—­the sole command he had been intrusted with, that in trans-Alleghany Virginia, could scarcely be called a real command—­and he owed his elevation now to the place vacated by General Johnston, rather to his services performed in the old army of the United States, than to any thing he had effected in the war of the Confederacy.  The confidence of the Virginia people in his great abilities had never wavered, and there is no reason to suppose that the Confederate authorities were backward in conceding his merits as a soldier.  Whatever may have been the considerations leading to his appointment, he was assigned on the 3d day of June to the command of the army, and thus the Virginians assembled to defend the capital of their State found themselves under the command of the most illustrious of their own countrymen.

III.

LEE ASSIGNED TO THE COMMAND—­HIS FAMILY AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

Lee had up to this time effected, as we have shown, almost nothing in the progress of the war.  Intrusted with no command, and employed only in organizing the forces, or superintending the construction of defences, he had failed to achieve any of those successes in the field which constitute the glory of the soldier.  He might possess the great abilities which his friends and admirers claimed for him, but he was yet to show the world at large that he did really possess them.