the brevet of Lieutenant Colonel in the regular army and the rank of
Major General of Volunteers.

It was during the night march from Malvern Hill that General Smith
encountered General Fitz-John Porter, his class-mate whom he always
regarded as a first-class soldier, and with whom upon this occasion he
had a conversation, the facts of which go far to justify this high
estimate. Noting that Porter seemed greatly depressed he asked what was
the matter. In reply, Porter told him that as soon as he had become
certain the evening before that the enemy had been broken and beaten
back from his reckless attack on the Union lines at Malvern Hill, and
had withdrawn in disorder from the field, he had gone to McClellan on
board the boat which he had occupied with his headquarters, and had
begged him with all the arguments he could bring to bear, and all the
force he could command, to assume the offensive at dawn. He said he had
spent half the night in advocacy of this policy, expressing the
confident belief that if adopted it would result, not only in the
destruction of Lee's army, but in the capture of Richmond. He had no
doubt that our own army, encouraged by the sanguinary repulse it had
finally inflicted upon the enemy, would respond to every demand which
could be made upon it, and would thus turn a series of indecisive
combats, which the country would surely regard as defeats, into a
magnificent victory. Smith's testimony shows this splendid conception
to have been no afterthought with Porter, as it was with many who
subsequently came to understand the facts of the case, but coming as it
did hot from a desperate battle field, must be regarded as the
inspiration of true military genius, while the fact that McClellan
rejected it must always be considered as the best possible evidence of
his unreadiness to meet great emergencies. Smith does not say
specifically that he approved it, but the context of his narrative