large plain, somewhat cut up about the forts with ravines. A half a mile towards Yorktown, from Fort Magruder, was a belt of fallen timber, which the rebels had fallen to prevent our advance. It was on each side of the road. This belt of fallen timber was some 400 or 500 yards, perhaps more, in width. Fort Magruder was perhaps one-third of a mile or more in front of this fallen timber.

My regiment was formed on the right of the road in the wood, and advanced through the fallen timber to near the margin of it. The 1st Massachusetts regiment was formed on the left of the road. Both regiments threw out two companies, I think, as skirmishers in front. The 26th Pennsylvania and the 11th Massachusetts were formed still further on my right. One brigade of the division, composed of four New Jersey regiments, and Sickles's brigade of five regiments, did not come up, one of them until 11 o'clock, and the other, I think, at about 2 o'clock, in the afternoon. During the morning the firing was principally from the fort upon us. Until along about 11 o'clock there was not a very heavy musketry fire. I am not certain whether it was the Sickles brigade or the New Jersey brigade that came up first at 11 o'clock. They went into the wood on the left of the road and there engaged the enemy; and from that time until 6 o'clock in the afternoon the musketry fire was very heavy indeed, while the fire from Fort Magruder was continued during the whole day, except when it was silenced for a while by the skirmishers deployed in front, destroying the gunners. My regiment lay in this fallen timber until half past three or four o'clock in the afternoon. By that time the enemy had advanced so far on the left of the road, driving back our troops engaged there, that it appeared that those on the left of the road would be cut off. I then moved my regiment out of the timber into the wood on the other side of the road and engaged in the fight there. The enemy continued to press us back until a portion of Kearny's brigade came up, about half past four according to my belief, though General Kearny, I know, thinks he came up earlier. He checked their further advance, and continued the fight very severely until dark, when the rebels desisted and retired. During the night they drew off their forces, and in the morning had evacuated their position and passed through Williamsburg, which was about a mile in front, and went on towards Richmond.

The next day the cavalry and a portion of the army continued the pursuit. But a large portion of the army encamped on the plain at Williamsburg, and remained there a couple of days, when we moved into town. The first brigade of Hooker's division, to which my regiment was attached, remained there some ten days, our brigadier general being appointed military governor of the town. The other brigades moved on.

Question. In your judgment, was or was not that the time for our army to have followed up the enemy closely?

Answer. I know that it was the opinion of some of the generals that we needed re-enforcements at that time; and that, if we had had 20,000 more men, we might easily have followed the rebels into Richmond at that time. I do not myself think that there has been since so favorable an opportunity as then for the army to have advanced on Richmond. I am quite sure that every day's delay, while it has weakened us, has strengthened the enemy. Question. Have our forces been much reduced by the services they have had to perform in digging intrenchments, from exposure to the sun, &c.? Answer. The service in that respect has been pretty severe for the whole army, or of that portion of it with which I have come in contact. That, together with other military duties, has worn upon the men very much. Many of the men have given out under the severe labors imposed upon them. The labor was very hard at Yorktown. Heavy details were made

every day from the division to which I belonged for the building of roads, the digging of trenches, felling timber-not so much felling timber there as at other places. The works built at Yorktown are very heavy.

Question. Was not there a great deal of unnecessary work of that kind done?

Answer. I cannot tell that it was unnecessary.

Question. I mean for an advancing army.

Answer. That depends altogether upon the strength of the works they were built to reduce, and the force that might happen to be there to defend them. The works built at Yorktown were heavy earthworks, very strong works for earthworks, and required an immense amount of labor. Question. Our works?

Answer. Yes, sir; they were very strong and extensive, and required an immense amount of labor. And it was a very severe labor for the men; and it has been so since. In front of Richmond there has been an immense amount of labor performed in intrenching, building redoubts, felling timber, and building roads.

Question. Do you consider that the work that has been done there will be of much service to us now in advancing upon Richmond?

Answer. It will be of no service whatever, unless we should undertake to advance over the same ground again, which is not at all probable.

Question. Would it not, in your opinion, have been much better to have advanced as rapidly as possible after you arrived on the peninsula ?

Answer. I do not know as it would become me to express an opinion upon that subject. But as we were the attacking force, and our object was to reduce Richmond, one would suppose that the more rapidly we advanced the more rapidly the work would be accomplished. I never could myself perceive the good effects and results from making defensive works all along from Williamsburg to Richmond. The commander-in-chief I suppose did.

Question. Has not Richmond been within your grasp at different times by vigorous and prompt movements?

