There is nothing in all this to change the opinion, previously formed, that Patterson should have pushed on to Winchester early in July.  The whole of Johnston’s manoeuvering seems to have been calculated merely to deceive Patterson, and to gain time.  And so clever was he in his strategy, that, when his march to Manassas commenced, Patterson, learning either of the main movement or of a feint towards himself, aroused his army at midnight, and held them in readiness to fight, in apprehension of instant attack.  As early as the middle of June, when Patterson threw a brigade over the Potomac at Williamsport, on a reconnoitering expedition, Johnston heard of the movement, and advanced a small force to engage and delay the Federals, which fell back as soon as the latter retired, as has since been learned from escaped prisoners and deserters.  Indeed, the whole of Patterson’s campaign shows far superior generalship on the part of his adversary.

Scarcely had the cautious general occupied from necessity that point whose strength and natural facilities he had previously despised, when the term of his appointment as general of the division expired, and the government allowed him to retire to private life.  His successor’s first act was to retire across the Potomac and occupy the Maryland Heights, opposite to Harper’s Ferry, leaving not a foot of rebel soil to be held by our army as an evidence of the ‘something’ which had been expected of the venerable commander of the army of the Shenandoah.  He had spent three months of time, and ten millions of money, and had only emulated the acts of that Gallic sovereign whose great deeds are immortalized in the brief couplet,

  ’The king of France, with twice ten thousand men,
  Marched up the hill, and then—­marched down again.’

He had done more.  He had committed another grave error, which has received but little public attention, but which told with disastrous effect upon the Union cause in Northern Virginia.  That section of the State, as is well known, contained many true Union men.  Previous to Patterson’s entry into Virginia, they had been proscribed and severely treated by the secessionists.  Many had been impressed by the rebel troops; the ‘Berkeley Border Guard’ had dragged many a peaceable Unionist from his bed at night to serve in the ranks of Johnston’s army.  But many others had been able to keep their true sentiments wholly to themselves, and had feigned sympathy with secession; while many more had fled from their homes across the Potomac, and sought refuge in loyal Maryland, where they hung around the Federal camps, vainly urging an early advance, that they might go home and take care of their families and their crops.  Thus was Berkeley County completely shackled, and a reign of terror fully established.  And on that bright morning of the 2d of July, as the Federal army marched over the ‘sacred soil,’ the cleanly cut grain fields, with their deserted houses,