across the seas, and then only for 10,000 muskets!  The commissariat department, moreover, was responsible to the President and not to the commander of the armies; this, perhaps, was the worst fault of all.  It would seem impossible that such mistakes, in an intelligent community, should be permitted to recur.  Yet, in face of the fact that only when the commanders have been given a free hand, as was Marlborough in the Low Countries, or Wellington in the Peninsula, has the English army been thoroughly efficient, the opinion is not uncommon in England that members of Parliament and journalists are far more capable of organising an army than even the most experienced soldier.

Since the above was written the war with Spain has given further proof of how readily even the most intelligent of nations can forget the lessons of the past.

CHAPTER 1.8.  KERNSTOWN.

1862.  February 27.

By the end of February a pontoon bridge had been thrown across the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry, and Banks had crossed to the Virginia shore.  An army of 38,000 men, including 2000 cavalry, and accompanied by 80 pieces of artillery, threatened Winchester.

President Lincoln was anxious that the town should be occupied.  Banks believed that the opportunity was favourable.  “The roads to Winchester,” he wrote, “are turnpikes and in tolerable condition.  The enemy is weak, demoralised, and depressed.”

But McClellan, who held command of all the Federal forces, had no mind to expose even a detachment to defeat.  The main Confederate army at Centreville could, at any moment, dispatch reinforcements by railway to the Valley, reversing the strategic movement which had won Bull Run; while the Army of the Potomac, held fast by the mud, could do nothing to prevent it.  Banks was therefore ordered to occupy the line Charlestown to Martinsburg, some two-and-twenty miles from Winchester, to cover the reconstruction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and to accumulate supplies preparatory to a further advance.  The troops, however, did not approve such cautious strategy.  “Their appetite for work,” according to their commander, “was very sharp.”  Banks himself was not less eager.  “If left to our own discretion,” he wrote to McClellan’s chief of staff, “the general desire will be to move early.”

March 9.

On March 7 General D.H.  Hill, acting under instructions, fell back from Leesburg, and two days later Johnston, destroying the railways, abandoned Centreville.  The Confederate General-in-Chief had decided to withdraw to near Orange Court House, trebling his distance from Washington, and surrendering much territory, but securing, in return, important strategical advantages.  Protected by the Rapidan, a stream unfordable in spring, he was well placed to meet a Federal advance, and also, by a rapid march, to anticipate any force which might be transported by water and landed close to Richmond.