on its being discovered that MacClellan's care and skill had completely united the two wings of his army, now on the opposite banks of the Chickahominy, by careful roadmaking and bridging, so that each could promptly support the other at need. This precaution had been steadily carried out ever since MacClellan had decided to put his right across the stream to its north side, and when it became known to the Confederates, they gave up all hope of ruining the wing they had supposed isolated, and fell back towards Richmond, with but barren claim to victory.

Then came a pause in the campaign which lasted from the 1st to the 20th of June. During all this time MacClellan kept his army divided by the Chickahominy for the same reason that had at first led him to occupy both sides of the stream. The key to a strategy that seems so unnecessarily dangerous lay originally in the hope he still had of drawing MacDowell's corps from the front of Washington to his aid by a land march, when he proposed to be ready to meet him, and aid its flanking movement by extending his right. Lincoln not only promised to spare it, but would no doubt have done so but for the genuine alarm created at Washington, at this crisis of the war, by Jackson's famous successes in the Shenandoah Valley campaign against the three divided Federal forces; forces which were to have overwhelmed him and captured his army, but which he beat with rapid successive strokes, such as for brilliant illustration of genius in war may fitly be compared with the wonderful efforts made by Napoleon in 1814, when with a handful of way-worn men, he for a time kept the allies from approaching Paris.

When the hope of MacDowell's aid faded away, and Lincoln and his War Secretary grew alarmed afresh for their capital, MacClellan still found it necessary to hold a portion of his army well to the north to cover the single line of supplies which brought him provisions by the railroad from York River, and which had recently been seriously threatened by Stuart's cavalry. All this time MacClellan's inaction seems to need excuse, since the Confederate force covering Richmond was much weaker than his own; but, on the Comte's showing, the ceaseless and judicious activity displayed by the new Confederate commander, Lee, along various points of the Federal front, completely deceived his opponent on this head, and also completely concealed the weakness of the works of Richmond behind him, which were by no means of the formidable nature that was supposed in the Federal camp. There was a distinct mistrust, we are told, of the powers of the army for

direct attack, as compared with those it could put forth in intrenchments and works of approach-and a feeling of this sort was unfavourable to action. Corinth had just fallen in the West to a long and tedious series of operations conducted by Halleck on the principles of the engineer rather than those of the general; and men asked themselves whether it were not best after all to enter a place abandoned by the enemy than to take a ruined work at a heavy cost. The throwing up of lines of cover, and the burning of powder, many of the Federal generals believed at this time, might be so managed as to make success with superior numbers assured, and so spare the risk there must always be in a supreme struggle for the mastery. MacClellan, we must believe, was under the influence of the sentiments his former aide-de-camp freely ascribes to those around him; for the fourth week since the indecisive battle of Fair Oaks was entered on without further result than the retention of the ground held within a few miles of the Confederate capital, while the hoped-for cooperation from Washington was awaited. But on the 24th of June news brought by a deserter made it certain that Jackson and his corps were far advanced on the march towards Richmond, and it needed no inspiration to foretell that their arrival would put an end to this state of inaction.

6

The strategic change of base' which has been made a sort of mocking byword against the name of MacClellan, became instantly a necessity, as his historian shows, from the moment that it was certain that Jackson had been allowed by his former adversaries to withdraw his corps secretly and swiftly to Lee's aid, although it made part of a deliberate design which circumstances forced on the Federal general. Only those,' says the Comte, who have known what the burden is of such a 'heavy responsibility, who have pointed out long beforehand the dangers that the faults of others would cause, and after having thus shown them in vain, have suddenly been compelled to face them, can know what the thoughts were that then filled the soul of the Federal chief.' But, instead of giving way under the trial, he drew inspiration from it, and decided at once on the only movement which promised immediate safety for his army, with perhaps a final counter-attack on Richmond along the James; the transfer of his army from the Chickahominy to the north bank of the former river, with the simultaneous abandonment of the communications leading to the York, on which the coming blow would be directed. Hastily collecting, therefore, a large stock of provisions, including 2,500 cattle, he prepared to make a flank march from

the Chickahominy to the James with no other supplies, through a difficult country, chiefly covered by a swampy forest known as the White Creek. The step was a singularly bold one, and in striking contrast to the caution which had hitherto marked his operations. But this contrast, as his historian observes, suits well the American character, which can at times combine the strangest daring with its ordinary prudence and hesitation.

Unfortunately for MacClellan's reputation his movements were not as prompt as his designs. Perhaps this was inevitable with so large a mass of comparatively raw troops to deal with; but the fact might have been put with more plainness in the narrative before us, which at this one point seems to fail in precision. He expected that the combined Confederate attack would be made on the 28th, but this estimate did not allow sufficiently for the eagerness and speed of his adversaries. On the eve of the 26th they began to fall upon his exposed wing, and on the 27th the apparently decisive battle of Gaines' Hill found Jackson turning the Federal right and driving it back over the Chickahominy, crushed in numbers and spirit, and abandoning a large part of its guns to the victorious foe, whilst Magruder's false attack along the southern bank had kept the main body of the Federals too fully occupied to support it.

