ust held a most amazing conference with General
Johnston. You were afraid he would fight beyond the Chickahominy. He has
crossed the river, left its natural defenses unguarded, and has run all
the way to town without pause. I have told him to fight or get out of
the saddle. In my judgment he intends to back straight through the city
and abandon it without a blow. We must face the situation."

He turned to Lee. The question he was going to put to the man in whom he
had supreme confidence would test both his judgment and his character.
On his answer would hang his career. If it should be what the
Confederate Chief believed, Lee was the man of destiny and his hour had
struck.

"In case Johnston abandons Richmond," the President slowly began, "where
in your opinion, General Lee, is the next best line of defense?"

Lee's fine mouth was set for a moment. He spoke at first with
deliberation.

"As a military engineer, my answer is simple. The next best line of
defense would be at Staten River--but--"

He suddenly leaped to his feet, his eyes streaming with tears.

"Richmond must not be given up--it shall not be given up!"

Davis sprang to his side and clasped Lee's hand.

"So say I, General!"

From that moment the President and his chief military adviser lived on
Johnston's battle line, Lee ready at a moment's notice to spring into
the saddle and hurl his men against McClellan the moment Johnston should
falter.

The Commander was forced to a decision for battle. He could not allow
his arch enemy to remove him without a fight.

The retreat across the Chickahominy had given McClellan an enormous
advantage which his skillful eye saw at once. He threw two grand
divisions of his army across the river and pushed his siege guns up
within six miles of Richmond. His engineers immediately built
substantial bridges across the stream over which he could move in safety
his heaviest guns in any emergency, either for reenforcements or
retreat.

He swung his right wing far to the north in a wide circling movement
until he was in easy touch with McDowell's forty thousand men at
Fredericksburg.

McClellan was within sight of the consummation of his hopes. When this
wide movement of his army had been successfully made without an arm
lifted to oppose, he climbed a tall tree within sight of Richmond from
which he could view the magnificent panorama.

A solid wall of living blue with glittering bayonets and black-fanged
batteries