cavalry, twelve companies, numbering eleven hundred and eighty-seven officers and men; one regiment of artillery of twelve batteries, six pieces each, numbering nineteen hundred and nine officers and men; nine regiments of infantry, each regiment to contain three battalions of eight companies each, numbering two thousand four hundred and fifty-two officers and men-making a total increase of twenty-two thousand and sixty-eight infantry, officers and men; and an addition to the strength of the regular army of twenty-five thousand one hundred and sixty-four men, infantry, artillery, and cavalry.

The small army of the United States hitherto had borne in numbers no proportion to the officers who graduate annually from West Point, and it required very few general officers. The exigencies of the Goverument now demanded an army on the scale of those of Europe, and a new system of organization was deemed advisable. On the organization of an army depends much of its efficiency in the field; and such has been the progress of modern military science, that a well-organized, drilled, and equipped army is, at the present day, a machine of immense power, and withal of the most costly description.

The company is generally considered the unit of military organization, and is supposed to average, on the war basis, one hundred men, officers included. The ordinary rule for the organization of such a company gives to it one captain, two lieutenants, from four to six sergeants, as many corporals, and eighty-five men. The first sergeant is called the orderly sergeant, and has charge of the books of the company, and the calling of the roll morning and evening. The company is formed, when in line, into two platoons and four sections, each pla toon cominanded by a lieutenant, and each section by a sergeant.

A regiment is composed of several battalions, each containing from four to ten companies, the battalion being the tactical unity. In the United States service, ten companies, divided into two battalions, have usually constituted a regiment,

The officers of a regiment, independent of company officers, are a colonel, lieutenant-colonel, one major, ajutant, quartermaster, and commissary. Each separate body of troops must have a commissary and quartermaster, but in a large army they are appointed to regiments or brigades. A full regiment will be formed thus: one colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, one adjutant, one quartermaster, one commissary, one major, ten captains, ten first and ten second lieutenants, fifty sergeants, forty corporals, and eight hundred and fifty private men; making nine hundred and seventy-six, but in reality there are some others; each company has regularly a drummer and fifer, which make a regi mental band of twenty besides the drum-major. Thus the regiment, when full, is made up regularly to one thousand men. When the volunteer force was called out by the President, a new organization for the regiments to be added to the regular army was suggested. This question was fully considered by officers of the army, and it was determined to adopt the French regimental system of three battalions, of eight companies each, to a regiment. Each battalion is commanded by a major, with a colonel and lieutenant-colonel for the general command of the regiment. This, it is believed, is the best organization

now existing. The number of field officers is less for the same number of men than under the old plan, and, therefore, the expense is greatly reduced. This change of organization, however, did not apply to the old regiments of the regular army, nor to the volunteers.

A brigade should be composed of two or three regiments of infantry, several squadrons of cavalry, and one or two batteries of field artillery. If these were all full, a complete brigade, operating alone, would in the American service number about three thousand five hundred men.

A division is composed of two or more brigades, with a proportional addition of cavalry and artillery, making, with the whole staff and music, about seven thousand men. During the first year of the rebellion this was the highest element of organization in the service.

The corps is composed of two or more divisions, frequently of four or five, and is, in the French service, properly commanded by a field marshal-an officer unknown to our country; and the corps is properly a complete army in itself. In the American service, a major-general commands such an organization.

In the field, all orders and operations are carried on through the staff of the army, which consists of the aides, the adjutant-general, the engineer, the quartermaster and commissary-generals, and some other officers, varying in size and in its component parts with the importance of the organization to which it is attached.

Through the adjutant-general orders are conveyed to each particular post. By the quartermaster-general all transportations, and vehicles, and horses, are furnished; by the commissary, all supplies; by the engineer the topography of the country is examined, the practicability of passes determined, and fortifications built or attacked.

The warlike ardor of the people manifested itself so promptly in response to the call for troops, that by the 1st of July more than two hundred regiments had been accepted. All of these were infantry and riflemen, with the exception of two battalions of artillery and four regiments of cavalry. Of the whole number, upwards of one hundred and fifty regiments were in active service on the 1st of July, by which time it was estimated that seventy-three thousand men were collected in Washington and its vicinity principally from the Eastern and Middle States, and the remainder were in readiness before the close of the month. The troops moved rapidly forward to the various dépôts and camps.

