Alleghany Mountains, to Vicksburg and the Father of Waters.

Great as was the importance of success in Virginia, the Confederates had
appreciated the fact as had not the political soldiers at the head of
the Federal department of war. Our resources always enabled us to keep
more men, and more and better material, on this battle-ground, than the
Confederates could do; but this strength was constantly offset by the
ability of the Southern generals, and their independence of action,
as opposed to the frequent unskilfulness of ours, who were not only
never long in command, but were then tied hand and foot to some ideal
plan for insuring the safety of Washington. The political conditions
under which the Army of the Potomac had so far constantly acted had
never allowed it to do justice to its numbers, mobility, or courage;
while Mr. Lincoln, who actually assumed the powers of commander-in-chief,
technically intrusted to him by the Constitution, was swayed to and fro
by his own fears for the safety of his capital, and by political schemes
and military obtuseness at his elbow.

Whether the tedious delays and deferred success, occasioned by these
circumstances, were not eventually a benefit, in that they enabled the
country to bring forth in the fulness of time the conditions leading to
the extinguishment of slavery, which an earlier close of the war might
not have seen; not to mention the better appreciation by either
combatant of the value of the other, which a struggle to the bitter end
alone could generate,--is a question for the political student. But it
will always remain in doubt whether the practical exhaustion of the
resources of the South was not a condition precedent to ending the
war,--whether, in sooth, the "last ditch" was not actually reached when
Lee surrendered at Appomattox.