maneuvers and suspense. By the end of it McClellan,
based on Fortress Monroe, had accumulated a hundred and ten thousand
men. The Confederates on the Peninsula, holding Yorktown, numbered
fifty thousand. McClellan sadly missed McDowell, whose corps was to
have taken the fort at Gloucester Point that prevented the Federal
gunboats from turning the enemy's lines at Yorktown. McDowell moved
south to Fredericksburg, leaving a small force near Manassas Junction
to connect him with the garrison of Washington. The Confederates
could spare only twelve thousand men to watch him. Meanwhile Banks
occupied the Shenandoah Valley, having twenty thousand men at
Harrisonburg and smaller forces at several points all round, from
southwest to northeast, each designed to form part of the net that
was soon to catch Jackson. Beyond Banks stood Fremont's force in
West Virginia, also ready to close in. Jackson's complete grand
total was less than that of Banks's own main body. Yet, with one
eye on Richmond, he lay in wait at Swift Run Gap, crouching for a
tiger-spring at Banks. Virginia was semicircled by superior forces.
But everywhere inside the semicircle the Confederate parts all
formed one strategic whole; while the Federal parts outside did not.
Moreover, the South had already decided to call up every available
man; thus forestalling the North by more than ten months on the
vital issue of conscription.

In May the preliminary clash of arms began on the Peninsula. The
Confederates evacuated the Yorktown lines on the third. On the
fifth McClellan's advanced guard fought its way past Williamsburg.
On the seventh he began changing his base from Fortress Monroe to
White House on the Pamunkey. Here on the sixteenth he was within
twenty miles of Richmond, while all the seaways behind him were safe
in Union hands. The fate not only of Richmond but of the whole South
seemed trembling in the scales. The Northern armies had cleared
the Mississippi down to Memphis. The Northern navy had taken New
Orleans, the greatest Southern port. And now the Northern hosts
were striking at the Southern capital. McClellan with double numbers
from the east, McDowell with treble numbers from the north, and the
Union navy, with more than fourfold strength on all the navigable
waters, were closing in. The Confederate Government had even decided
to take the extreme step of evacuating Richmond, hoping to prolong
the struggle elsewhere. The official records had been pac