those sturdy soldiers, who looked as jolly over the disaster as if it had really been a good joke.
The rebels were beginning to make some desperate assaults upon our outposts; they were driving in the advance pickets on our left wing, and making similar demonstrations along different parts of the line. They were evidently concentrating a large force behind their fortifications, and were determined to make a desperate resistance. Deserters came in bringing Pdchmond papers crowded with appeals to the Southern "chivalry," of which the following is a specimen:
"The next few days may decide the fate of Richmond. It is either to remain the Capital of the Confederacy, or to be turned over to the Federal Government as a Yankee conquest. The Capital is either to be secured or lost—it may be feared not temporarily, and with it Virginia. Then, if there is blood to be shed, let it be shed here; no soil of the Confederacy could drink it up more acceptably, and none would hold it more gratefully. Wife, family, and friends are nothing. Leave them all for one glorious hour to be devoted to the Republic. Life, death, and wounds are nothing if we only be saved from the fate of a captured and humiliated Confederacy. Let the Government act; let the people act. There is time yet. If fate comes to its worst, let the ruins of Richmond be its most lasting monument."
General McClellan's despatch to the War De-
