THE OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA. 
237 
campaigns, must not be discussed in this short lecture, but some 
references to them will be found in the appendix. 
Before coming to the operations in Virginia, we must for a moment 
set forth the fact that, though these are the best known of the war, they 
are not the most wonderful, nor did they alone determine the fate of 
the South. A glance at any map will shew the vital importance to the 
Confederacy of that tremendous artery, the Mississippi. When the 
Federals, under Grant, Sherman, and others in 1862-3, got possession of 
the lines of the Cumberland and the Tennessee rivers, and took 
Vicksburg, they had, so to speak, turned the Alleghanies, and could move 
into the very heart of the enemy’s country, and threaten the communica¬ 
tions of Richmond with the whole territory between North Carolina 
and the Gulf of Mexico. Simultaneously with these operations from 
the North, another expedition, under Admiral Farragut and General 
Butler, seized New Orleans—a great Southern emporium—and a strict 
blockade was established on the western coast, which rendered Con¬ 
federate communication with the outer world almost impossible. These 
proceedings of course crippled the Confederacy, and directly affected the 
situation in Virginia. After their victory of Chattanooga, 1863, the 
Federals might hope, by a movement eastward, to cut the enemy’s 
resources in two, and, gaining a new base on the sea, proceed from 
Savannah and Charleston northwards towards Richmond, which would 
at the same time be assailed by the Federal armies in Virginia, and this 
was actually the principle underlying the justly famous campaigns of 
Sherman in Georgia and Carolina, 1864-65. 
Before we analyse the campaigns in Virginia, it is necessary to 
discuss its topography and how far this affected the Federals, whose base, 
till they won the Mississippi, may be broadly described as bounded by 
the Potomac river, and as including all the territory to the north and 
west of it, and whose object was Richmond. 
The lines of advance clearly were (1st), up the Shenandoah Valley— 
the fertile and beautiful valley of Virginia—from Harper’s Ferry, by 
Winchester to Staunton, and thence to Richmond, or (2nd), from Arlington 
and Alexandria to Manassas Junction, and thence by Culpeper to Gordons- 
ville and Richmond ; this line could be connected with the valley line 
by the gaps in the Blue Ridge and by the railways running from 
Manassas and Charlottesville westward ; another line (3rd), was from 
Acquia Creek to Fredericksburg, and thence by Hanover Court House 
to the Confederate capital. In the event of a simultaneous advance east 
and west of the Blue Ridge there was no small danger, lest the defender, 
acting on interior lines, might imitate the Archduke Charles, in 1796, or 
Napoleon, in 1814, and beat each section of the invaders in detail. 
There were great difficulties in the way of a movement by the second 
line; obstacles in the shape of frequent streams, and rivulets soon swollen 
into rivers by a few days’ rain ; woods and swamps ; the notorious 
“wilderness”; and the mud of Virginia, as hard to traverse by any 
army as the road from Point-au-Jour to Gembloux was to Grouchy, after 
the battle of Ligny ; of course, on the third line, the rivers became even 
more trying impediments to the progress of an invader. 
To advance by all three lines was to run the risks inseparable from 
division of force, while to move by the two more eastern routes, and, 
not to utilize the valley, was to expose the Northern States to a irruption 
from the valley, or a “ raid ” by some brilliant cavalry leader such as 
J. E. B. Stuart, followed by the flower of the Southern cavaliers and their 
