of the war
sapped the resources of the North. Her trade, instead of dwindling,
had actually increased; and the gaps made in the population by the
Confederate bullets were more than made good by a constant influx of
immigrants from Europe.

It was not by partial triumphs, not by the slaughter of a few
brigades, by defence without counterstroke, by victories without
pursuit, that a Power of such strength and vitality could be
compelled to confess her impotence. Whether some overwhelming
disaster, a Jena or a Waterloo, followed by instant invasion, would
have subdued her stubborn spirit is problematical. Rome survived
Cannae, Scotland Flodden, and France Sedan. But in some such crowning
mercy lay the only hope of the Confederacy, and had the Army of the
Potomac, ill-commanded as it was, been drawn forward to the North
Anna, it might have been utterly destroyed. Half-hearted strategy,
which aims only at repulsing the enemy's attack, is not the path to
king-making victory; it is not by such feeble means that States
secure or protect their independence. To occupy a position where
Stuart's cavalry was powerless, where the qualities which made Lee's
infantry so formidable--the impetuosity of their attack, the
swiftness of their marches--had no field for display, and where the
enemy had free scope for the employment of his artillery, his
strongest arm, was but to postpone the evil day. It had been well for
the Confederacy if Stonewall Jackson, whose resolute strategy had but
one aim, and that aim the annihilation of the enemy, had been the
supreme director of her councils. To paraphrase Mahan: "The strategic
mistake (in occupying a position for which pursuit was impracticable)
neutralised the tactical advantage gained, thus confirming the
military maxim that a strategic mistake is more serious and
far-reaching in its effects than an error in tactics."

Lee, however, was fettered by the orders of the Cabinet; and Mr.
Davis and his advisers, more concerned with the importance of
retaining an area of country which still furnished supplies than of
annihilating the Army of the Potomac, and relying on European
intervention rather than on the valour of the Southern soldier, were
responsible for the occupation of the Fredericksburg position. In
extenuation of their mistake it may, however, be admitted that the
advantages of concentration on the North Anna were not such as would
impress themselves on the civilian mind, while the surr