Browsing named entities in William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac. You can also browse the collection for Virginia (Virginia, United States) or search for Virginia (Virginia, United States) in all documents.

Your search returned 18 results in 9 document sections:

William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, I. The Army of the Potomac in history. (search)
ichmond: and when, after many battles and campaigns, —more than any man then dreamed,—Richmond fell, the structure of the Confederacy fell with it. But though the sphere of action is in the main bounded by the geographical figure of the State of Virginia, it resulted from the fact of the war assuming twice on the part of the insurgent force an aggressive character, that its area must be extended so as to include a part of the territory of the contiguous States of Maryland and Pennsylvania. This circumstance does not destroy, however, the unity of the zone within which the Armies of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia operated. The battles of Antietam and Gettysburg—the two actions out of the limits of Virginia—were fought in the narrow salient of a great triangle, having the southern boundary line of Virginia as its base, the Shenandoah and Cumberland valleys as its western side, and the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay as its eastern side. From its apex, this triangle m
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, chapter 2 (search)
s trying task, entitles him to great credit. In entering upon the special problem assigned him, it was not possible for General McDowell to avoid taking into account not only his immediate enemy at Manassas, but whatever other hostile forces, distributed over the theatre of war in Virginia, might influence the fortunes of his projected expedition. The occupation of Manassas had been recommended to the Confederates, from the very fact that it was the centre of the railroad system of Northern Virginia—at the junction of the great southern railroad route connecting Washington with Richmond, and the Manassas Gap Railroad leading to the Valley of the Shenandoah. The former highway connected Beauregard with the forces on the Peninsula and at Richmond (distant by railroad about seventy-five miles); the latter, with the army under Johnston, in the Shenandoah Valley (distant by railroad about seventy miles). The Confederates, in fact, held a line interior to the forces of Butler, McDowell
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, chapter 4 (search)
t was baulked by the skill of the Confederates and the folly of those who controlled the operations of the Union armies. At the time the Army of the Potomac was toiling painfully up the Peninsula towards Richmond, the remaining forces in Northern Virginia presented the extraordinary spectacle of three distinct armies, planted on three separate lines of operations, under three independent commanders. The highland region of West Virginia had been formed into the Mountain Department under commn in towards Richmond. Jackson was joined by Ewell's division from Gordonsville on the 30th April, and at the same time he received the further accession of the two brigades of General Edward Johnson, who had held an independent command in Southwest Virginia. This raised his force to about fifteen thousand men. Banks' force, reduced by the detachment of Shields' division, sent to General McDowell, to about five thousand men, was posted at Harrisonburg. Fremont was at Franklin, across the moun
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, V. Pope's campaign in Northern Virginia. August, 1862. (search)
V. Pope's campaign in Northern Virginia. August, 1862. I. Removal of the army from the Peninsula. It will have appeared from the exposition of the motives that prompted the change of base, tpaign in the Shenandoah Valley, had gathered together the disjointed fag-ends of armies in Northern Virginia under McDowell and Banks and Fremont, and had consolidated them into the Army of Virginia,m which to attack the transports in the river. Lee's Report: Reports of the Operations of Northern Virginia, vol. i., p. 15. This did little damage, however, and on the following morning General Mcis it will be necessary to glance a moment at General Pope's contemporaneous operations in Northern Virginia. Upon assuming command of the Army of Virginia, General Pope, whose military conduct wad men. As the seizure of the points named would tap the Confederate communications with Southwestern Virginia, Lee, to meet Pope's advance, sent forward General Jackson, with his own and Ewell's div
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, chapter 6 (search)
ign had been remarkable. From the front of Richmond the theatre of operations had been transferred to the front of Washington; the Union armies had been reduced to a humiliating defensive, and the rich harvests of the Shenandoah Valley and Northern Virginia were the prize of the victors. To crown and consolidate these conquests, Lee now determined to cross the frontier into Maryland. The prospective advantages of such a transfer of the theatre of war to the north of the Potomac seemed stroence of the hostile force would detain McClellan on the frontier long enough to render an invasion of Virginia during the approaching winter difficult, if not impracticable. Lee: Report of the Maryland Campaign, in Reports of the Army or Northern Virginia, vol. i., p. 27. Yet, if the enterprise had promised only such military gain, it is doubtful whether the Richmond government would have undertaken a project involving the renunciation of the proved advantages of their proper defensive;
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, chapter 9 (search)
on of the Confederate force at this time. On the 13th of June, with the Army of the Potomac yet lying on the Rappahannock, Lee's line of battle was stretched out over an interval of upwards of a hundred miles: for his right (Hill's corps) still held the lines of Fredericksburg; his centre (Longstreet's corps) lay at Culpepper; and his left (Ewell's corps) was at the mouth of the Shenandoah Valley! Now, it will doubtless not be difficult for any one capable of looking at the map of Northern Virginia with a military eye, to base on these data a plan of action which it may be supposed would be the plan of action suited to the circumstances. But it would be altogether unjust to judge what General Hooker did, or what he failed to do, by the simple results of military reasoning; for in the relations which he held to the central military authority at Washington—an authority to which his own views were completely subordinated—he had neither the freedom of willing nor of acting. It wo
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, chapter 11 (search)
d campaign. The course of this narrative has already set forth the series of operations, remarkable in the history of warfare, by which, in one pregnant month, the Army of the Potomac fought its way to the Chickahominy. The campaign indeed resembled less ordinary campaigns than a kind of running siege. From the Rapidan to the Chickahominy the face of the country was covered with the intrenched lines, within which these points of mighty opposites, the Armies of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia, had waged a succession of deadly conflicts. At every advance, Lee was able to meet his adversary with a front of opposition, and within his improvised strongholds exact a heavy price in blood. And although the illustrious valor of the Army of the Potomac more than once plucked victors from the jaws of hell, and bayoneted an unyielding enemy in the very enceinte of his citadel, the Union commander was never able to crush his opponent, who, thrown again and again in the mighty wrestle
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, chapter 12 (search)
ry principles as it had been in the worst period of 1862. Washington and Baltimore, and the country adjacent, formed the Department of Washington; Eastern and Central Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland, the Department of the Susquehanna; Northwestern Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, the Department of West Virginia; and the region of the Shenandoah, and eastward to the Bull Run Mountains, the Middle Department. These several military bailiwicks were under control of independent military commluck at any time cheap laurels. Happily the conduct of the war was now under one military head, so that General Grant could at will end this costly and disgraceful policy. The events of July showed the urgent need of unity of command in Northern Virginia, and the lieutenant-general, in August, consolidated these four departments into one, named the Middle Military Division, under General Hunter. That officer, however, before entering on the proposed campaign, expressed a willingness to be
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, Index. (search)
t Jericho Ford, and repulse of the enemy, 473; Chesterfield Bridge captured by Hancock, 475; extraordinary position of Confederate army at, 477; Grant's withdrawal and start for the Pamunky, 477. North, the, offensive thrown upon, 24. Northern Virginia, position of the three armies of, 122; Pope's campaign (for further, see Pope), 167. Officers, inefficiency of, property holders' memorial on, 63. On to Richmond, influence of the phrase, 40. Opening of the war—see three months camf the War and military court of inquiry, 524. Piedmont, the battle of, 469. Pipe Creek—see Gettysburg. Pleasonton's report of strength of cavalry after Chancellorsville, 310. Po, the river—see Spottsylvania. Pope, campaign in Northern Virginia, 167; placed in command of Army of Virginia (McDowell, Banks and Fremont), 168; his military reputation, 168; his bombastic nonsense on assuming command, and its popularity, 169; thought he could march to New Orleans with such an army as Mc<