into the most active and decisive use.  Not a gun remained unemployed:  not one could have been safely spared.” (Hunt’s Report, O.R. volume 11 part 2 page 239.)) Nor had McClellan much confidence in his army.  “My men,” he wrote to Washington on the morning of the battle, “are completely exhausted, and I dread the result if we are attacked to-day by fresh troops.  If possible, I shall retire to-night to Harrison’s Landing, where the gunboats can render more aid in covering our position.  Permit me to urge that not an hour should be lost in sending me fresh troops.  More gunboats are much needed...I now pray for time.  My men have proved themselves the equals of any troops in the world, but they are worn out.  Our losses have been very great, we have failed to win only because overpowered by superior numbers."* (* O.R. volume 11 part 3 page 282.)

Surely a more despairing appeal was never uttered.  The general, whose only thought was “more gunboats and fresh troops,” whatever may have been the condition of his men, had reached the last stage of demoralisation.

The condition to which McClellan was reduced seems to have been realised by Jackson.  The crushing defeat of his own troops failed to disturb his judgment.  Whilst the night still covered the battle-field, his divisional generals came to report the condition of their men and to receive instructions.  “Every representation,” says Dabney, “which they made was gloomy.”  At length, after many details of losses and disasters, they concurred in declaring that McClellan would probably take the aggressive in the morning, and that the Confederate army was in no condition to resist him.  Jackson had listened silently, save when he interposed a few brief questions, to all their statements; but now he replied:  “No; he will clear out in the morning.”

July 2.

The forecast was more than fulfilled.  When morning dawned, grey, damp, and cheerless, and the Confederate sentinels, through the cold mist which rose from the sodden woods, looked out upon the battle-field, they saw that Malvern Hill had been abandoned.  Only a few cavalry patrols rode to and fro on the ground which had been held by the Federal artillery, and on the slopes below, covered with hundreds of dead and dying men, the surgeons were quietly at work.  During the night the enemy had fallen back to Harrison’s Landing, and justification for Lee’s assault at Malvern Hill may be found in the story of the Federal retreat.  The confusion of the night march, following on a long series of fierce engagements, told with terrible effect on the moral of the men, and stragglers increased at every step.  “It was like the retreat,” said one of McClellan’s generals, “of a whipped army.  We retreated like a parcel of sheep, and a few shots from the rebels would have panic-stricken the whole command."* (* Report on the Conduct of the War page 580.  General Hooker’s evidence.) At length, through blinding rain, the flotilla