What each thought of the other will be shown in the course of this narrative.  We shall proceed now with the history of the great series of battles for which Jackson’s appearance was the signal.

PART III.

ON THE CHICKAHOMINY.

I.

THE TWO ARMIES.

The Chickahominy, whose banks were now to be the scene of a bitter and determined conflict between the great adversaries, is a sluggish and winding stream, which, rising above Richmond, describes a curve around it, and empties its waters into the James, far below the city.  Its banks are swampy, and thickly clothed with forest or underwood.  From the nature of these banks, which scarcely rise in many places above the level of the water, the least freshet produces an overflow, and the stream, generally narrow and insignificant, becomes a sort of lake, covering the low grounds to the bases of the wooded bluffs extending upon each side.  Numerous bridges cross the stream, from Bottom’s Bridge, below the York River Railroad, to Meadow Bridge, north of the city.  Of these, the Mechanicsville Bridge, about four miles from the city, and the New Bridge, about nine miles, were points of the greatest importance.

General McClellan’s position has been repeatedly referred to.  He had crossed a portion of his army east of Richmond, and advanced to within four or five miles of the city.  The remainder, meanwhile, lay on the north bank of the stream, and swept round, in a sort of crescent, to the vicinity of Mechanicsville, where it had been anticipated General McDowell would unite with it, thereby covering its right flank, and protecting the communications with the Federal base at the White House.  That this disposition of the Federal troops was faulty, in face of adversaries like Johnston and Lee, there could be no doubt.  But General McClellan was the victim, it seems, of the shifting and vacillating policy of the authorities at Washington.  With the arrival of the forty thousand men under McDowell, his position would have been a safe one.  General McDowell did not arrive; and this unprotected right flank—­left unprotected from the fact that McDowell’s presence was counted on—­became the point of the Confederate attack.

The amount of blame, if any, justly attributable to General McClellan, first for his inactivity, and then for his defeat by Lee, cannot be referred to here, save in a few brief sentences.  A sort of feud seems to have arisen between himself and General Halleck, the commander-in-chief, stationed at Washington; and General Halleck then and afterward appears to have regarded McClellan as a soldier without decision or broad generalship.  And yet McClellan does not seem to have merited the censure he received.  He called persistently for reinforcements, remaining inactive meanwhile, because he estimated the Confederate army before him at two hundred thousand men, and was