It promised great results, and ought, it would seem, to have succeeded.

The Confederate forces in Virginia did not number in all one hundred thousand men; and it is now apparent that, without the able strategy of Johnston, Lee, and Jackson, General McClellan would have been in possession of Richmond before the summer.
Prompt action was thus necessary on the part of the sagacious soldier commanding the army at Richmond, and directing operations throughout the theatre of action in Virginia.

The officer in question was General Joseph E.Johnston, a Virginian by birth, who had first held General Patterson in check in the Shenandoah Valley, and then hastened to the assistance of General Beauregard at Manassas, where, in right of his superior rank, he took command.

Before the enemy's design to advance up the Peninsula had been developed, Johnston had made a masterly retreat from Manassas.

Reappearing with his force of about forty thousand men on the Peninsula, he had obstinately opposed McClellan, and only retired when he was compelled by numbers to do so, with the resolution, however, of fighting a decisive battle on the Chickahominy.