advanced for active operations, and that his objections were well founded it is impossible to deny.  The prospect of success depended much upon the weather.  Virginia, covered in many places with dense forests, crossed by many rivers, and with most indifferent communications, is a most difficult theatre of war, and the amenities of the Virginian spring are not to be lightly faced.  Napoleon’s fifth element, “mud,” is a most disturbing factor in military calculations.  It is related that a Federal officer, sent out to reconnoitre a road in a certain district of Virginia, reported that the road was there, but that he guessed “the bottom had fallen out.”  Moreover, McClellan had reason to believe that the Confederate army at Manassas was more than double its actual strength.  His intelligence department, controlled, not by a trained staff officer, but by a well-known detective, estimated Johnston’s force at 115,000 men.  In reality, including the detachment on the Shenandoah, it at no time exceeded 50,000.  But for all this there was no reason whatever for absolute inactivity.  The capture of the batteries which barred the entrance to the Potomac, the defeat of the Confederate detachments along the river, the occupation of Winchester or of Leesburg, were all feasible operations.  By such means the impatience of the Northern people might have been assuaged.  A few successes, even on a small scale, would have raised the morale of the troops and have trained them to offensive movements.  The general would have retained the confidence of the Administration, and have secured the respect of his opponents.  Jackson had set him the example.  His winter expeditions had borne fruit.  The Federal generals opposed to him gave him full credit for activity.  “Much dissatisfaction was expressed by the troops,” says one of Banks’ brigadiers, “that Jackson was permitted to get away from Winchester without a fight, and but little heed was paid to my assurances that this chieftain would be apt, before the war closed, to give us an entertainment up to the utmost of our aspirations."* (* General G.H.  Gordon.)

It was not only of McClellan’s inactivity that the Government complained.  At the end of February he submitted a plan of operations to the President, and with that plan Mr. Lincoln totally disagreed.  McClellan, basing his project on the supposition that Johnston had 100,000 men behind formidable intrenchments at Manassas, blocking the road to Richmond, proposed to transfer 150,000 men to the Virginia coast by sea; and landing either at Urbanna on the Rappahannock, or at Fortress Monroe on the Yorktown peninsula, to intervene between the Confederate army and Richmond, and possibly to capture the Southern capital before Johnston could get back to save it.