jection. The Confederacy was finally beaten because it was flanked in the west and cut in two at Vicksburg. But if Washington had been captured or invested after Bull Run, it is certain that the Confederate line would have been pushed to the Ohio, and it would probably have been held there. The advantage gained by McClellan in West Virginia would have been lost, for he would practically have found himself within the Confederate lines and would have been compelled to withdraw into Pennsylvania.
Even as matters were, the position of the Union was highly precarious all through the summer and autumn of 1861. There were signs of a demand for peace in the North. Lincoln's own party was turning against him. The sympathy of Europe was rapidly passing over to the Confederacy. But so long as Lincoln stood firm in the White House and Congress sat at the capital, "the gov-
