their mighty adversary. They appear to have believed that the
earthworks which had transformed Centreville into a formidable
fortress, manned by the Army of Northern Virginia, as the force under
Johnston was now designated, were sufficient in themselves to end the
war. They had not yet learned that there were many roads to Richmond,
and that a passive defence is no safeguard against a persevering foe.
The Government, expecting much from the intervention of the European
Powers, did nothing to press the advantage already gained. In vain
the generals urged the President to reinforce the army at Centreville
to 60,000 men, and to give it transport and supplies sufficient to
permit the passage of the Potomac above Washington.

In vain they pointed out, in answer to the reply that the Government
could furnish neither men nor arms, that large bodies of troops were
retained at points the occupation of which by the enemy would cause
only a local inconvenience. "Was it not possible," they asked the
President, "by stripping other points to the last they would bear,
and even risking defeat at all other places, to put the Virginian
army in condition for a forward movement? Success," they said, "in
the neighbourhood of Washington was success everywhere, and it was
upon the north-eastern frontier that all the available force of the
Confederacy should be concentrated."

Mr. Davis was immovable. Although Lee, who had been appointed to a
command in West Virginia almost immediately after Bull Run, was no
longer at hand to advise him, he probably saw the strategical
requirements of the situation. That a concentrated attack on a vital
point is a better measure of security than dissemination along a
frontier, that the counter-stroke is the soul of the defence, and
that the true policy of the State which is compelled to take up arms
against a superior foe is to allow that foe no breathing-space, are
truisms which it would be an insult to his ability to say that he did
not realise. But to have surrendered territory to the temporary
occupation of the enemy, in order to seek a problematical victory
elsewhere, would have probably provoked a storm of discontent. The
authority of the new Government was not yet firmly established; nor
was the patriotism of the Southern people so entirely unselfish as to
render them willing to endure minor evils in order to achieve a great
result. They were willing to fight, but they were unwilling that
their own St