It was no wonder that the Confederates asserted their victory, and even hoped for such a crowning triumph as might close the war at a blow. The passages of the stream were in their hands; the country between it and the James was, as before explained, a difficult one, better known to them than their adversary. And he had, to all appearance, lost his proper communications beyond hope of recovery. Destruction or surrender might have seemed the only alternative, judged by the ordinary precedents of war. But it was precisely here that such precedents failed. Although the strategic change ' of base' had now become a flight for safety, to be executed in the very face of a victorious enemy whose vigour and skill had just been so signally displayed, MacClellan lost not his confidence in himself, and, what is far more surprising, his men showed as much trust in his leadership, and as much faith in their own defensive power, as though they were the victors instead of the vanquished in the struggle at the Chickahominy. The history of European warfare may be ransacked in vain to find a parallel to the events of the six days that followed. Through the White Oak Swamp 100,000 men took their retreating way, carrying with them their provisions and stores. On their rear and on either flank pressed the pursuers flushed

with recent victory. From the east Jackson sought to complete his late success by intercepting them wherever there seemed an opening to thrust his troops between them and the road to the James. From the west Magruder, burning to take a more distinguished part than had yet been his lot, pressed the other flank. But the Federals never lost heart, nor yielded any decisive point till it could serve no longer to cover their retreat. From the very difficulties of the swamp and forest, which had seemed to threaten them with destruction or shame, their unfailing nerve and steadiness drew safety and honour. The dangers of the ground to be traversed turned to their advantage when it ceased, and having made good their retreat through the White Oak to the open ground on the James, where their gunboats lay waiting to cover their retreat, they rested and turned fiercely to face the pursuers in the first position suited to form line. Desperate at the thought of their coming escape, Magruder threw his eager regiments on the foe before him, prepared at any sacrifice to push it in panic rout back on the James; and the bloody counterstroke of Malvern Hill, which drove his corps back shattered from an untouched position, covered the close of this extraordinary campaign with a halo of success for the Federals which threw for the time into the shade their late defeat and the long hesitancy that had preceded it. At Malvern Hill they first taught the Confederates the truth which the world is slowly realising, that the American soldier is most formidable when apparently defeated, and least subject to panic when retreating before a victorious enemy.*

These concluding lines will be read with melancholy interest when it is known that they are the last which proceeded from the pen of our valued friend and contributor, Colonel Charles Chesney, of the Royal Engineers. Within a few days of the completion of this paper he fell a victim, in the discharge of his public duties, to the singular inclemency of this untoward spring. As a military critic Colonel Chesney was admitted, both here and abroad, to stand in the first rank of English contemporary writers-accurate, dispassionate, and profoundly imbued with the principles and history of his art. In these pages he has frequently traced the progress and changes which are taking place in the science of warfare, more especially as illustrated by the campaigns of the American and German armies; and the improvements which he had studied in foreign armies he laboured, not unsuccessfully, to introduce into our own. No greater loss could be sustained by the service, and we may add by the literature of the service, than the premature death of this modest and accomplished soldier, whose large acquirements and mature judgment will not easily be replaced. To his friends the loss is still more irreparable.

ART. V.-1. Le Lettere di Michelangelo Buonarroti, publicate coi ricordi ed i contratti artistici per cura di GAETANO MILANESI. In Firenze : 1875.

2. Life and Works of Michelangelo Buonarroti. By CHARLES HEATH WILSON. The Life partly compiled

from that of AURELIO GOTTI. London: 1876.

3. Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti narrata con l'aiuto di nuovi documenti da AURELIO GOTTI, direttore delle rr. Gallerie di Firenze: 1875.

4. Michelangiolo Buonarroti. Ricordo al Popolo Italiano. Firenze: 1875.

5. Leben Michelangelo's von HERMANN GRIMM. Hannover: 1873.

6. Autotypes of the Sistine Ceiling. By ADOLPH Braun.

THE

HE figure of Michael Angelo, as man and artist, is a salient feature in the history not only of Art, but of mankind. How he thought, and what he said and did, no less than what he painted and modelled, are matters of interest to all who feel that the noblest study of mankind is man.' Nor is there any fear that the flight of time, now just four centuries since his birth, and the consequent changes in manners and aims, should have obscured the interpretation of his mind. That mind was never so little understood as by his own contemporaries; and the greater the space between him and them the more clearly are his grand moral outlines discerned. No man ever appealed more pathetically, however tacitly, to the justice of posterity. All who sin, suffer,' Christopher North has said, whether they have genius or no.' But there are sufferings of isolation of heart, and grief of spirit, which are the penalties rather of superiority than of sin. Such penalties were the lot of Michael Angelo. He was called terribile' by his generation, but the sternness and austerity which procured for him this designation were the natural armour of a great soul against the folly and ignorance which beset him on all sides-folly which knew no respect for greatness of any kind, and which scrupled not to interfere where the commonest sciolists would have feared to tread; namely, in the exercise and direction of his very Art. It is true his Art was not made tongue-tied by authority-it would have puzzled even Papal Infallibility to do that-but, though the Popes he served were said to be afraid of him, he was none the less the lifelong sport of their vanities and superstitions-their evil tempers and bad faith.