m Petersburg; a thousand men were killed and
wounded in the skirmishing of two days, but the Capital escaped by the
skin of its teeth.

Grant laconically remarked:

"If Early had been one day earlier he would have entered the Capital."

While he had not actually taken Washington, Lee's strategy was a
masterly stroke. He had cleared the Shenandoah Valley, which was his
granary, and enabled the farmers to reap their crops. He had showed the
world that his army was still so terrible a weapon that with it he could
hold Grant at bay, drive his enemy from the Valley, invade two Northern
States, burn their cities and destroy their railroads, and throw his
shells into Washington.

A wave of incredulous sickening despair swept the North. If this could
be done after three and a half years of blood and tears and two
billions of dollars spent, where could the end be?

Early had done in Washington what neither McDowell, McClellan, Pope,
Burnside, Hooker, Meade nor Grant had yet succeeded in doing for
Richmond--thrown shells into the city and taken a prisoner from its very
streets. Had he arrived a day earlier--in other words, had not Lew
Wallace's gallant little army of six thousand delayed him twenty-four
hours--he could have entered the city, raided the Treasury and burned
the Capitol.

Senator Winter was not slow to strike the blow for which he had been
eagerly waiting a favorable moment. He succeeded in detaching from the
President in this moment of panic a group of men who had stood squarely
for his nomination at Baltimore. He agreed to withdraw Fremont's name if
they would induce the President to withdraw and a new convention be
called.

So deep was the depression, so black the outlook, so certain was
McClellan's election, that the members of the National Republican
Executive Committee met and conferred with this Committee of traitors to
their Chief.

No more cowardly and contemptible proposition was ever submitted to the
chosen leader of a great party. It was not to be wondered at that Winter
and his Radical associates could stoop to it. They were theorists. To
them success was secondary. They would have gladly and joyfully damned
not only the Union--they would have damned the world to save their
theories. But that his own party leaders should come to him in such an
hour and ask him to withdraw cut the great patient heart to the quick.

He agreed to consider their humiliating proposition and give them an
answer in