The Government was sufficiently rich in men, but in a very distressed condition for arms to give them. An old law of Congress required the Secretary of War to deliver to each State, on the requisition of the Governor, its quota of arms in proportion to its militia. These requisitions had long been neglected, but while preparations for secession were making, each Southern State drew its arms, and great numbers were transferred from the North to the South, by the order of Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War, thus stripping the Northern arsenals for the benefit of the South. In addition, great numbers of arms had been purchased on account of the Southern States. Some of them were seized on their way thither, but, as already stated, were in many instances restored to their owners.

Previous to the early part of 1860, the Government had a supply of arms and munitions of war sufficient for any emergency; but, in the words of Secretary Cameron, "through the bad faith of those intrusted with their guardianship, they were taken from their proper depositories and distributed through portions of the country expected to take part in the contemplated rebellion." In consequence of the serious loss thus sustained, there was available, at the commencement of the outbreak, a much smaller supply than usual of all kinds.

Some patriotic American citizens, resident in Europe, fearing that the country might not have a sufficient supply, purchased on their own responsibility, through co-operation with the United States ministers to England and France, a number of improved cannon and muskets, and the War Department accepted the drafts drawn to defray the outlay thus assumed. A complete battery of six Whitworth twelve-pounder rifled cannon, with three thousand rounds of ammunition, the munificent donation of sympathizing friends in Europe, was also received from England.

The chief dependence had been upon the Springfield Armory, the capacity of which was, at the outbreak of the rebel.ion, twenty-five thousand muskets per annum. The Northern armories had, to a considerable extent, been stripped to supply the Southern States. The private armories were able to furnish only a few thousand annual'y, and Harper's Ferry had been captured with a loss of fifteen thousand muskets. Hence, until arms could be procured from Europe, many regiments were detained in camp. The Springfield Armory was worked to its fullest extent, and with the help of outside machine-shops, before the close of the year, could produce eight thousand per month, and can now supply twenty-five thousand per month.

On the morning of the 27th of June, the report of General Mansfield, commanding at Washington, gave the number of troops in the city at twenty-two thousand eight hundred and forty-six men present for duty. The force of General Patterson,* commanding on the Potomac, at Williamsport and Martinsburg, above Washington, was seventeen thousand one hundred and eighty-eight, of whom five hundred and forty-two were sick. The force in Virginia, beyond the Potomac, under McDowell, was fifteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-six men, with the colors.

The left of McDowell occupied Alexandria, while his right was pushed some distance up the Potomac, mostly on the Maryland side, towards Patterson's left. The Confederate general having adopted, for the present, a defensive policy, had so disposed his troops as to prevent an advance of the Federal force into Virginia. This had finally been determined upon. Popular impatience could no longer endure the idea of a large army lying apparently idle about Washington, and from all parts of the country came the demand for an aggressive movement,

Robert Patterson was born in Tyrone, Ireland, in 1792; emigrated early to the United States; served as an officer in the war of 1812; afterwards engaged in commercial pursuits in Philadelphia, and was a major-general of volunteers in the Mexican war; appointed by Governor Curtin to

command the Pennsylvania three months' volunteers, 1961, and was stationed on the Upper Potomae; discharged from the service July 27th; was severely criticised for neglecting to prevent the rebel General Johnston from re-enforcing Beauregard at the battle of Bull Run.

which should end the war in a single campaign. The utter lack of discipline in the troops; the brief period, now almost expired, for which most of them had enlisted; the inexperience of the officers, and the general ignorance which prevailed respecting the numbers or positions of the enemy, were all overlooked; and the Government was urged at once to order an advance upon Richmond. At the commencement of all great wars the opposing parties acquire experience at a bitter cost, and it will be seen that the Federal troops paid dearly for theirs; although, viewed by the light of subsequent events, what seemed misfortunes at the time, were of unmistakable benefit in effecting the final overthrow of the rebellion.

