nded Lee's conference at the same place, Richmond. The Valley
Army was then on its thirty-mile march from Frederick's Hall to
Ashland, where it arrived on the twenty-fifth, fifteen miles north.

McClellan had over a hundred thousand men. Lee had less than ninety
thousand, even after Jackson had joined him. To attack McClellan's
strongly fortified front, with its almost impregnable flanks, would
have been suicide. But McClellan's farther right, commanded by that
excellent officer, FitzJohn Porter, lay north of the Chickahominy,
with its own right open for junction with McDowell. So Lee, knowing
McClellan and the state of this Federal right, decided on the
twenty-fourth to attack Porter and threaten McClellan's communications
not only with McDowell to the north but with White House, the Federal
base twenty miles northeast. This was an exceedingly bold move,
first, because McClellan had plenty of men to take Richmond during
Lee's march north, secondly, because it meant the convergence of
separate forces on the field of battle (Jackson being at Ashland,
fifteen miles from Richmond) and, thirdly, because the Confederates
were inferior in armament and in supplies of all kinds as well
as in actual numbers. Magruder, who had held the Yorktown lines
so cleverly with such inferior forces, was to hold Richmond (on
both sides of the James) with thirty-five thousand men against
McClellan's seventy-five thousand, while Lee and Jackson converged
on Porter's twenty-five thousand with over fifty thousand.

Then followed the famous Seven Days, beginning on the twenty-sixth
of June near the signpost at the Mechanicsville bridge--TO RICHMOND
4-1/2 MILES--and ending at Harrison's Landing on the second of July.
On the twenty-sixth the attack was made with consummate strategic
skill. But it was marred by bad staff work, by the great obstructions
in Jackson's path, and by A. P. Hill's premature attack with ten
thousand men against Porter's admirable front at Beaver Dam Creek.
Hill's men moved down their own side of the little valley in dense
masses till every gun and rifle on Porter's side was suddenly unmasked.
No scythe could have mowed the leading Confederates better. Two
thousand went down in the first few minutes, and the rest at once
retreated.

Porter fell back on Gaines's Mill, where, after being reinforced,
he took up a strong position on the twenty-seventh. Again there
was failure in combining the attack. Jackson found obstruction