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

The object of Burnside's expedition was accomplished. The results achieved, in a military point of view, were considerable; those of a political character did not answer the expectations of the Federal government. Not that North Carolina was as ardently devoted to the Confederate cause as her southern sister, for in reality she did not care much for either party, but that, while a large number of her inhabitants would have liked to wait for the issue of the struggle to declare their preferences, those even who at heart had remained loyal to the flag of the Union were too much afraid of a turn of fortune to avow their sentiments openly. To go in search of new successes it would have been necessary to penetrate into the interior of the land. A large army, and not a single division, would be necessary for such a task. But on the other hand, the fifteen thousand or sixteen thousand men composing Burnside's division were not required to guard this new conquest. In leaving those troops as garrisons of the inland sea the Washington government committed a serious mistake, for, scattered along those sterile coasts, they were useless to their cause at a time when they might have rendered valuable services in the campaign of which the peninsula of Virginia was about to become the theatre. One might even criticise the plan of the expedition, which had deprived the army of the Potomac of a strong division on the eve of a decisive struggle; the diversion, however, was justified by the success that attended it; but this success should at least have been taken advantage of to bring Burnside back promptly to other battle-fields. Having once obtained the most considerable results, his protracted absence was a fatal and inexcusable error.