force on the south bank of the Chickahominy, and found the maintenance of the line to White House difficult and useless. On June 16 Lee wrote to Jackson, "Unless McClellan can be driven out of his intrenchments, he will move by positions, under cover of his heavy guns, within shelling distance of Richmond." McClellan had set June 26 as the day for an advance; but on June 25, Jackson, coming from the Valley, began to drive in his pickets, threatening his right and rear on the left or north bank of the Chickahominy. The same day the Secretary of War telegraphed that neither Banks, Fremont, nor McDowell, knew anything about Jackson's position or purposes, and that possibly his destination might be Richmond. McClellan sent word to Washington that the crisis which he had anticipated so long and tried so earnestly to prevent had come, and warned the authorities not to be discouraged if his communications were cut off. "The case," he said, "is perhaps a difficult one, but I shall resort to desperate measures, and will do my best to out-manœuvre, out-wit, and out-fight the enemy." This hinted at the retreat to the James, which was determined upon at the close of the next day. Lee, leaving 25,000 men in front of the main body of the Army of the Potomac before Richmond, threw the mass of his forces, re-enforced by Jackson's army, on the single corps still holding the north bank of the Chickahominy and the line of communication with White House; McClellan, abandoning his old base on the Pamunkey, set his vast trains in motion for the new base on the James, and retreated almost directly southward. In this movement occurred what are known as the Seven Days' battles: Mechanicsville or Ellison's Mills, June 26; Gaines's Mill, June 27; Savage's Station, June 29; Allen's Farm or Peach Orchard, June 29; Glendale, or White Oak Swamp, or Frazier's Farm, June 30; Malvern Hill, July 1.

Though the moral effect of victory lay with the Confederates, and was emphasized by the subsequent withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac to Washington, they were successful in but one of these battles, Gaines's Mill. After that success, Lee lost a day through his error in supposing that McClellan was retreating northward up the Peninsula, so that to some extent, if not altogether, the latter made good his pledge to out-manœuvre, out-wit, and outfight the enemy. He has been censured for failing to throw his army, concentrated south of the Chickahominy, upon Richmond, June 28, as well as for failing to advance on that city while the battle of Gaines's Mill was in progress on the north bank, June 27. It is known that he entertained such a project, but that none of his corps commanders approved of it. He has also been censured for failure to advance after the battle of Malvern Hill, as well as for failure to advance after the battle of Fair Oaks; and these criticisms have been strengthened by facts in regard to the condi

tion of the Confederates made known since the close of the war. From Savage's Station, June 28, McClellan sent to the Secretary of War his passionate protest against what he considered the failure of the Administration to support him properly. "If I save this army now," he said at the close, "I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons at Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army."

On July 3 the Army of the Potomac was in camp at Harrison's Landing, and the campaign was a failure in the eyes of the country. McClellan, with a smaller force than was subsequently put at the disposal of some of his successors, had encountered the most numerous Confederate army that ever took the field, and the greatest Confederate captains of the civil war. He had shown strategical and tactical ability of a high order, and personal qualities that gained and kept the love of his soldiers through every trial. But then, as afterward, he was misled by the secret service into grave errors as to the number of the enemy; and then, as afterward, he was too anxious to secure, before acting, every condition theoretically requisite to success, and too ready to assume a perfection of preparation on the part of the Confederate leader that was unattainable on his own. His fault as a soldier was in expecting things as they ought to be, and not taking them as he found them. Perhaps, too, he was not prodigal enough of human life and suffering for the game of war.

On July 7 he wrote to the President his wellknown letter from Harrison's Landing on the conduct of the war, which was not less political than military in its scope, and put him distinctly in antagonism to the prevailing sentiment of the party in power. In this letter he urged the policy of appointing a General-inChief; and on July 11 Gen. Halleck was selected for that position. In the interim the President had visited the army. On June 26 the armies of Banks, Fremont, and McDowell had been consolidated into the Army of Virginia, under command of Gen. Pope. On July 11 McClellan sent the President word that he was strong enough for all defensive purposes, and on July 17 he asked for Burnside's troops to enable him to resume the offensive. July 25 and 26 Halleck visited the Army of the Potomac and conferred with McClellan as to the amount of re-enforcements necessary for an advance, and concluding that sufficient troops were not available, he ordered, Aug. 3, the withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac from its position on James river. Meanwhile McClellan, obeying a previous order, had begun a reconnaissance, which, Aug. 5, was pushed beyond Malvern Hill. On Aug. 4 he sent a dispatch, protesting against the withdrawal of his army. Among other things, he said: "All points of secondary importance elsewhere should be abandoned, and every available man brought here; a decided victory

here, and the military strength of the rebellion is crushed. It matters not what partial reverses we may meet elsewhere; here is the true defense of Washington; it is here on the banks of the James that the fate of the Union should be decided." On Aug. 10 Halleck telegraphed, urging rapidity of movement, saying: "The enemy is crossing the Rapidan in large force. They are fighting Gen. Pope to-day." And on Aug. 12 McClellan replied that, if Washington was then in danger, his army could hardly arrive in time to save it. On Aug. 16 the whole Army of the Potomac was in motion on its return; and two days later McClellan telegraphed to Halleck, "Please say a kind word to my army that I can repeat to them in general orders," adding: "No one has ever said anything to cheer them but my self. Say nothing about e." No attention was paid to the request.

