the Potomac, watching him.

Some 50,000 Union troops were in camp, in and about Washington, on the
Virginia side, under the immediate command of Generals McDowell and
Mansfield--Lieutenant General Scott, at Washington, being in
Chief-command of the Union Armies--and, confronting these Union forces,
in Virginia, near the National Capital, were some 30,000 Rebel troops
under the command of General Beauregard, whose success in securing the
evacuation of Fort Sumter by its little garrison of half-starved Union
soldiers, had magnified him, in the eyes of the rebellious South, into
the proportions of a Military genius of the first order.

There had been no fighting, nor movements, worthy of special note, until
June 7th, when General Patterson advanced from Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, to Hagerstown, Maryland. General Johnston at once
evacuated Harper's Ferry, and retreated upon Winchester, Virginia.

General McClellan, in command of the Department of the Ohio, had,
however, crossed the Ohio river, and by the 4th of July, being at
Grafton, West Virginia, with his small Army of Union troops, to which a
greatly inferior Rebel force was opposed, commenced that successful
advance against it, which led, after Bull Run, to his being placed at
the head of all the Armies of the United States.

Subsequently Patterson crossed the Potomac, and after trifling away over
one month's time, at last, on the 15th of July, got within nine miles of
Winchester and Johnston's Army. Barring a spiritless reconnaissance,
Patterson--who was a fervent Breckinridge-Democrat in politics, and
whose Military judgment, as we shall see, was greatly influenced, if not
entirely controlled, by his Chief of staff, Fitz John Porter--never got