The physical formation of Virginia is such that there are but few practicable routes for an invading force coming from the North. A line drawn from Georgetown, through Fredericksburg, Richmond, and Petersburg to Weldon, North Carolina, would mark the western limit of what is called the lower country or tide-water section. It is a low plain, without any considerable elevation, but scooped out by the action of water into deep ravines, through which flow broad, sluggish rivers. To the west of this line is the middle country, an undulating district extending to the Blue Ridge, which forms a continuous chain, except where pierced by the Potomac, James, and Staunton Rivers, of about two hundred and fifty miles, running north-east and south-west. To the west of this lies the great ridge, which is a prolongation of the Pennsylvania Kittatinny Mountain, and which, running parallel with the Blue Ridge, rises two thousand one hundred to two thousand five hundred feet in height. The Shenandoah River flows northerly into the Potomac through the great valley that lies between the two ridges, and gives its name to it. West of the great ridge runs the line of Alleghanies, separating Western Virginia from the eastern part of the State. This region is somewhat hilly, but contains no considerable elevation. Such being the configuration of the country, an invading force, destined to operate against Richmond, would choose one of four routes from Alexandria vid Culpepper and Gordonsville, overland; from Aquia Creek via Fredericksburg; from the Chesapeake via the York River and the Peninsula; or from Harper's Ferry or the Point of Rocks, down the Valley of the Shenandoah, vid Staunton, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg. From Harper's Ferry to Richmond, by the last route, the distance is about two hundred and fifty miles, the road lying through a fertile and beautiful valley for the first half of the way. It was from this valley that Morgan derived a large portion of his famous riflemen in the Revolution; and its chief county, Augusta-" Old Federal Augusta"-is still celebrated for the proficiency of her citizens in this important arm of military service. The counties of Rockingham, Shenandoah, and Page, which also border it, are inhabited by a sturdy race of farmers, descendants of German emigrants from Pennsylvania. Of these several routes, General McDowell proposed to take the first. To oppose this movement, General Beauregard was in force at Manassas Junction, a station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, twentyfive miles south-west of Washington, whence diverges the Manassas Gap Railroad, connecting the upper middle region of Virginia with the

Valley. Being in easy communication with Gordonsville, Richmond, Lynchburg, and the Valley, it was particularly adapted for purposes of concentration; while its natural strength, greatly increased by a series of elaborate earthworks, together with the rugged and wooded country surrounding it, rendered it a formidable obstacle in the path of an army advancing on Richmond. General Johnston,* with about eighteen thousand men, was at Winchester, in the Shenandoah Valley, watching General Patterson.

There were also troops in Richmond, Gordonsville, and elsewhere, within easy supporting distance of both Beauregard and Johnston; and the increasing force of the rebels and their threatening attitude, combined with, perhaps, an undue confidence in the skill and bravery of the Federal troops, notwithstanding the latter had never been exercised in movements in brigade, and few of them knew their superior officers by sight, caused the 8th of July to be finally fixed upon for a forward movement by McDowell. The plan of operations, and the estimate of force required, were made with the understanding that Johnston should be held in check by Patterson. It was impossible, however, to get the horses for the wagons and trains of artillery for more than a week after the appointed time, and the 15th still found the expeditionary army incomplete, notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions. The movement was, nevertheless, ordered to take place, and numbers of Congressmen and civilians accompanied the march as spectators.

On Tuesday, July 16th, McDowell broke up his camp and marched for Manassas, with an army of about thirty-five thousand men, all of whom, with the exception of less than a thousand regulars of the old army, were raw troops, who not only had never smelt powder, but were scarcely grounded in the simplest exercises of the manual. Of tactical evolutions they knew next to nothing. The best of them were militia regiments, whose term of service would expire within four or five days, but who were nevertheless launched into the campaign, under a sort of vague idea that they "had long enough to serve for the purpose of the expedition." This undisciplined and unstable mass was divided into five divisions, each consisting of two or more brigades, and was commanded by the following officers:

First Division—Brigadier-General D. Tyler, Connecticut Militia.

Second

'Third
Fourth"

Fifth 66

Colonel David Hunter, Third U. S. Cavalry.

Colonel S. P. Heintzelman, Seventeenth U. S. Infantry.
Brigadier-General T. Runyon, New Jersey Militia.
Colonel Dixon S. Mills, Second U. S. Infantry.

Joseph Eccleston Johnston was born in Virginia, about 1810; graduated at West Point in 1829; brevetted captain for gallant eond et in the Florida war, 1842, and appointed lieutenantcolonel of Voltigeurs in 1847; brevetted colonel for gallantry in Mexico; lieutenant-colonel of First Cavalry, 1855; quartermaster-general, 1560; resigned April, 1861, and appointed general in the Confederate army. His first command was on the Upper Potomac, whence he brought off the greater part of his troops to Bull Run in time to turn the scale against the Federals. He subse

quently commanded at Richmond in the early part of the Peninsular campaign, and was severely wounded at Fair Oaks, after which he was assigned to the Trans-Mississippi Department He conducted the campaign of 1864, against General Sherman, with great skill; but after bis retreat across the Chattahoochee, was superseded by General Hood, in obedience to a popular clamor against what was called his Fabian policy of retreat." In the early part of 1865 he was reassigned to the command of the troops operating against Sherman, to whom he capitulated in May.