Although such an operation would carry Pope far from Washington there was no remonstrance from headquarters.  Lincoln and Stanton, mistrustful at last of their ability as strategists, had called to their councils General Halleck, who had shown some evidence of capacity while in command of the Western armies.  The new Commander-in-Chief had a difficult problem to work out.  It is impossible to determine how far Jackson’s movement to Gordonsville influenced the Federal authorities, but immediately on Halleck’s arrival at Washington, about the same date that the movement was reported, he was urged, according to his own account, to withdraw McClellan from the Peninsula.  “I delayed my decision,” he says, “as long as I dared delay it;” but on August 3 his mind was made up, and McClellan, just after Hill joined Jackson, was ordered to embark his army at Fortress Monroe, sail to Aquia Creek, near Fredericksburg, and join Pope on the Rappahannock.  The proposed combination, involving the transfer by sea of 90,000 men, with all their artillery and trains, was a manoeuvre full of danger.* (* McClellan had received no further reinforcements than those sent from Washington.  Burnside, with 14,000 men, remained at Fortress Monroe until the beginning of August, when he embarked for Aquia Creek, concentrating on August 5.  Hunter’s troops were withheld.) The retreat and embarkation of McClellan’s troops would take time, and the Confederates, possessing the interior lines, had two courses open to them:—­

1.  Leaving Jackson to check Pope, they might attack McClellan as soon as he evacuated his intrenched position at Harrison’s Landing.

2.  They might neglect McClellan and concentrate against Pope before he could be reinforced.

Halleck considered that attack on McClellan was the more likely, and Pope was accordingly instructed to threaten Gordonsville, so as to force Lee to detach heavily from Richmond, and leave him too weak to strike the Army of the Potomac.

August 6.

On August 6 Pope commenced his advance.  Banks had pushed a brigade of infantry from Sperryville to Culpeper Court House, and Ricketts’ division (of McDowell’s corps) was ordered to cross the Rappahannock at Waterloo Bridge and march to the same spot.  Jackson, whose spies had informed him of the enemy’s dispositions, received early intelligence of Banks’ movement, and the next afternoon his three divisions were ordered forward, marching by roads where there was no chance of their being seen.  “He hoped,” so he wrote to Lee, “through the blessing of Providence, to defeat the advanced Federal detachment before reinforcements should arrive.”  This detachment was his first objective; but he had long since recognised the strategic importance of Culpeper Court House.  At this point four roads meet, and it was probable, from their previous dispositions, that the Federal army corps would use three of these in their advance.  Pope’s right wing at