5000 men, the effective remnant of Shields’ division, besides several new regiments, were sent to the Peninsula from the army protecting Washington.  General Burnside, who had mastered a portion of the North Carolina coast, was ordered to suspend operations, to leave a garrison in New Berne, and to bring the remainder of his army to Fortress Monroe.  Troops were demanded from General Hunter, who had taken the last fort which defended Savannah, the port of Georgia.* (* The forces under Burnside and Hunter amounted to some 35,000 men.) The Western army of the Union was asked to reinforce McClellan, and Lincoln called on the Northern States for a fresh levy.  But although 300,000 men were promised him, the discouragement of the Northern people was so great that recruits showed no alacrity in coming forward.  The South, on the other hand, ringing with the brilliant deeds of Lee and Jackson, turned with renewed vigour to the task of resisting the invader.  Richmond, the beleaguered capital, although the enemy was in position not more than twenty miles away, knew that her agony was over.  The city was one vast hospital.  Many of the best and bravest of the Confederacy had fallen in the Seven Days, and the voice of mourning hushed all sound of triumph.  But the long columns of prisoners, the captured cannon, the great trains of waggons, piled high with spoil, were irrefragable proof of the complete defeat of the invader.

When the army once more encamped within sight of the city it was received as it deserved.  Lee and Jackson were the special objects of admiration.  All recognised the strategic skill which had wrought the overthrow of McClellan’s host; and the hard marches and sudden blows of the campaign on the Shenandoah, crowned by the swift transfer of the Valley army from the Blue Ridge to the Chickahominy, took fast hold of the popular imagination.  The mystery in which Jackson’s operations were involved, the dread he inspired in the enemy, his reticence, his piety, his contempt of comfort, his fiery energy, his fearlessness, and his simplicity aroused the interest and enthusiasm of the whole community.  Whether Lee or his lieutenant was the more averse to posing before the crowd it is difficult to say.  Both succeeded in escaping all public manifestation of popular favour; both went about their business with an absolute absence of ostentation, and if the handsome features of the Commander-in-Chief were familiar to the majority of the citizens, few recognised in the plainly dressed soldier, riding alone through Richmond, the great leader of the Valley, with whose praises not the South only, but the whole civilised world, was already ringing.

CHAPTER 2.15.  CEDAR RUN.

The victories in the Valley, the retreat of Banks, Shields, and Fremont, followed by the victory of Gaines’ Mill, had raised the hopes of the South to the highest pitch.