May 1, 1862

May 1, 1862:  On the James Peninsula in southeastern Virginia, McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, now recently reinforced and 112,000 strong, is having slow going in their progress up the peninsula.  For a month, McClellan has been preparing siege works in order to launch a huge bombardment of the Rebel forts at Yorktown when ready.  Joe Johnston faces the Yankees with only 57,000 men, and is outnumbered about 2 to 1.  But McClellan’s intelligence reports inflates Johnston’s force to 100,000, and defends his reluctance to attack with these reports.  McClellan’s plan for Yorktown calls for putting over 70 pieces of siege artillery into prepared locations:

--An exchange of letters between Pres. Lincoln and Gen. McClellan down on the Peninsula reveals the testy nature of their relationship, the micromanagement of Lincoln, and the condescending reticence of McClellan:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, May 1, 1862.
    Major-General McCLELLAN:
Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, chiefly because it argues it argues indefinite procrastination. Is anything to be done?
 
A. LINCOLN.
____________

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Camp Winfield Scott, May 1, 1862-9.30 p. M.
    His Excellency the PRESIDENT, Washington, D. C.:
I asked for the Parrot guns from Washington for the reason that some expected had been two weeks nearly on the way, and could not be heard from. They arrived last night. My arrangements had been made for them, and I thought time might be saved by getting others from Washington. My object was to hasten, not procrastinate. All is being done that human labor can accomplish.

G. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General.

---Union forces under George Morgan are sparring with Confederate troops at Cumberland Gap, under Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith.

---Three thousand troops under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler arrive by ship at New Orleans to bring the occupation of the city under a more stable basis.

---Sarah Morgan of Baton Rouge tells of her meeting with a longtime friend, Will Pinckney, who was in command of a regiment of Confederate troops as they retreated from New Orleans:

I was talking to a ghost. His was a sad story. He had held one bank of the river until forced to retreat with his men, as their cartridges were exhausted, and General Lovell omitted sending more. They had to pass through swamps, wading seven and a half miles, up to their waists in water. He gained the edge of the swamp, saw they were over the worst, and fell senseless. Two of his men brought him milk, and “woke him up,” he said. His men fell from exhaustion, were lost, and died in the swamp; so that out of five hundred, but one hundred escaped. This he told quietly and sadly, looking so heartbroken that it was piteous to see such pain.