eving the pressure on Richmond and
giving the initiative to Lee. Halleck ordered McClellan to withdraw
from Harrison's Landing, take his Army of the Potomac round by sea
to Aquia Creek, and join Pope on the Rappahannock--an operation
requiring the whole month of August to complete.

Lee lost no time. His first move was to get Pope's advanced troops
defeated by Jackson, who brought more than double numbers against
Banks at Cedar Run on the ninth of August. The Federals fought
magnificently, nine against twenty thousand men. After the battle
Jackson marched across the Rapidan, and Halleck wisely forbade
Pope from following him, even though the first of Burnside's men
(now the advanced guard of McClellan's army) had arrived at Aquia
and were marching overland to Pope. Then followed some anxious days
at Federal Headquarters. Jackson vanished; and Pope's cavalry,
numerous as it was, wore itself out trying to find the clue. McClellan
was still busy moving his men from Harrison's Landing to Fortress
Monroe, whence detachments kept sailing to Aquia. What would Lee
do now?

On the thirteenth he began entraining Longstreet's troops for
Gordonsville. On the fifteenth he conferred with his generals.
And on the seventeenth, from the lookout on Clark's Mountain, he
saw Pope's unsuspecting army camped round Slaughter Mountain within
fifteen miles of the united Confederates. Halleck had just given
Pope the fatal order to "fight like the devil" till McClellan came
up. Pope was full of confidence. And there he lay, in a bad strategic
and worse tactical position, and with slightly inferior numbers,
just within reach of Jackson and Lee. Pope was, however, saved from
immediate disaster by an oversight on the part of Stuart. In ordering
Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry brigade to rendezvous at Verdierville that
night Stuart forgot to make the order urgent and the missing brigade
came in late. Stuart, anxious to see the enemy's position for himself,
rode out and was nearly taken prisoner. His dispatch-box fell into
Pope's hands, with a memorandum of Jackson's reinforcements. Jackson
was for attacking next day in any case and groaned aloud when Lee
decided not to, owing to the failure of cavalry combination in
front and the belated supplies in the rear. Pope retired safely on
the eighteenth, and on the nineteenth a thick haze hid his rear
from Lee's lookout.

Lee was now in a very difficult position, apparently face to face
with what would soon be