On Aug. 21 his headquarters were at Fortress Monroe; Aug. 24 he reported at Acquia creek, and Aug. 27 at Alexandria. He was afterward censured for not pushing forward troops from that place with sufficient promptness to succor Pope, who, during the four succeeding days, was in contact with Jackson and Lee; but he was there virtually without authority or responsibility, all of which Halleck had, and he could only act on the weak and testy dispatches which that officer was in the habit of sending, instead of orders. On the afternoon of Aug. 30 McClellan telegraphed to Halleck, "You now have every man of the Army of the Potomac within my reach." The same night he asked for permission to go to the front as a volunteer, that he might be with his own men. "If it is not deemed best," he said, "to intrust me with the command even of my own army, I simply ask to be permitted to share their fate on the battle-field." The request was put aside. The same day the War Department issued an order so defining his command as to leave him control of nothing but his own staff, a hundred men in camp at Alexandria, and a few at Fortress Monroe. He reminded Halleck of this fact, Aug. 31, in answer to some of that officer's directions about handling troops, and he was then told to take command of all the forces in the vicinity of the capital. Halleck added: "I beg of you to assist me in this crisis with your ability and experience. I am entirely tired out."

On Aug. 28, 29, and 30, and Sept. 1, occurred the battles of Gainsville, Groveton, Manassas, and Chantilly. On the day of the last action, McClellan was put in command of the defenses of Washington, and at the request of the President sent to Fitz-John Porter, under protest, the dispatch asking him to give "the fullest and most cordial co-operation to Gen. Pope," which was afterward used to discredit the loyalty of both sender and receiver. On Sept. 2 the President came to him at his house in Washington and instructed him to go out to meet the retreating army and take command

of it, committing everything to his hands. Under this indefinite verbal order the Army of Virginia was merged in the Army of the Potomac, probably reversing the design with which the latter was withdrawn from James river; and it was without further formal authority that McClellan made his last campaign.

On the afternoon of Sept. 2 he rode to the front, and was received with enthusiasm by the beaten and weary but undisheartened soldiers. On Sept. 3 the enemy disappeared from the neighborhood of the capital, with the design of crossing the upper Potomac into Maryland; and the same day McClellan began his countermovement, and by Sept. 7, when he left Washington for Rockville, the whole army, with the exception of a heavy force left under command of Banks to guard the capital, was on the march. By that time Lee had crossed the Potomac at Leesburg, and was concentrating at Frederick, Md., threatening Washington and Baltimore, but intending eventually to withdraw through the Blue Ridge into western Maryland, and threaten Pennsylvania while preserving a base in the Shenandoah Valley. He took it for granted that Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry would be evacuated, as a consequence of his movement, and when he found they were not, he issued orders, Sept. 9, sending Jackson back across the Potomac to attack Harper's Ferry from the southern side, and McLaws to attack it from the northern side, while the rest of the army was to concentrate at Boonesboro or Hagerstown. Jackson crossed into Virginia above Martinsburg, the garrison of which fell back to Harper's Ferry. McLaws moved through Pleasant Valley against Maryland Heights. On Sept. 13, while these generals were getting into position at Harper's Ferry, Lee's order of the 9th came into McClellan's hands, and he determined to advance rapidly through the mountains at Crampton's Gap and Turner's Gap, relieve Harper's Ferry, cut Lee's army in two, and beat it in detail. The conception was brilliant, and the scheme failed mainly through lack of an able or even stubborn resistance on the part of the garrison at Harper's Ferry. McClellan carried Crampton's Gap and Turuer's Gap, Sept. 14, by one of the most spirited combats of the war, the battle of South Mountain; but on the morning of Sept. 15 the garrison at Harper's Ferry surrendered, and Lee moved to Sharpsburg, taking up a line with his left on the bend of the Potomac at Mercersville, and his right on Antietam creek. Jackson made a night march, crossed the Potomac once more, and joined bim next day.

McLaws crossed to the south of the river at Harper's Ferry and followed Jackson, reaching the main army Sept. 17. That day McClellan attacked Lee and won the great battle of Antietam; and on the night of Sept. 18 the enemy retreated across the Potomac.

