brigades were sent to do the
work of patrols, and that little heed was paid to the physical wants
of man and beast. As a tactician Pope was incapable. As a strategist
he lacked imagination, except in his dispatches. His horizon was
limited, and he measured the capacity of his adversaries by his own.
He was familiar with the campaign in the Valley, with the operations
in the Peninsula, and Cedar Run should have enlightened him as to
Jackson's daring. But he had no conception that his adversaries would
cheerfully accept great risks to achieve great ends; he had never
dreamt of a general who would deliberately divide his army, or of one
who would make fifty-six miles in two marches.

Lee, with his extraordinary insight into character, had played on
Pope as he had played on McClellan, and his strategy was justified by
success. In the space of three weeks he had carried the war from the
James to the Potomac. With an army that at no time exceeded 55,000
men he had driven 80,000 into the fortifications of Washington.* (*
Sumner and Franklin had become involved in Pope's retreat.) He had
captured 30 guns, 7000 prisoners, 20,000 rifles, and many stand of
colours; he had killed or wounded 13,500 Federals, destroyed supplies
and material of enormous value; and all this with a loss to the
Confederates of 10,000 officers and men.

So much had he done for the South; for his own reputation he had done
more. If, as Moltke avers, the junction of two armies on the field of
battle is the highest achievement of military genius,* (* Tried by
this test alone Lee stands out as one of the greatest soldiers of all
times. Not only against Pope, but against McClellan at Gaines' Mill,
against Burnside at Fredericksburg, and against Hooker at
Chancellorsville, he succeeded in carrying out the operations of
which Moltke speaks; and in each case with the same result of
surprising his adversary. None knew better how to apply that great
principle of strategy, "to march divided but to fight concentrated.")
the campaign against Pope has seldom been surpassed; and the great
counterstroke at Manassas is sufficient in itself to make Lee's
reputation as a tactician. Salamanca was perhaps a more brilliant
example of the same manoeuvre, for at Salamanca Wellington had no
reason to anticipate that Marmont would blunder, and the mighty
stroke which beat 40,000 French in forty minutes was conceived in a
few moments. Nor does Manassas equal Austerlitz. No such