William Swinton...

So soon as the passionate rushing to arms that succeeded the bombardment and fall of Fort Sumter had indicated that a great war was upon the sundered sections of the American Union, it became manifest that Virginia was marked out as the principal theatre of the impending conflict. The tidings of what had happened in the harbor of Charleston found that State assembled at Richmond in high debate on the question of Secession; and then whatever there was in its councils of what men called Unionism o

By the express terms of the ordinance of secession, passed by the Virginia Convention on the 16th 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

When the army that so lately had gone forth with such high hopes returned from Manassas shattered and discomfited to the banks of the Potomac, wise men saw there was that had suffered worse defeat than the army— it was the System under which Bull Run had been fought and lost. The lesson was a severe One; but if it was needed to demonstrate the legitimate result of the crude experimentalism under which the war had been conducted,— when campaigns were planned by ignorant politicians, and battles,

To take up an army of over One hundred thousand men, transport it and all its immense material by water, and plant it down on a new theatre of operations near Two hundred miles distant, is an enterprise the details of which must be studied ere its colossal magnitude can be adequately apprehended. Perhaps the best light in which such an operation may be read is furnished in Napoleon's elaborate Notes on his intended invasion of Great Britain in 1805, when he proposed to transport an army of One h

It will have appeared from the exposition of the motives that prompted the change of base, that, in transferring the Army of the Potomac to the James River, the fundamental idea of its commander was to secure a line of operations whereby, with a refreshed and re-enforced army, a new campaign, under more promising auspices, might be undertaken. The position of the army, at once threatening the communications of Richmond and enabling it to spring on the rear of the Confederate force should it atte

When Lee put his columns in motion from Richmond, it was with no intent of entering upon a campaign of invasion across the great river that formed the dividing line between the warring powers. But who can foretell the results that may spring from the simplest act in that complex interplay of cause and effect we name war? A secondary operation, having in view merely to hold Pope in check, had effected not only its primal aim, but the infinitely more important result of dislodging the Army of the

To the general on whose shoulders was placed at this crisis the weighty burden of the conduct of the Army of the Potomac, the great responsibility came unsought and undesired. Cherishing a high respect for McClellan's military talent, and bound to him by the ties of an intimate affection, General Burnside naturally shrank from superseding a commander whom he unfeignedly regarded as his superior in ability. The manly frankness with which Burnside laid bare at once his feelings towards his late Ch

In an army composed of citizens of a free country who have taken up arms from patriotic motives in a war they consider just there is a perennial spring of moral renovation. Such armies have constantly exhibited an astonishing endurance, and, possessing a bond of cohesion superior to discipline, have shown their power to withstand shocks that would dislocate the structure of other military organizations. The Army of the Potomac was of this kind. Driven hither and thither by continual buffets of f

In the minds of that group of able and sagacious men that at Richmond controlled the course of the mighty experiment of war, there had early grown up a theory of military conduct that was undoubtedly the best adapted to the circumstances, and, indeed, is the only theory on which a defensive war can be maintained with any hope of success. It is now generally conceded that a Power that either voluntarily or by compulsion allows itself to be reduced to a purely defensive attitude is certain to be c

The safe retreat of Lee from Maryland into Virginia imposed upon General Meade the necessity of an immediate pursuit. This he undertook with a promptitude that was very creditable, considering the trying campaign that had just closed. On recrossing the Potomac, Lee fell back into the Shenandoah Valley, placing his force on the line of Opequan Creek— the same position he had held during the autumn after his retreat from Antietam. Meade's plan of advance into Virginia was confessedly modelled on t

If One should seek to discover the cause of the indecisive character of the Virginia campaigns, and why it was that for Three years the Army of the Potomac, after each advance towards Richmond, was doomed to see itself driven back in discomfiture, it might be thought that a sufficient explanation was furnished in the consideration of the inherent difficulty of the task, arising from the near equality of its adversary in material strength, and the advantage the Confederates enjoyed in fighting de

The determination of General Grant to transfer the army, by a flank march, to the south side of the James River, involved considerations of a wholly different order from those concerned in the repeated turning movements which he had made to dislodge Lee from the intrenched positions held by him. These were simply manoeuvres of grand tactics, delicate indeed in their nature, but they did not carry the army away from its line of operations, nor from the defensive line as regards Washington, which

The time has now come when it is no longer possible to consider the Army of the Potomac apart from that colossal combination of force that, pressing from all sides on the structure of the Confederacy, finally bore it to the ground. That this army cannot rightly be viewed independently of the co-operative forces throughout the general theatre of war, is made apparent by the single fact that during the winter months succeeding the close of the campaign of 1864, so far from its being any longer a d