PART II.
_IN FRONT OF RICHMOND_.
I.
PLAN OF THE FEDERAL CAMPAIGN.
The pathetic interview which we have just described took place in the month of March, 1862.
By the latter part of that month, General McClellan, in command of an army of more than one hundred thousand men, landed on the Peninsula between the James and York Rivers, and after stubbornly-contested engagements with the forces of General Johnston, advanced up the Peninsula--the Confederates slowly retiring.

In the latter part of May, a portion of the Federal forces had crossed the Chickahominy, and confronted General Johnston defending Richmond.
Such was the serious condition of affairs in the spring of 1862.

The Federal sword had nearly pierced the heart of Virginia, and, as the course of events was about to place Lee in charge of her destinies, a brief notice is indispensable of the designs of the adversaries against whom he was to contend on the great arena of the State.
While the South had been lulled to sleep, as it were, by the battle of Manassas, the North, greatly enraged at the disaster, had prepared to prosecute the war still more vigorously.

The military resources of the South had been plainly underestimated.

It was now obvious that the North had to fight with a dangerous adversary, and that the people of the South were entirely in earnest.