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[174] The encounter between Jackson and Banks raised in the mind of General Halleck the liveliest apprehensions touching the safety of Washington, and he sent General McClellan urgent orders to hasten the removal of his army. The sick, to the number of ten thousand, had already been shipped; then followed Burnside's corps (eleven thousand strong), which had been brought from North Carolina for the purpose of re-enforcing the Army of the Potomac, but was not allowed to debark, and was sent forward to Aquia Creek and thence to Fredericksburg. McClellan then put his whole army in motion, marched back from Harrison's Landing to Fortress Monroe, and thence, by successive shipments, forwarded it to Aquia Creek and Alexandria. Not till this movement had been fully disclosed did General Lee form the resolve of striking northward. The column detached under Jackson to operate against Pope was no larger than that he had had in his previous campaign, and was inferior in numbers to Pope's force; and the menacing position held by General McClellan while at Harrison's Landing had retarded Lee from sending any additional troops to Jackson.1 But now that he was being relieved from the pressure of Mc-Clellan's presence, there was nothing to prevent his moving
1 On this point General Lee says: ‘Jackson, on reaching Gordonsville, ascertained that the force under General Pope was superior to his own, but the uncertainty that then surrounded the designs of General McClellan, rendered it inexpedient to re-enforce him from the army at Richmond.’—Lee: Reports of the Army of Northern Virginia, vol. II., p. 15.
1866.
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