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The Battle of Williamsburg.
Gen. McClellan's Dispatch to his Wife:
WILLIAMSBURG, MAY 6.
Mrs. Geo. B. McClellan, Fifth Avenue Hotel, N.Y.:
The battle at Williamsburg proved a brilliant victory. We have the enemy's strong works, the town, and all the sick and wounded of the enemy, &c.
None of your friends injured, though our loss is considerable. That of the enemy was severe. The Quaker army is doing very well — Hancock was superb yesterday.
I am in Joe Johnston's headquarters of yesterday. This is a beautiful town, and quite old and picturesque.
GEO. B. McCLELLAN.
Second Dispatch to Mrs. McClellan:
Williamsburg, May 6.
The more we know the more complete our victory proves to be. All goes well.
Mr. Raymond of the N.Y. Times, telegraphs of the battle:
The whole affair seems to have been, on the whole, a very decided and brilliant success, although at the outset our troops, from over-impatience and exhaustion, and from not having been properly supported, suffered a temporary reverse. When Gen. McClellan came up, however, the tide was speedily turned. The fight closed for the day with a charge by Gen. Hancock, which is spoken of as one of the most brilliant incidents of the kind ever known. His forces rushed upon the rebels in their entrenchments, with the bayonet, not waiting even to fire upon them, and drove them before them like sheep. They captured the colors of a North Carolina regiment, which were brought into headquarters at 2 o'clock last night, and took about 150 prisoners. They drove the enemy back from the positions to which they had advanced against our troops — retook all the works they had regained, and captured an additional breastwork. The extent of our losses I have not yet been able to ascertain. Gen. McClellan sent down last night for ambulances for three hundred wounded from which I infer the casualties cannot greatly exceed this number.
Effect of the News of the Victory in Washington.
WASHINGTON, May 7.
The result, thus far, of the operations on the peninsula and on the Rappahannock has demonstrated the wisdom of the plan of Gen. McClellan, which was approved by the president, but opposed by other members of the cabinet.
It is now apparent that, if Gen. McClellan had been allowed to carry out his plan without interruption here, he would have defeated the rebel army of the east, occupied Richmond, and brought the war virtually to an end. His success at Williamsburg, after a brilliant and hard-fought battle, with only a portion of his army at hand, has deeply mortified those who were yesterday howling against him and actually encouraging rebel sympathizers with predictions of his overwhelming defeat.
The news from Yorktown to-day staggered the most violent of the haters of General McClellan and the administration, and has occasioned the wildest delight among the friends of the president and "Little Mac," as General McClellan is styled.
The city is filled with rejoicing. The victory at Williamsburg is regarded universally as the beginning of the close of the war.
The ultra abolition faction are much chagrined after all their cries of "On to Richmond." They don't want the war ended just yet. — They cursed General McClellan for not going on to Richmond when the roads were impassable; they curse him now for going on too fast to suit their purposes. Their disappointment is manifested in the bitterness of their denunciations.