ary of the Rappahannock, not fifty miles east
of Richmond. When he heard that Johnston had retreated further south,
he assumed, and ever after declared, that this was to anticipate his
design upon Urbana, which, he said, must have reached the enemy's ears
through the loose chattering of the Administration. As has been seen,
this was quite untrue. His project of going to Urbana was now changed,
by himself or the Government, upon the unanimous advice of his chief
subordinate generals, into a movement to Fort Monroe, which he had even
before regarded as preferable to a direct advance southwards. A few
days after Johnston's retreat, the War Department began the embarkation
of his troops for this point. Fort Monroe is at the end of the
peninsula which lies between the estuaries of the York River on the
north and the James on the south. Near the base of this projection of
land, seventy-five miles from Fort Monroe, stands Richmond. On April
2, 1862, McClellan himself landed to begin the celebrated Peninsula
Campaign which was to close in disappointment at the end of July.

Before the troops were sent to the Peninsula several things were to be
done. An expedition to restore communication westward by the Baltimore
and Ohio Rail way involved bridging the Potomac with boats which were
to be brought by canal. It collapsed because McClellan's boats were
six inches too wide for the canal locks. Then Lincoln had insisted
that the navigation of the lower Potomac should be made free from the
menace of Confederate batteries which, if McClellan would have
co-operated with the Navy Department, would have been cleared away long
before. This was now done, and though a new peril to the
transportation of McClellan's army suddenly and dramatically disclosed
itself, it was as suddenly and dramatically removed. In the hasty
abandonment of Norfolk harbour on the south of the James estuary by the
North, a screw steamer called the _Merrimac_ had been partly burnt and
scuttled by the North. On March 1 she steamed out of the harbour in
sight of the North. The Confederates had raised her and converted her
into an ironclad. Three wooden ships of the North gave gallant but
useless fight to her and were destroyed that day; and the news spread
consternation in every Northern port. On the very next morning there
came into the mouth of the James the rival product of the Northern Navy
Department and of the Swedish engineer Ericsson's invention.