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

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[420] Every time that the Federals, landing in force, destroyed a battery which had been abandoned on their approach, another would immediately spring up in its vicinity, and take up the scarcely interrupted fire upon Northern vessels. Thus an expedition to Mathias Point on the 11th of November, and a vigorous cannonade between the Federal flotilla and the batteries of Shipping Point on the 9th of December, produced no serious results. The Potomac remained closed, and the humiliation of seeing the capital thus blockaded towards the sea was deeply felt in the North.

Cold and foggy weather, however, succeeded at last to the mildness of the Indian summer. Then winter spread her snowy mantle over all that section of the continent which was the theatre of the war, and towards the last days of the year 1861, that season, so severe in that part of America, rendered any great movement of troops absolutely impossible. The drilling of the soldiers was likewise interrupted. Although they were told from day to day that they were about to take the field, they prepared of their own accord to go into winter quarters. In the place of tents, which afforded them no protection either against the snow or the blast, there rose up throughout all the encampments huts rudely constructed with unhewn logs from the neighboring forest, but warm and solid.

The Confederates imitated them; and being thenceforth protected against all attacks, they settled down as well as they could into their winter cantonments around Centreville. The two months which had thus elapsed had been of more profit to them than to their adversaries; notwithstanding the numerous maladies engendered among them by a climate whose rigors they had never before experienced, they had seen, thanks to the activity of the central government and of their military leaders, the army then commanded by Johnston increased by one-third, and raised from sixty-six thousand two hundred and forty-three men, forty-four thousand one hundred and thirty-one of whom were under arms, to a total of ninety-eight thousand and eighty-eight, of whom sixty-two thousand one hundred and twelve were present for action. The instruction of these soldiers had made great progress, and a severe discipline had been introduced among them, through their energetic commanders. But the first months of 1862 were