cipal field was Virginia was one that, from its very nature, threw the burden of the offensive on the side of the North. For, as the National Government undertook to subdue the insurrection of the Southern States, it rested with it to strike, and with the South to parry. But it soon became apparent that the task was very different from that involved in the quelling of an ordinary rebellion, and that the conflict had, from the unanimity of hostile sentiment at the South, the vast extent of territory in insurrection, and the mighty force in arms, all the character of a war waged between two powerful nations. Now, of all the forms that war may assume, that is the most formidable which is denominated a "National War,” the nature of which is thus powerfully depicted by the greatest of military theorists: "The difficulties in the path of an army in National wars are very great, and render the mission of the general conducting them very arduous. The invader has only an army; his adversaries have an army and a people wholly, or almost wholly, in arms-a people making means of resistance out of every thing, each individual of whom conspires against the common enemy; so that even the non-combatants have an interest in his ruin, and accelerate it by every means in their power. He holds scarcely any ground but that upon which he encamps; and, outside the limits of his camp, every thing is hostile, and multiplies a thousandfold the difficulties he meets at every step. These obstacles become almost insurmountable, when the country is difficult. Each armed inhabitant knows the smallest paths and their connections; he finds everywhere a relative or friend who aids him. The commander also knows the country, and, learning immediately the slightest movement on the part of the invader, can adopt the best measures to defeat his projects; while the latter, without information of their movements, and not in a condition to send out detachments to gain it, having no resource but in his bayonets, and certain of safety only in the concentration of his columns, is like a blind man-his combinations are failures; and when, after the most carefully concerted movements and the most rapid and

fatiguing marches, he thinks he is about to accomplish his aim and deal a terrible blow, he finds no sign of the enemy but his camp-fires; so that, while, like Don Quixote, he is attacking windmills, his adversary is on his line of communications, destroys the detachments left to guard it, surprises his convoys and depots, and carries on a war so disastrous for the invader that he must inevitably yield after a time."

It needs not to tell any one who has followed the history of the Virginia campaigns, that every "sling and arrow" thus graphically shown to assail an army penetrating a hostile country in which the population as well as the army enters into the belligerency, did harass the Army of the Potomac. Yet it is not possible that any, save such as have had actual experience of command, can measure aright the obstructions of every nature that hedged military operations in a country unknown and unmapped, filled with a population ready to convey to the enemy information of every movement, and eager to cut a telegraph-wire or throw a railroad-train from its track. The Confederates, waging war on that theory that is named the "defensive with offensive returns," attempted, in two memorable campaigns, an operation of invasion; but the decisive failure that attended both, may stand as an example of the difficulties that constantly beset the Union army.

If, notwithstanding these difficulties, the Army of the Potomac at length succeeded in destroying its opponent,-thus disproving the dictum of General Jomini, who, in the passage I have just quoted, asserts that in such a task the invader "must inevitably yield after a time," it would appear to be a reasonable inference that the means by which this end was brought about must be notable, and that the army that accomplished this result may be worthy of a larger fame than the world has yet accorded it.

By the express terms of the ordinance of secession, passed by the Virginia Convention on the 17th of April, 1861, the decree that was to link the fortunes of that State with the Confederacy became valid only on being ratified by the popular vote, appointed to be given on the fourth Thursday of May. The Administration at Washington respecting this provision, awaited the action of the people before advancing its armed force to "repossess the places and property" of the Federal Government.

But it was soon manifest that this stipulation was destined to be a nullity in face of the swift-advancing realities of war. Virginia immediately threw herself into an attitude of defence. Governor Letcher issued a proclamation calling out the militia of the State, and Colonel Robert E. Lee was appointed major-general and commander of the "Virginia forces." More than this: the Convention having, on the 24th of April, decreed that pending the popular vote on the question of secession," military operations, offensive and defensive, in Virginia, should be under the chief control and direction of the President of the Confederate States," Confederate troops, from South Carolina and the States of the Gulf, were rapidly thrown forward into Virginia. Meantime, the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry had been evacuated and partially destroyed by the commander of the post; and the United States navy-yard at Norfolk had been abandoned by the

Federal officer in command, and several men-of-war, with a vast accumulation of war material, were there destroyed. Save from the fortress that guards the entrance of James River, the Federal flag floated nowhere within the boundaries of the "Old Dominion."

The Confederates, with much energy, pushed forward preparations for the defence of Virginia; and the middle of the month of May reveals the growing outlines of a definite military policy. This policy, however, so far as it touched the distribution of force, seems to have been shaped rather by the Austrian principle of covering every thing, than by any wellconsidered combination of positions. The Peninsula between the James and the York rivers was held by a Confederate force of about two thousand men, under Colonel J. B. Magruder, who took position near Hampton, where he confronted the Federal force at Fortress Monroe, which had lately been placed under command of Major-General B. F. Butler. The defence of the highland region of Western Virginia had been assumed by General Lee, commander-in-chief of the State forces, who had dispatched to that section Colonel Porterfield, with instructions to raise a local volunteer force-not a promising undertaking among the hardy, Union-loving mountaineers-and hold the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the direct line of communication with the States west of the Alleghanies.

Between these outlying members was placed the main body of the Confederate force, in two camps-the one located at Manassas Junction, twenty-seven miles southwest from Alexandria, (and the point of intersection of the great Southern railroad route between Washington and Richmond and the Manassas Gap Railroad, leading to the Valley of the Shenandoah); the other posted at the outlet of this valley, at Harper's Ferry. The force assembled and assembling at the former of these camps was at first under the orders of Genral Bonham, of South Carolina; but before the close of May, the obvious importance of the position, as confronting any direct advance from Washington, caused the Confederate

authorities to assign to its command the man enjoying the first military reputation in the South. This man was General Beauregard, and the region of country under his control was named the "Department of the Potomac."

The body of troops collected at Harper's Ferry, and which, at the close of the month of May, consisted of nine regiments and two battalions of infantry, four companies of artillery, and about three hundred troopers,* had been formed under the hand of a man, then of no name, but destined to become one of the foremost figures of the war-Colonel Thomas Jonathan Jackson, better known in the world's bead-roll of fame as "Stonewall Jackson." A lieutenant of artillery in the United States service during the Mexican war, he had at its close retired to a professorship in the Virginia Military Institute, beyond whose walls he was quite unknown, and within which he was marked only for his personal eccentricities, stern puritanism, and inflexible discipline. Upon the secession of Virginia, Professor Jackson resigned his chair, and being appointed by Governor Letcher to a colonelcy in the Virginia line, he was immediately sent forward to command the Confederate troops at Harper's Ferry. About the time, however, that Bonham was replaced by Beauregard, the command of the force at Harper's Ferry, which bore the style of the "Army of the Shenandoah," was committed to the hands of General J. E. Johnston; and Colonel Jackson, assigned a subordinate command under that able soldier, devoted himself to moulding into form and stamping with the qualities of his own genius that famous "Stonewall brigade," whose battle-flag led the van in that series of audacious enterprises that afterwards rendered the Valley of the Shenandoah historic ground. General Johnston's other subordinates were men of scarcely inferior ability to Jackson. Colonel A. P. Hill, subsequently one of Lee's ablest lieutenants, was at the head of another of his brigades; Pendleton was chief of artillery; and his few squadrons of Virginia

* Report of General J. E. Johnston.