McClellan was blamed for the loss of Harper's Ferry, but he had urged the abandonment of that place before he left Washington and

subsequently, and was overruled. Finally, he pushed a column to its relief, and would have secured it and won a masterly position if the garrison had held out a few hours longer. He has also been censured for delay in beginning the attack at Antietam, and for failure to renew the battle, September 18th, instead of waiting for the 19th, as he resolved to do. It is true that prompter action before the battle might have had brilliant results; that he overrated the enemy's strength at all times; and that after the battle he forgot the shattered condition of Lee's forces in the consciousness of what his own had suffered. But his critics too often fail to remember that he was handling a defeated army, the battle-shaken elements of which he had gathered up two weeks before, and that he had to depend upon subordinates, not many of whom were equal to their responsibilities. No caviling about what he might have done should belittle the magnificent achievements of his brief campaign; and there is something curious in the indignation with which those who were trembling for the safety of the capital on the 2d of September saw Lee's defeated army escape across the Potomac. As early as Sept. 21 McClellan said in a dispatch to Halleck, who had been in dread of a flank movement on Washington from the beginning of Lee's advance: "I regret that you find it necessary to couch every dispatch I have the honor to receive from you in a spirit of faultfinding, and that you have not yet found leisure to say one word in commendation of the recent achievements of this army, or even allude to them." He spent more than a month in reorganizing, reclothing, and resting his army, and in trying to get horses for an effective cavalry force, while the authorities at Washington urged an advance. A visit from the President, Oct. 1, had given him confidence that he was to have his own way; but on Oct. 6, instructions were issued to cross the Potomac and drive the enemy southward. These orders he interpreted as giving him discretion in the matter of preparation; and it was not till Oct. 25 that he considered himself ready That day he addressed a letter to Halleck as General-in-Chief, in regard to the conduct of the impending campaign, and in answer that officer said: "Since you left Washington I have advised and suggested in relation to your movements, but I have given you no orders; I do not give you any now."

to move.

On Oct. 26 McClellan began the crossing of the Potomac, intending to move his army parallel with the Blue Ridge, making Warrenton the point of direction. He seized the passes into the Shenandoah Valley as he moved, and held them, so that if any strong force of the enemy remained in the north of the Valley, he might cross over in the rear of it; otherwise, his design was to strike between Culpeper Court-House and Little Washington, and either divide the forces of the enemy, or compel them to concentrate as far back as Gordonsville,

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leaving him free to advance on Richmond on the Fredericksburg line, or to move once more to the Peninsula. His progress after crossing the river was rapid and successful; but on the night of Nov. 7 he received orders to turn over the command of the army to Gen. Burnside, which he did at once, though its movements continued on the 8th and 9th under orders that he had already prepared.

His removal at such a time, to make way for the man that succeeded him, was an act for which there could be no justification on military grounds. It was doubtless due to some extent to the animosity of the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief, but reasons are not wanting for supposing that it was mainly owing to the hostility of leading Republican_politicians, and to political considerations. He was a Democrat, in direct antagonism to the prevailing sentiment of the party in power, and with a grievance against the Administration; his failure in the field would be as disastrous as that of another, while his success might prevent the abolition of slavery, and render probable a Democratic triumph under the lead of a military hero in the presidential election of 1864. Even under the cloud of removal, with every charge from incompetency to disloyalty made against him, and with the war still in progress, he proved a formidable presidential candidate.

In the winter of 1863 he visited Boston, and was presented with a sword. In June, 1864, he delivered the oration at the dedication of the West Point soldiers' monument. On Aug. 31, 1864, the Democratic National Convention assembled at Chicago nominated him as the candidate of the party for the presidency, by a vote of 202 to 23 for Thomas H. Seymour, who was regarded as the representative of the peace sentiment in the Democracy. The platform adopted by the convention was especially weak in the declaration in regard to the war, notwithstanding the nomination of a soldier; and in his letter of acceptance McClellan virtually set it aside, and spoke frankly and strongly for the prosecution of the war. He carried only three States-New Jersey, Kentucky, and Delaware-and received only 21. electoral votes to 212 cast for Lincoln; but his popular vote was 1,811,754 to 2,223,035. On election-day, Nov. 8, 1864, he resigned his commission in the army and went to reside in New York.

