hat the great obstacle to its adoption would be the impatience
of the patriotic and loyal Union people and leaders, who would refuse to
wait the necessary length of time.

The general was correct in his apprehension. The newspapers criticized
his plan in caustic editorials and ridiculous cartoons as "Scott's
Anaconda," and public opinion rejected it in an overwhelming demand for
a prompt and energetic advance. Scott was correct in military theory,
while the people and the administration were right in practice, under
existing political conditions. Although Bull Run seemed to justify the
general, West Virginia and Missouri vindicated the President and the
people.

It can now be seen that still a third element--geography--intervened to
give shape and sequence to the main outlines of the Civil War. When, at
the beginning of May, General Scott gave his advice, the seat of
government of the first seven Confederate States was still at
Montgomery, Alabama. By the adhesion of the four interior border States
to the insurrection, and the removal of the archives and administration
of Jefferson Davis to Richmond, Virginia, toward the end of June, as the
capital of the now eleven Confederate States, Washington necessarily
became the center of Union attack, and Richmond the center of
Confederate defense. From the day when McDowell began his march to Bull
Run, to that when Lee evacuated Richmond in his final hopeless flight,
the route between these two opposing capitals remained the principal and
dominating line of military operations, and the region between
Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River on the east, and the chain of the
Alleghanies on the west, the primary field of strategy.

According to geographical features, the second great field of strategy
lay between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi River, and the
third between the Mississippi River, the Rocky Mountains, and the Rio
Grande. Except in Western Virginia, the attitude of neutrality assumed
by Kentucky for a considerable time delayed the definition of the
military frontier and the beginning of active hostilities in the second
field, thus giving greater momentary importance to conditions existing
and events transpiring in Missouri, with the city of St. Louis as the
principal center of the third great military field.

The same necessity which dictated the promotion of General McClellan at
one bound from captain to major-general compelled a similar phenomenal
prom