his life, perhaps for the only time, to be disturbed.  The truth is that Mr. Lincoln was a sure and safe, almost an infallible thinker, when he had time given him; but he was not always a quick thinker, and on this occasion he was driven to think quickly.  In consequence he not only erred in repudiating the opinions of the best military advisers, but even upon the basis of his own views he made a mistake.  The very fact that he was so energetic in the endeavor to “trap” Jackson in retreat indicates his understanding of the truth that Jackson had so small a force that his prompt retreat was a necessity.  This being so, he was in the distinct and simple position of making a choice between two alternatives, viz.:  either to endeavor to catch Jackson, and for this object to withhold what was needed by and had been promised to McClellan for his campaign against Richmond; or, leaving Jackson to escape with impunity, to pursue with steadiness that plan which it was Jackson’s important and perfectly understood errand to interrupt.  It is almost incredible that he chose wrong.  The statement of the dilemma involved the decision.  Yet he took the little purpose and let the great one go.  Nor even thus did he gain this lesser purpose.  He had been warned by McDowell that Jackson could not be caught, and he was not.  Yet even had this been otherwise, the Northerners would have got little more than the shell while losing the kernel.  Probably Richmond, and possibly the Southern army, fell out of the President’s hand while he tried without success to close it upon Jackson and 15,000 men.

The result of this civilian strategy was that McClellan, with his projects shattered, was left with his right wing and rear dangerously exposed.  Jackson remained for a while a mysterious bete noire, about whose force, whereabouts, and intentions many disturbing rumors flew abroad; at last, on June 26, he settled these doubts in his usual sharp and conclusive way by assailing the exposed right wing and threatening the rear of the Union army, thus achieving “the brilliant conclusion of the operations which [he] had so successfully conducted in the Valley of Virginia.”

Simultaneously with the slipping of Jackson betwixt his two pursuers on May 31, General Johnston made an attack upon the two corps[22] which lay south of the Chickahominy, in position about Seven Pines and Fair Oaks.  Battle was waged during two days.  Each side claimed a victory; the Southerners because they had inflicted the heavier loss, the Northerners because ultimately they held their original lines and foiled Johnston’s design of defeating and destroying the Northern army in detail.  The result of this battle ought to have proved to McClellan two facts:  that neither in discipline nor in any other respect were the Southern troops more formidable than his own; also that the Southerners were clearly not able to overwhelm him with such superior numbers as he had supposed; for in two days they had not been able