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JEB STUART.

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question. While other leaders dressed soberly, as befitting the times, Stuart wore the gayest of costumes: his gray uniform was resplendent with buttons and gold braid, his brown felt hat was looped up with a golden star and ornamented with a black ostrich plume, his waist was bound with a yellow silken sash, his buff gauntlets reached to the elbow, and his spurs were of pure gold. Stuart loved horses and dogs: he was always well mounted, and gave his steeds fanciful names, such as Skylark and Star of the East, and his two setters, Nip and Tuck, shared his tent and his rations. He had a great love for music, and kept with him, whether in tent or field, a banjo player, who was frequently called upon to strum his instrument, Stuart

himself often joining in the chorus with uproarious merriment. Many people thought this was undignified, but Stuart never played until business was done, and no one could complain that he ever shirked a duty for pleasure. John Esten Cooke, a Virginian writer, tells of him that he never drank intoxicating liquors, never uttered an oath, nor permitted any profanity at

his quarters, and carried his mother's Bible on his person wherever he went.

Such was the man whom General Lee chose for this dangerous duty, afterward known as the "ride around McClellan." Stuart started on the night of June 12, with twelve hundred cavalry and two pieces of horse artillery. He rode north from Richmond, and swept round in McClellan's rear until he reached Hanover Old Church, where he dispersed some Union cavalry and burned their camp, losing one of his captains in the fight. This was as far as General Lee had ordered him to go, but the alarm had been given and he was confident that a large force would be sent to cut him off. Stuart saw only one way of es

cape-to ride entirely round McClellan's army, running the risk of meeting large bodies of the enemy. A friend afterward said to him: "If the enemy had come down on you, you would have had to surrender.”

66

"O no," he replied,
"What was that?"

"To die game.

"there was one other course left."

His mind once made up, Stuart rode on, burning wagons and army stores and capturing prisoners and horses, until at last the Chickahominy was reached below McClellan's lines. But the river was flooded and the ford where he hoped to cross was impassable. The enemy were expected behind every minute, and no time was to be lost. The men were half dead for want of sleep, for they had ridden all night long, but Stuart, never despairing, turned the column down stream, where there was an old bridge. Alas! the bridge was gone, and only the stone abutments were left to show where it had been. An old store-house stood near. Stuart ordered it torn down, and in a few minutes the men were laying its beams on the abutments and covering them with its planks, the General himself working as hard as any one. Thus a bridge strong enough for the horses and artillery was built and the stream safely crossed. Just as the rear guard disappeared in the swamp on the other side, a body of mounted "blue-birds," as the Confederates sometimes called the Union troops, galloped down to the bank of the river and gave the "gray-backs" a parting salute with their rifles. But Stuart had escaped, and on Sunday night, June 15, he reached Richmond and gave General Lee valuable information which resulted in his attacking General McClellan on the north side of the Chickahominy.

Lee's idea in crossing the river was to cut off McClellan from his base of supplies. The reader will remember that the expectation of being joined by General McDowell from Fredericksburg had caused McClellan to make his depot of supplies at West Point, on the York River. This was afterward changed to White House, a place further up, on the Pamunkey River, and on the line of the Richmond and York River Railroad. This place was so called from the White House, the home at the beginning of the war of part of the family of General Lee. It stood on the site of a dwelling of the same name in which

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once lived Mrs. Martha Custis, afterward Mrs. George Washington, and the marriage of the illustrious pair took place beneath its roof. Mrs. Robert E. Lee, who was the greatgranddaughter of Mrs. Washington, left the White House on the approach of the Union army. McClellan had gathered at this place great quantities of provisions and ammunition, which were carried from there to the Chickahominy in wagons. was some of the wagons engaged in this work which Stuart had burned in his raid, and Lee saw that if he could cut off McClellan entirely from White House, he would have him at his mercy.

To deceive the authorities at Washington, and to keep them from sending troops to McClellan, General Lee sent reinforcements to Jackson, taking care to let it be known; but at the same time he ordered Jackson to march as rapidly as possible to his aid, and before it was known that he had left the Shenandoah Valley, Jackson had reached Ashland, twelve miles from Richmond, with twenty-five thousand men. This brought General Lee's forces up to about ninety thousand men, or not quite as many as in the Union army arrayed against him.

Stonewall Jackson's victories in the Valley had won him great renown and everybody was anxious to see him, but he was so modest and retiring in his habits that he shunned the public. gaze; and his dress was generally so shabby that many did not know him even when he did appear riding awkwardly along on his old sorrel horse. It is said that once, about the time he joined Lee's army, he was riding with some of his officers through a field of oats. The owner, seeing the trespassers, ran

after them in a rage, and angrily addressing Jackson demanded. his name, that he might report him at headquarters.

