you would withdraw to-morrow night,
takes us by surprise and must involve enormous losses, including
unfinished gunboats. Will the safety of your army allow more time?

"Jefferson Davis."

Johnston had retreated from his base at Manassas with absurd haste,
burning enormous stores and supplies of which the Confederacy was in
desperate need. The losses now occasioned by his hasty withdrawal from
Yorktown were even more serious.

The destruction of the iron-clad which had smashed the Federal fleet in
Hampton Roads sent a shiver of horror throughout the South.

* * * * *

The fiery trial through which Davis was passing brought out the finest
traits of his strong character.

He had received ample warning that one of the first places marked for
destruction by the Federal fleet passing up the Mississippi River was
his home "Briarfield." He refused to send troops to defend it. His house
was sacked, his valuable library destroyed, the place swept bare of his
fine blooded stock and the negroes deported by force.

To his wife he wrote:

"You will see the notice of the destruction of our home. If our cause
succeeds we shall not mourn our personal deprivation; if it should
not, why--'the deluge.' I hope I shall be able to provide for the
comfort of the old negroes."

Uncle Bob and Aunt Rhinah had been roughly handled by Butler's men. The
foragers utterly refused to believe them when they told of their
master's kindness in giving them piles of blankets. They were roughly
informed that they had stolen them from the house and their treasures
were confiscated amid the lamentations of the aged couple. The two
precious rocking chairs were left them but of blankets and linens they
were stripped bare.

* * * * *

With Johnston's army in retreat toward Richmond, his rear guard of but
twelve thousand men under General McGruder had demonstrated the wisdom
of Davis' position that the Peninsula could be successfully defended.
McGruder's little army held McClellan at bay for nearly thirty days. He
was dislodged from his position with terrible slaughter of the Union
forces. McClellan's army lost two thousand two hundred and seventy-five
men in this encounter, McGruder less than a thousand. Had Johnston
concentrated his fifty thousand men on this line McClellan would never
have taken it, and the only iron-clad the South possessed might have
been saved.