und some
well-stocked arsenals within the grasp of the rebellion. It was not
until its later phases that the great advantage of the industrial North
in facilities for the manufacture of armaments made itself apparent.

But the great advantage which the South possessed, and which accounts
for the great measure of military success which it enjoyed, must be
regarded as an accidental one. It consisted in the much greater capacity
of the commanders whom the opening of the war found in control of its
forces. The North had to search for competent generals by a process of
trial and error, almost every trial being marked by a disaster; nor till
the very end of the war did she discover the two or three men who were
equal to their job. The South, on the other hand, had from the beginning
the good luck to possess in its higher command more than one captain
whose talents were on the highest possible level.

The Confederate Congress was summoned to meet at Richmond on July 20th.
A cry went up from the North that this event should be prevented by the
capture before that date of the Confederate capital. The cry was based
on an insufficient appreciation of the military resources of the enemy,
but it was so vehement and universal that the Government was compelled
to yield to it. A considerable army had by this time been collected in
Washington, and under the command of General McDowell it now advanced
into Virginia, its immediate objective being Manassas Junction. The
opposing force was under the Southern commander Beauregard, a
Louisianian of French extraction. The other gate of Eastern Virginia,
the Shenandoah Valley, was held by Joseph Johnstone, who was to be kept
engaged by an aged Union general named Patterson. Johnstone, however,
broke contact and got away from Patterson, joining Beauregard behind the
line of a small river called Bull Run, to which the latter had retired.
Here McDowell attacked, and the first real battle of the Civil War
followed. For a time it wavered between the two sides, but the arrival
in flank of the forces of Johnstone's rearguard, which had arrived too
late for the opening of the battle, threw the Union right wing into
confusion. Panic spread to the whole army, which, with the exception of
a small body of regular troops, flung away its arms and fled in panic
back to Washington.

Thus unauspiciously opened the campaign against the Confederacy. The
impression produced on both sides was great. The North set