JULY 6, 1862:
The Richmond Daily
Examiner takes the Confederate Army to task for
botching the victories of the Seven Days’ Battles:
“The glory and fruits
of our victory may have been seriously diminished by the grave mishap or fault
by which the enemy was permitted to leave his camp on the south side of the
Chickahominy, in an open country, and to plunge into the dense cover of wood
and swamp, where the best portion of four or five days has been consumed in
hunting him and finding out his new position… The future historian
of this war, if he does justice to any feature of its progress, will present
the saddest picture in all his narrative when he tells how our wounded soldiers
are treated…But, alas! what shall he say for those who are in authority, whose
business it was to have made preparations for several thousand wounded, (for
the most short-sighted knew that they would be numbered by thousands), when he
tells that to incomplete were the arrangements that the houses prepared for
hospitals were not capable of accommodating one-fourth of those requiring
attention…that scores of wagons filled with men who have suffered in defence of
the Capital of the Confederacy, have been driven about from one place to
another, sometimes for two or three hours, vainly endeavoring to find
room...Nor is there any excuse for this. Not even that which is so often
offered for the short-comings of those who control many of our Government
Departments -- ignorance.”
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