Answer. Yes, sir. If we had had a sufficient force; vigorous movements and a sufficient force.

Question. Suppose you had moved rapidly, immediately after going down to the peninsula, could you not have got there before they could have collected a sufficient force to oppose to you?

Answer. That I am not able to say; but, from the best information I have, their force at the time of the battle of Williamsburg was not half what it now is, or anything like it.

Question. And how did our army compare with what it now is?

Answer. It is not, in effective force, in my opinion, one half of what it was then.

Question. The chance was much better for us to have taken Richmond then than it has been at any time since those delays.

Answer. That is my opinion. I think the chances of taking Richmond have been growing less and less every day.

Question. What do you think of it now with the army you now have? Answer. With the army we now have I think the idea of taking Richmond is entirely chimerical; that it is simply an impossibility.

Question. That is, in that direction?

Answer. Yes, sir; with that army there.

Question. Can you tell why it is that the reading public has been so entirely misled with regard to our prospects of taking Richmond, and the progress made by our army on the peninsula ?

Answer. Yes, sir; I can very readily account for it. It is because reports from the army, official and unofficial, have not stated the facts.

Question, What influences do you know of being used there to get these incorrect impressions in the public prints?

Answer. I do not know of any.

Question. Why is it that reporters for newspapers, who, in ordinary times, would endeavor to state the facts, have kept so far from stating them when with the army there; is it because they are not allowed to state the facts, or are they so well cared for by the commanders that they feel it their duty to puff them?

Answer. I have no peculiar knowledge upon the subject; and the gentlemen of the committee can draw their inference as well as I can.

Question. What is the practice on the peninsula in regard to taking care of rebel property; have you had anything to do with that matter there? Answer. We have had a great deal to do with it. The practice has been to place guards over the houses, barns, corn-cribs, gardens, and even, in some instances, the rail fences, of all the people pretty much on the route of the army.

Question. Is that done where the people are known to be rebels ?

Answer. It has been done where they were known to be rebels. A detachment from my own regiment has been ordered to stand guard for 24 hours over a rail fence which it was well understood belonged to a man who, with his sons was then in the rebel army. That was at a place called Baltimore Cross Roads.

Question. What effect does that have upon our volunteer troops ?

Answer. It annoys them, and disheartens them more than any other one thing I can mention.

Question. Is it necessary that that should be done to preserve discipline among the troops, and be enabled to control them?

Answer. That has sometimes been given as a reason for the practice. But in my opinion it was not necessary to be carried to anything like the extent that it has been in order to preserve discipline; and I will state further that we have not been allowed to take forage, hay, corn, oats, or any thing of that kind, from the barns and cribs of the inhabitants who had abandoned their property and were then in the service of the rebels, while our staff and team horses were nearly in a starving condition. This has occurred in many instances, to my own personal knowledge.

Question. What has been the practice of the quartermaster and commissary departments in regard to taking such property for the use of the army, they being supposed to be the proper persons to do it?

Answer. Since the army landed at Yorktown I have no knowledge of their being allowed to take any such property.

Question. Do you know any instance where this kind of treatment of the rebels has made friends of them?

Answer. No, sir; I do not. On the contrary I know many instances, or a number of instances, in which it has had no such effect to my certain knowledge. At Williamsburg, where there were very few Union people, very few indeed-I did not hear of but five in the two weeks I was ther-the universal testimony of the inhabitants was that we had protected their property, preserved better order than their own army had when it was in possession of the town. They made no complaint so far as I know; at any rate I never heard of but one complaint in a residence of two weeks there, of any depredation by any soldier on any person's property whatever, and that was a very slight matter, the taking of a horse or mule, a mule I think, for some purpose of transportation, by authority of the provost marshal. And yet every one of those people, with the exception of three or our who were regarded as Union people, declared in the most positive man

ner that they never would consent to a union with the north, or a reconstruction of the Union on any terms whatever.

Answer. Is there anything else you desire to state in regard to the conduct of affairs on the peninsula ?

Answer. I would like to say a word on the subject of transportation. Our transportation was very limited; that is, the wagons belonging to different regiments were reduced to a very low number. The company officers were compelled to carry everything of their own upon their backs. In several instances, feeling unable to take care of their companies and carry their knapsacks and blankets, &c., they purchased or hired a horse or mule, or two horses. In that way they transported their personal effects, and also the knapsacks of those soldiers of their companies who were not able to carry them; but they were not allowed to continue to use them. They were ordered to turn over all this "irregular transportation," as it was termed in the orders, to the provost marshal. They were not allowed their transportation by the government to which they were entitled, or to furnish their own transportation at their own expense.

