ia campaign, where he first came in contact with
McClellan, being looked upon as an invader rather than a friend, Lee had
scant success. Some therefore called him a "mere historic name,"
"Letcher's pet," a "West Pointer," no fighting general. He went to South
Carolina to supervise the repair and building of coast fortifications
there, and it was no doubt in large part owing to his engineering skill
then applied that Charleston, whose sea-door the Federals incessantly
pounded from the beginning, probably wasting there more powder and iron
than at all other points together, was captured only at the end of the
war and then from the land side. In March, 1862, General Lee again
became President Davis's military adviser.

But though thus in relative obscurity, Lee was not forgotten. President
Davis knew his man and knew that his hour would come. When, in May,
1862, the vast Federal army stood almost at Richmond's gates, Albert
Sidney Johnston being dead and Joseph E. Johnston lying wounded, the
Confederacy lifted up its voice and called Robert E. Lee to assume
command upon the Chickahominy front. This he did on June 1, 1862.

The Confederates' ill-success on the second day of the Fair Oaks battle
was to them a blessing in disguise. It put McClellan at his ease, giving
Lee time to accomplish three extremely important ends. He could rest and
recruit his army, fortify the south of Richmond with stout works, a
detail which had not been attended to before, and send Stonewall Jackson
down the valley of Virginia, so frightening the authorities in
Washington that they dared not re-enforce McClellan.

Brilliant victory resulted. Leaving only 25,000 men between his capital
and his foe, Lee, on June 26, threw the rest across the upper
Chickahominy and attacked the Federal right. Fighting terribly at
Mechanicsville and Gaines's Mill, A.P. Hill and Jackson, the latter
having made forced marches from the Shenandoah to join in the movement,
pushed back Fitz-John Porter's corps across the Chickahominy, sundering
McClellan entirely from his York River base. The Union army was now
nearer Richmond than the bulk of Lee's, which was beyond the
Chickahominy, at that time none too easily crossed. Had McClellan been
Lee or Grant or Sherman he would have made a dash for Richmond. But he
was McClellan, and Lee knew perfectly well that he would attempt nothing
so bold. Retreat was the Northerner's thought, and he did retreat--in
good order, and hitti