..."
"By delay, the enemy will relatively gain upon you--that is, he will
gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by
reinforcements alone. And once more let me tell you it is indispensable
to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do
me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in
search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only
shifting and not surmounting a difficulty; that we would find the same
enemy and the same or equal intrenchments at either place. The country
will not fail to note--is noting now--that the present hesitation to
move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated."
General McClellan's expectations in coming to the Peninsula, first, that
he would find few or no rebel intrenchments, and, second, that he would
be able to make rapid movements, at once signally failed. On the
afternoon of the second day's march he came to the first line of the
enemy's defenses, heavy fortifications at Yorktown on the York River,
and a strong line of intrenchments and dams flooding the Warwick River,
extending to an impassable inlet from James River. But the situation was
not yet desperate. Magruder, the Confederate commander, had only eleven
thousand men to defend Yorktown and the thirteen-mile line of the
Warwick.
Pages:
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385