"Jackson is my name, sir," replied the general quietly. "What Jackson?" inquired the farmer.

"General Jackson."

"What! Stonewall Jackson!" exclaimed the man in astonishment.

"That is what they call me," replied Jackson.

"General," said the man, taking off his hat, "ride over my

whole field. Do whatever you like with it, sir."

CHAPTER XXII.

SEVEN DAYS' FIGHT.

LEE ATTACKS MCCLELLAN.-BEAVER DAM CREEK.-BATTLE OF MECHANICSVILLE.-A CHANGE OF BASE-BATTLE OF GAINES'S MILLS.-GENERAL MCCALL'S ESCAPE.-MCCLELLAN'S RETREAT TO THE JAMES RIVER. THE WHITE OAK SWAMP.-BATTLE OF SAVAGE'S STATION.BATTLE OF FRAZIER'S FARM.-MCCALL A PRISONER.-BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL-MCCLELLAN AT HARRISON'S LANDING.-END OF THE SEVEN DAYS' FIGHT.-DEPARTURE OF THE FRENCH PRINCES.-PRESIDENT LINCOLN VISITS MCCLELLAN.-THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE VOLUNTEERS.

A$

S soon as Jackson arrived, General Lee, leaving about twenty-eight thousand men, under Magruder and Huger, to guard the defences around Richmond, crossed the Chickahominy above McClellan's army, with about thirty-five thousand men under the two Hills and Longstreet. His plan was to join. Jackson, which would increase his force to sixty thousand men, and then to attack Porter, who had only about thirty thousand men, the rest of McClellan's army being the other side of the river, getting ready to advance toward Richmond. Jackson was delayed a day, and after waiting till about four o'clock in the afternoon of June 26 for him, the Confederates made an attack on Porter, whose corps was strongly posted behind earthworks on the bank of a little stream called Beaver Dam Creek. Every effort was made to storm this position, but the Union troops, fighting behind their defences, on which were mounted large siege guns, repelled every attack, and at night the Confederates retired with a loss of more than three thousand men, while Porter's loss was only as many hundred. This battle, the first of the famous seven days' fight before Richmond, is sometimes called the battle of Beaver Dam Creek, and sometimes that of Mechanicsville, because it was not far from the village of that

name.

Some writers think that McClellan ought to have crossed the Chickahominy with the rest of his troops as soon as Lee showed that he was trying to get between him and White House, and marched directly against Richmond, which might have easily fallen into his hands. He would thus have crushed Magruder's force and cut off Lee from his supplies, which he

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drew from Richmond, after which he would have stood a good chance of defeating him. But McClellan, who believed that Richmond was held by a very large force, says he did not have provisions enough for such a movement, and so he decided to "change his base" to the James River-that is, to move his army across to the James, so that his provisions could be sent to him by that river instead of by the York, from which Lee was cutting him off. But this was a very difficult thing to do, for Porter's corps had to be taken across the Chickahominy in the face of an ever watchful enemy.

On the night following the battle of Mechanicsville most of the heavy guns and the wagons were carried from Beaver Dam across the river, and in the morning the troops fell back to a new position on a range of low hills between Cold Harbor and the Chickahominy. The object of this was to keep back the enemy long enough to give time to save the stores and to cross the river by the bridges, which were just behind. The Confederates followed Porter closely, but he had taken a firm stand on the hills before they attacked him, they having waited for Stonewall Jackson to come up. About two o'clock in the afternoon, A. P. Hill began the battle on the right of the Union line, but many of his troops being men who had never been under fire before, he was repulsed after a fight of two hours and driven back with great loss. Longstreet then attacked on the Union left, and Stonewall Jackson and D. H. Hill coming up an attack was made all along the line. General McClellan had sent to Porter all the reinforcements he could spare, but Magruder, who commanded the Confederate troops on the Richmond side, made a great show of moving his troops from one place to another, and the Union generals on that side, thinking that he had a very much larger force than he really had, and not knowing when he was going to attack, were afraid to let many of their men go. So it happened that Magruder with only twenty-eight thousand men kept in check seventy thousand Union troops on one side of the Chickahominy, while Lee with sixty thousand men fought thirty-five thousand Union troops on the other side. At last, when all the Confederates attacked at once, Jackson stormed the height on the Union left, capturing fourteen pieces of artillery. The Union line began to give way at all points, and the soldiers retreated in much confusion