Question. Does not that have a bad effect?

Answer. It has the effect to break down the health of many of the officers, and to annoy, disgust, and dissatisfy the whole of them.

Question. Was any reason assigned for that?

Answer. I never heard any reason assigned, except that it destroyed the looks of the train; that having those mules and one-horse carts in the train made it look badly, and also caused the division to occupy more ground.

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 21, 1863.

Major General E. A. HITCHCOCK sworn and examined.

By the chairman:

Question. What is your rank and position in the army?

Answer. I am a major general of volunters; at present on duty in Washington under the orders of the Secretary of War.

Question. How long, or about how long, have you occupied that position? Answer. Since the middle of March last-not all the time on duty. My commission was accepted at that time. I have been in Washington at two different times-the first time from the 15th of March to the 15th of May.

Question. Will you state to us briefly what you know of the movements of the army of the Potomac, so far as you were cognizant of its movements during the time you occupied that position? I believe it was in March that that army moved on its expedition to the peninsula.

Answer. The plan for the movement made by General McClellan was determined upon before I came to Washington. I knew nothing of it until it had been in part carried into execution. My opinion was not asked in reference to it, and I had nothing to say in advising it. Had I been consulted, I should have advised against it very strongly.

Question. What was that plan, and what would have been your objections to it?

Answer. The plan was to take the principal part of the army in front of Washington and move it down to the peninsula, so called, leading up from Fortress Monroe to Richmond by way of Yorktown. My objections to that plan were very numerous. One of the first was that it was calculated to uncover Washington, and leave it open to the enemy, who, in all proba

bility, could have embodied a sufficient force to have seriously endangered, if not taken, the capital. The temptation to do so on the part of the enemy I considered very great, because of the importance of this capital in a political point of view. If the rebel authorities could have reached this capital, so as to send forth bulletins from it, they would have claimed to be the de facto government of the United States; and the prestige of that position would have been very great with European governments, who look upon the capital as the representative of the nation. I cannot doubt that the leading minds of the southern confederacy, as they call it, would have seen the whole advantage of that, and would have made a desperate effort to have secured the benefit of it, for, in comparison with their own capital, the possession of Washington would have been immensely more advantageous to them, even though they should be able to hold it but a short time. To allow them to get the eclat of having set foot in it at all was a thing to be deplored by the nation.

When I arrived in Washington, the middle of March last, and heard of this plan, I spoke to a particular friend of mine quite in detail, setting forth the objection I have just stated, and others, including the character of the country in the neighborhood of Yorktown. I stated that General McClellan would find almost insuperable obstacles, in passing through that country at that season of the year, on account of the water. I was very sure he would find it so, and it turned out to be so. That may be considered a local objection

A military objection to the plan was his separating his army from his proper base, which was Washington, and transferring it to a point from which it could not return in case of disaster without great danger. That is a military principle which General McClellan himself recognized in a communication to the President, in objection to a plan of the President, as I understood. That military objection is substantially this: that in taking the army up the peninsula, General McClellan made two points of defence: one the city of Washington, and the other the position he assumed on the peninsula. Those two points were widely separated, and did not communicate with each other. He thus gave the enemy an opportunity of concentrating upon either of them, while it obliged the Union forces to be divided in order to secure the defence of the military point here at Washington. That, among military men, I believe, is considered to be one of the most dangerous conditions in which a body of troops can be placed. It is particularly illustrated in the history of Frederick the Great, who destroyed in succession three armies which were separated and not in communication with each other, and gained his chief military glory from that fact. My objection to the whole of that plan was very serious, and I should, on no account, have acquiesced in it had I been consulted.

When the President issued his order acquiescing in the movement proposed by General McClellan, he required, as that order will show, that Washington should be left entirely secure, in the opinion of all the corps commanders then here. That opinion, as appears by the report of their council on the 13th of March last, required, according to the view of three of those corps commanders, that all the forts south of the Potomac should be fully garrisoned, the forts north of the Potomac should be occupied, and, in addition to that, a covering force of 25,000. The other corps commander, General Sumner, was of the opinion that 40,000 men would be sufficient to make the city secure, indicating nothing in regard to their distribution.

There was a feature in the proceedings of that council which is very important in this connexion. The council agreed to the proposed movement by way of the peninsula, provided the rebel steamer Merrimack could be neutralized, and they were unanimous in that opinion. General McClellan