Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[626] the bare idea of the army of the Potomac contemplating a departure for a theatre of action remote from the capital. General McClellan, although determined to guarantee the safety of Washington as fully as possible, could never come to an understanding with the strategists of the cabinet, whose advice controlled Mr. Lincoln, as to the manner of defending the capital. From the moment that the army of the Potomac concentrated all its available forces upon any given point for the purpose of undertaking some great offensive movement, its detachments and accessory corps had to confine themselves to the strictest defensive everywhere else. When, therefore, this army embarked for Fortress Monroe, all that the home troops had to do was to prevent any aggressive movement of the enemy against Washington or the Maryland frontier. West Virginia, being impracticable for large armies, could take care of herself. In order to close the Virginia valley, to protect the crossings of the Potomac at Harper's Ferry and Williamsport, and to cover the Ohio Railway, it was sufficient to occupy strongly the central position of Winchester. In short, in order to afford entire security to the capital, it was necessary, without counting depots and non-combatants, to establish two strong garrisons, one in the powerful works on the right bank of the Potomac, and the other in the Manassas lines of defences, reconstructed and turned round, so as to cover the approaches to Washington. But no personal or party considerations should have been allowed to interfere with what ought to be the sole and paramount object of war, the destruction of the enemy. There should have been no desire for compromise between men or their different plans of campaign. The satisfaction of occupying the whole country south of Washington should have been foregone for a while longer, and the Confederate guerillas allowed to remain in possession of it.

The President, who, six months before, had suddenly taken away the command of the great department of the Missouri from General Fremont, had just created a new one in West Virginia expressly for him, called ‘the Mountain Department.’ This department had been so curiously marked out that Fremont was unable to find an enemy within its prescribed limits, and yet the President could not withstand the representations of those who