the Army of Northern Virginia cut in between Washington and McClellan it would be a simple operation for the latter to about face and attack the Confederates in rear.  He knew, and Mr. Lincoln, if he had studied Pope’s campaign, should have known it too, that the operation of countermarching, if the line of communication has been cut, is not only apt to produce great confusion and great suffering, but has the very worst effect on the morale of the troops.  But Lee had that practical experience which Mr. Lincoln lacked, and without which it is but waste of words to dogmatise on strategy.  He was well aware that a large army is a cumbrous machine, not readily deflected from the original direction of the line of march;* (* On November 1 the Army of the Potomac (not including the Third Corps) was accompanied by 4818 waggons and ambulances, 8,500 transport horses, and 12,000 mules.  O.R. volume 19 part 1 pages 97-8.  The train of each army corps and of the cavalry covered eight miles of road, or fifty miles for the whole.) and, more than all, he had that intimate acquaintance with the soldier in the ranks, that knowledge of the human factor, without which no military problem, whether of strategy, tactics, or organisation, can be satisfactorily solved.  McClellan’s task, therefore, so long as he had to depend for his supplies on a single line of railway, was not quite so simple as Mr. Lincoln imagined.

Nevertheless, on November 7 Lee decided to unite his army.  As soon as the enemy advanced from Warrenton, Jackson was to ascend the Valley, and crossing the Blue Ridge at Fisher’s Gap, join hands with Longstreet, who would retire from Madison Court House to the vicinity of Gordonsville.  The Confederates would then be concentrated on McClellan’s right flank should he march on Richmond, ready to take advantage of any opportunity for attack; or, if attack were considered too hazardous, to threaten his communications, and compel him to fall back to the Potomac.

The proposed concentration, however, was not immediately carried out.  In the first place, the Federal advance came to a sudden standstill; and, in the second place, Jackson was unwilling to abandon his post of vantage behind the Blue Ridge.  It need hardly be said that the policy of manoeuvring instead of intrenching, of aiming at the enemy’s flank and rear instead of barring his advance directly, was in full agreement with his views of war; and it appears that about this date he had submitted proposals for a movement against the Federal communications.  It would be interesting indeed to have the details of his design, but Jackson’s letter-book for this period has unfortunately disappeared, nor did he communicate his ideas to any of his staff.  Letters from General Lee, however, indicate that the manoeuvre proposed was of the same character as that which brought Pope in such hot haste from the Rappahannock to Bull Run, and that it was Jackson’s suggestion which caused the Commander-in-Chief to reconsider his determination of uniting his army.