The reader will form his own opinion whether Lee was or was not to blame for this want of accurate information, which would seem, however, to be justly attributable to the War Department at Richmond, rather than to an officer who had been assigned to command only three or four weeks before.  Other criticisms of Lee referred to his main plan of operations, and the danger to which he exposed Richmond by leaving only twenty-five thousand men in front of it, when he began his movement against General McClellan’s right wing, beyond the Chickahominy.  General Magruder, who commanded this force of twenty-five thousand men left to guard the capital, expressed afterward, in his official report, his views of the danger to which the city had been exposed.  He wrote: 

“From the time at which the enemy withdrew his forces to this side of the Chickahominy, and destroyed the bridges, to the moment of his evacuation, that is, from Friday night until Saturday morning, I considered the situation of our army as extremely critical and perilous.  The larger portion of it was on the opposite side of the Chickahominy.  The bridges had been all destroyed; but one was rebuilt—­the New Bridge—­which was commanded fully by the enemy’s guns from Goulding’s; and there were but twenty-five thousand men between his army of one hundred thousand and Richmond....  Had McClellan massed his whole force in column, and advanced it against any point of our line of battle, as was done at Austerlitz under similar circumstances by the greatest captain of any age, though the head of his column would have suffered greatly, its momentum would have insured him success, and the occupation of our works about Richmond, and consequently the city, might have been his reward.  His failure to do so is the best evidence that our wise commander fully understood the character of his opponent.”

To this portion of General Magruder’s report General Lee appended the following “Remarks” in forwarding it: 

“General Magruder is under a misapprehension as to the separation of troops operating on the north side of the Chickahominy from those under himself and General Huger on the south side.  He refers to this subject on pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, of his report.

“The troops on the two sides of the river were only separated until we succeeded in occupying the position near what is known as New Bridge, which occurred before twelve o’clock M. on Friday, June 27th, and before the attack on the enemy at Gaines’s Mill.

“From the time we reached the position referred to, I regarded communication between the two wings of our army as reestablished.

“The bridge referred to, and another about three-quarters of a mile above, were ordered to be repaired before noon on Friday, and the New Bridge was sufficiently rebuilt to be passed by artillery on Friday night, and the one above it was used for the passage of wagons, ambulances, and troops, early on Saturday morning.