unsels thereupon prevailed.

Lee and Meade maneuvered over the old Virginian scenes of action,
each trying to outflank the other, and each being hampered by having
to send reinforcements to their friends in Tennessee, where, as
we have seen already, Bragg and Rosecrans were now maneuvering in
front of Chattanooga. In October (after the Confederate victory of
Chickamauga) Meade foiled Lee's attempt to bring on a Third Manassas.
The campaign closed at Mine Run, where Lee repulsed Meade's attempted
surprise in a three-day action, which began on the twenty-sixth
of November, the morrow of Grant's three days at Chattanooga.

From this time forward the South was like a beleaguered city, certain
to fall if not relieved, unless, indeed, the hearts of those who
swayed the Northern vote should fail them at the next election.

CHAPTER IX

FARRAGUT AND THE NAVY: 1863-4

The Navy's task in '63 was complicated by the many foreign vessels
that ran only between two neutral ports but broke bulk into
blockade-runners at their own port of destination. For instance,
a neutral vessel, with neutral crew and cargo, would leave a port
in Europe for a neutral port in America, say, Nassau in the Bahamas
or Matamoras on the Rio Grande. She could not be touched of course
at either port or anywhere inside the three-mile limit. But
international law accepted the doctrine of continuous voyage, by
which contraband could be taken anywhere on the high seas, provided,
of course, that the blockader could prove his case. If, for example,
there were ten times as many goods going into Matamoras as could
possibly be used through that port by Mexico, then the presumption
was that nine-tenths were contraband. Presumption becoming proof
by further evidence, the doctrine of continuous voyage could be
used in favor of the blockaders who stopped the contraband at sea
between the neutral ports. The blockade therefore required a double
line of operation: one, the old line along the Southern coast,
the other, the new line out at sea, and preferably just beyond
the three-mile limit outside the original port of departure, so
as to kill the evil at its source. Nassau and Matamoras gave the
coast blockade plenty of harassing work; Nassau because it was
"handy to" the Atlantic ports, Matamoras because it was at the
mouth of the Rio Grande, over the shoals of which the Union warships
could not go to prevent contraband crossing into Texas, thence up
to the Red