In the spring of 1865 he went to Europe. Returning in 1868, he took up his residence in Orange, N. J., but engaged in business as a civil engineer in the metropolis. He had supervision of the building of the Stevens battery, under the terms of its projector's will, until 1871; in 1870 he was made chief engineer of the Department of Docks in New York, and he held the place for two years. He also planned a railroad bridge across the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, which has not yet been built. He was one of many engineers who gave it as

their professional opinion that an underground railway in Broadway was practicable, and he was at various times President of the New York Underground Railroad, the United States Rolling Stock Company, and the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad. In March, 1877, he was nominated by Gov. Robinson as Superintendent of Public Works in New York State, but the nomination was not confirmed. On Sept. 19, 1877, he was nominated by the Democratic party of New Jersey as its candidate for Governor, and he was elected by a vote of 97,837 to 85,094 cast for the Republican candidate. His administration was one of the best in the history of the State. Up to the day of his death he was prominent in the business and social life of the metropolis. His last formal public appearance was at the Decoration-day ceremony on the battle-field of Antietam in 1885, when he delivered the oration. He died of neuralgia of the heart, after an illness of four hours, and was buried at Trenton, N. J.

Gen. McClellan was about five feet eight inches in height, neatly and compactly built, with strong shoulders supporting a large neck and a handsome head. His eyes were gray and clear, and his complexion ruddy. He wore a mustache and imperial, sandy colored in the days of the war, but silver-gray at the time of his death. His forehead was prominent, his nose good, and his whole face indicative of a strong and fine nature. He had in a rare degree the peculiar charm that wins the love and confidence of men. It was felt by all who came into personal contact with him in the closing years of his life, not less than by the mass of his soldiers, whose rolling cheers were wont to announce his coming along the lines. Though few men of his generation were more bitterly assailed, his achievements were great, his character beautiful, and his life blameless. He was the author of no book beyond those already mentioned, and the "Report on the Organization of the Army of the Potomac, and of its Campaigns in Virginia and Maryland," published in 1864; but he contributed several papers to the magazines, and was one of the best writers among the soldiers of the civil war.

McCLOSKEY, JOHN, an American prelate, born of Irish parentage in Brooklyn, N. Y., March 20, 1810; died in New York city, Oct. 10, 1885. At the time of his birth Brooklyn was a village of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, and New York was a city of fewer than 100,000; and there was neither Catholic priest nor Catholic church in the former, and only two priests and one church (St. Peter's) in the latter, though a second church (St. Patrick's Cathedral) was building. He was baptized by the Rev. Anthony Kohlman, who was acting as administrator of New York, which had been made a separate diocese two years before, but was then a vacant see. As a boy, the first American cardinal used to go down to the East river with his mother on Sundays, and

cross in a row-boat from Brooklyn to hear mass in New York. He was a lad of delicate constitution, and an accident, in which a log rolled over him, weakened his lungs, so that even in early manhood he did not expect to live beyond forty years of age, and made the very frailness of his life the excuse for spending it lavishly in the labors of the priesthood.

His parents were well-to-do, and in 1822 he was sent to school at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmettsburg, then in charge of its founder, the Rev. John Dubois, a school-fellow of Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, who be came third Bishop of New York in 1826. Young McCloskey was of gentle disposition and studious habits, and after a seven years' preparatory and collegiate course he entered the theologi cal department at Mount St. Mary's to prepare for the priesthood. Completing a seminary course of five years, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Dubois in the old cathedral, Jan. 12, 1834, being the eighteenth priest ordained in the Diocese of New York. The previous year the bishop had laid the corner-stone of a college and seminary at Nyack on the Hudson, and though the building was destroyed by fire and the project long delayed, it was not abandoned, and the young priest, with a view to fitting him for the presidency of such an institution, was allowed to go to Rome to continue his studies. Early in 1835 he entered the Gregorian College, where he spent two years, and he so contrived his slow return as to see something of the various countries of Europe, reaching home admirably endowed by nature and thoroughly equipped by education for the career he was to run. He was appointed, Nov. 1, 1837, pastor of St. Joseph's Church, corner of Washington place and Sixth avenue, the fifth in order of erection of the Catholic churches of the city. The parish was extensive, stretching from Bleecker street to Harlem, and the congregation was fresh from a serious quarrel with the former pastor arising out of the old trustee system; but Father McClos key entered upon his duties with cheerful enthusiasm. He is described as at that period bright-eyed and frail-looking, but indefatigable.

Bishop Hughes, who had been made coadjutor of Bishop Dubois in 1838, and administrator of the diocese in the following year, opened St. John's College, Fordham, June 24, 1841, and appointed Father McCloskey prestdent. He held the office about a year, and then returned to his parish-work. In 1843 Bishop Hughes asked for a coadjutor, and the Provincial Council, Nov. 23, nominated Father MeCloskey for the place, and he was consecrated, March 10, 1844, Bishop of Axieren, in partibus, and made coadjutor of the Diocese of New York with the right of succession, being then thirty-four years old. In 1847 the new sees of Albany and Buffalo were erected, and Bishop McCloskey was transferred to the former city, May 21, 1847. There he remained as bishop for seventeen years, laboring for the develop