August 6, 1862

August 6, 1862:  In answer to Gen. McClellan’s letter requesting reinforcements and protesting the order to withdraw from the Peninsula, Gen. Halleck offers a carefully reasoned and patient argument as to why the Army of the Potomac’s continued presence on the James Peninsula could only jeoparize the Union cause.  Halleck savvily uses some of Little Mac’s own arguments (and his chronic over-estimation of Rebel numbers) against him in doing so:

. . . I assure you, general, it was not a hasty and inconsiderate act, but one that caused me more anxious thought than any other of my life. But after full and mature consideration of all the pros and cons, I was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the order must be issued. There was to my mind no alternative.
    Allow me to allude to a few facts in the case. You and your officers at our interview estimated the enemy's forces in and around Richmond at 200,000 men. Since then you and others report that they have received and are receiving large re-enforcements from the South. General Pope's army now covering Washington is only 40,000. Your effective force is only about 90,000. You are 30 miles from Richmond and General Pope 80 or 90, with the enemy directly between you, ready to fall with his superior numbers upon one or the other, as he may elect. Neither can re-enforce the other in case of such an attack. If General Pope's army be diminished to re-enforce you, Washington, Maryland, and Pennsylvania would be left uncovered and exposed. If your force be reduced to strengthen Pope, you would be too weak to even hold the position you now occupy should the enemy turn around and attack you in full force. In other words, the Army of the Potomac is split into two parts, with the entire force of the enemy directly between them. They cannot be united by land without exposing both to destruction, and yet they must be united. . . . The only alternative is to send the forces on the Peninsula to some point by water, say Fredericksburg, where the two armies can be united.
    Let me now allude to some of the objections which you have urged. You say that to withdraw from the present position will cause the certain demoralization of the army, "which is now in excellent discipline and condition." I cannot understand why a simple change of position to a new, and by no means distant, base will demoralize an army in excellent discipline, unless the officers themselves assist in that demoralization, which I am satisfied they will not. Your change of front from your extreme right at Hanover Court-House to your present position was over 30 miles, but I have not heard that it demoralized your troops, notwithstanding the severe losses they sustained in effecting it.
    A new base on the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg brings you within about 60 miles of Richmond, and secures a re-enforcement of 40,000 or 50,000 fresh and disciplined troops. The change with such advantages will, I think, if properly represented to your army, encourage rather than demoralize your troops. . . .

   But you will reply, why not re-enforce me here, so that I can strike Richmond from my present position? To do this you said at our interview that you required 50,000 additional troops. I told you that it was impossible to give you so many. . . . To keep your army in its present position until it could be so re-enforced would almost destroy it in that climate. The months of August and September are almost fatal to whites who live on that part of James River.
    And even after you got the re-enforcements asked for, you admitted that you must reduce Fort Darling and the river batteries before you could advance on Richmond. It is by no means certain that the reduction of these fortifications would not require considerable time, perhaps as much as those at Yorktown. This delay might not only be fatal to the health of your army, but in the mean time General Pope's forces wold be exposed to the heavy blows of the enemy, without the slightest hope of assistance from you.

By referring to Pope’s army as part of the “Army of the Potomac,” it should have encouraged McClellan that he would have overall command of the united armies, but we shall see that as McClellan’s troops are shipped farther north, that they will be added piecemeal to Pope’s army, under the exigencies of the developing campaign in northern Virginia.

---John Beauchamp Jones, clerk in the Confederate War Department, writes in his journal:

AUGUST 6TH.—Jackson is making preparations to fight. I know the symptoms. He has made Pope believe he’s afraid of him.

—The Richmond Daily Dispatch publishes this story with a humor and a little pathos about the lack of basic equipment for Confederate troops:

In the Wrong clothes.

Detective J. W. Goodrick arrested yesterday, on Main street, a man clothed in a complete Yankee uniform, the knapsack denoting the fact that the owner belonged to the “10th Mass. Vols.” On being accosted, the man pulled out a passport, by which it appeared he was a member of a Georgia regiment, in search of the Transportation office. He said he had captured the clothes in battle, and being better than his own, he had put them on. The officer let him go, but advised him to procure another suit as soon as possible.

—In the ongoing court-martial of Gen. Richard Garnett, Stonewall Jackson prefers charges against Garnett for dereliction of duty and insubordination, for retreating too soon at the Battle of Kernstown in March.  Garnett defends himself with a spirited line of argument, pointing out that his officers all agreed that Garnett’s brigade stayed too long, not too short.  Not knowing Jackson’s plans meant that Garnett had no orders at the time, whether to stay or retreat.  Jackson’s case flags.

—In her journal, Sarah Morgan of Baton Rouge, who had fled across the Mississippi a few days earlier in anticipation of the impending Confederate attack, details how she and her sisters and friends discover the eventual Southern defeat, and personally witness the end of the mighty CSS Arkansas:

Presently came tidings that all the planters near Baton Rouge were removing their families and negroes, and that the Yankees were to shell the whole coast, from there up to here. Then Phillie, Lilly (Nolan), and I jumped in — the carriage that was still waiting, and ran after the others to bring them back before they got in danger; but when we reached the end of the long lane, we saw them standing on the high levee, wringing their hands and crying. We sprang out and joined them, and there, way at the bend, lay the Arkansas on fire! All except myself burst into tears and lamentations, and prayed aloud between their sobs. I had no words or tears; I could only look at our sole hope burning, going, and pray silently. Oh, it was so sad! Think, it was our sole dependence! And we five girls looked at her as the smoke rolled over her, watched the flames burst from her decks, and the shells as they exploded one by one beneath the water, Coming up in jets of steam. And we watched until down the road we saw crowds of men toiling along toward us. Then we knew they were those who had escaped, and the girls sent up a shriek of pity.

On they came, dirty, half-dressed, some with only their guns, others, a few, with bundles and knapsacks on their backs, grimy and tired, but still laughing. We called to the first, and asked if the boat were really afire; they shouted, “Yes,” and went on, talking still. Presently one ran up and told us the story. How yesterday their engine had broken, and how they had labored all day to repair it; how they had succeeded, and had sat by their guns all night; and this morning, as they started to meet the Essex, the other engine had broken; how each officer wrote his opinion that it was impossible to fight her with any hope of success under such circumstances, and advised the Captain to abandon her; . . . Several of the crew were around us then, and up and down the road they were scattered still in crowds.

, . . . so I rushed down a levee twenty feet high, saying, “O Mr. Read! You won’t recognize me, but I am Jimmy’s sister!” He blushed modestly, shook my hand as though we were old friends, and assured me he remembered me, was glad to meet me, etc. Then Miriam came down and talked to him, and then we went to the top of the levee where the rest were, and watched the poor Arkansas burn. . . .

After a while the men were ordered to march up the lane, . . . But long after they left, we stood with our new friends on the levee watching the last of the Arkansas, and saw the Essex, and two gunboats crowded with men, cautiously turn the point, and watch her burn. . . . We saw them go back as cautiously, and I was furious, knowing the accounts they would publish of what we ourselves had destroyed. We had seen many shells explode, and one magazine, and would have waited for the other, if the clouds had not threatened rain speedily. But we had to leave her a mere wreck, still burning, and started off on our long walk.