THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
York Rivers, and that Johnston had hastily removed his forces for the defense of the Capital of the Confederacy. But this fiction has been thoroughly exposed by the documents contained in the Confederate archives, which show conclusively that the rebel force in front of McClellan, instead of outnumbering the Union army opposed to it, was not even half as strong, was ill disciplined, and poorly provided; that it stood in constant dread of an attack by the overwhelmingly superior force of the Army of the Potomac, while McClellan apprehended the coming of an overwhelming attack from the Confederate army; and that, as, in spite of McClellan's hesitancy, he was bound to attack in the spring, it was deemed wise to evacuate a position considered untenable against McClellan's great host. There was a burst of grim laughter all over the country when it was reported that, in the fortifications abandoned by the Confederates, so-called “quaker-guns” were found—logs of wood that had been painted so as to resemble heavy cannon—and that our army had stood still, awed by that formidable artillery frowning down upon it from the hostile breastworks!
General McClellan had hardly started on his Peninsular campaign when he stopped again for weeks before a long line of rebel entrenchments defended by a small force which might have been easily broken through by a resolute attack. And then his morbid delusion began again that the enemy greatly outnumbered him on the field of operations, and he vociferously complained that he had not men enough; that the naval forces did not co-operate with him, and that the government withheld from him the necessary support—while in fact his forces were vastly superior in strength to those of the enemy in his front, and he might have triumphantly executed his plan, which originally was in itself not a bad one, had he made prompt, resolute, and vigorous use of his time and his means.
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