the rough handling they had received, Lee was developing a plan to
remove them still further from the vicinity of Richmond. Harrison's
Landing was too close to the Confederate capital for comfort and
the breastworks which the Union commander erected there were too
formidable to be attacked. But, though he could not hope to drive
his adversary away by force, Lee believed that he could lure him from
his stronghold by carrying the war into another part of Virginia.
The opportunity to do this was particularly favorable, for the
Union forces in front of Washington, consisting of about 45,000
men, had been placed under the command of General John Pope. Pope
had served with Grant in the Mississippi campaign and had begun his
career in the East by boasting of the great things he was about to
accomplish, referring contemptuously to his opponents and otherwise
advertising himself as a braggart and a babbler. He had come, so
he told his soldiers in a flamboyant address, from an army which
had seen only the backs of its enemies. He had come to lead them
to victories. He wanted to hear no more of "lines of retreat"
or backward movements of any kind. His headquarters were "in the
saddle" and his mission was to terrorize the foe.

These absurd proclamations pretty thoroughly exposed Pope's
character, but he had been at West Point with General Longstreet,
one of Lee's ablest advisers, and that officer speedily acquainted
his chief with the full measure of his opponent's weaknesses. This
was exceedingly useful to Lee and when he discovered that McClellan
and Pope were pulling at different directions like balky circus
horses, while Halleck with one foot on each was in imminent peril
of a fall, he determined to take advantage of the situation and
hasten the disaster.