But it may be said that the possession by the North of the whole Virginia seaboard gave many other secondary bases and lines of operation, free from the objections above mentioned. This is undoubtedly true; yet the statement must be taken with the limitations that belong to it. The most important of these lines are the Peninsula between the York and James rivers, and the route by the south side of the James. The former was adopted by General McClellan in the spring of 1862, and the latter was eventually taken up by General Grant in the summer of 1864, after having, in a remarkable campaign, crossed every possible line of operation against Richmond. But it is manifest that Richmond could be operated against from the coast only by an army that was in condition to leave Washington out of the question. The secession of Virginia made the Potomac the dividing line between two warring powers; and the unfortunate location of the national capital on the banks of that river, and on an exposed frontier, profoundly affected the character of military operations in Virginia, and, during the first three years of the war, caused a subordination of all strategic combinations to the protection of Washington. Saving the time when McClellan moved to the Peninsula, and Grant swung across the James River, the Army of the Potomac was never allowed to ‘uncover’ Washington. Now, in the former case, the first menace by Lee foreshadowing a northward movement caused the withdrawal of the army from the Peninsula; and, in the latter instance, a small raiding column, detached by way of the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland, compelled General Grant to part with two of his corps to protect the national capital, and, for the time, almost suspended active operations before Petersburg.
It remains now to add that the gigantic war whose principal
