set on the right hand or the left according as they were of irreproachable or reproachable character; they were divided into those who did and those who did not. In the provisional judgment which men, if they make it modestly, should at times make with decision, McClellan's place is clear. The quality, "spiacente a Dio ed ai nemici suoi," of the men who did not, ran through and through him. Lincoln required first a general who would make no fatal blunder, but he required too, when he could find him, a general of undaunted enterprise; he did not wish to expose the North to disaster, but he did mean to conquer the South. There was some security in employing McClellan, though employing him did at one time throw on Lincoln's unfit shoulders the task of defending Washington. It proved very hard to find another general equally trustworthy. But, in the light of facts which Lincoln came to perceive, it proved impossible to consider McClellan as the man to finish the war. We need only notice the doings of the main armies in this theatre of the war and take no account of various minor affairs at outlying posts. From the battle of Bull Run, which was on July 21, 1861, to March 5, 1862, the Southern army under Joseph Johnston lay quietly drilling at Manassas. It, of course, entrenched its position, but to add to the appearance of its strength, it constructed embrasures for more than its number of guns and had dummy guns to show in them. At one moment there was a prospect that it might move. Johnston and the general with him had no idea of attacking the army of the Potomac where it lay, but they did think that with a further 50,000 or 60,000 they might successfully invade Maryland, crossing higher up the Potomac, and by drawing McClellan away from his present position, get a chance of defeating him. The Southern President came to Manassas, at their invitation, on October 1, but he did not think well to withdraw the trained men whom he could have sent to Johnston from the various points in the South at which they were stationed; he may have had good reasons but it is likely that he sacrificed one of the best chances of the South. McClellan's army was soon in as good a state of preparation as Johnston's. Early in October McClellan had, on his own statement, over 147,000 men at his disposal; Joseph Johnston, on his own statement, under 47,000. Johnston was well informed as to McClellan's numbers--very likely he could get information from Maryland more easily than McClellan from Virginia. The two armies lay not twenty-five miles apart. The weather and the roads were good to the end of December; the roads were practicable by March and they seem to have been so all the time. As spring approached, it appeared to the Southern generals that McClellan must soon advance. Johnston thought that his right flank was liable to be turned and the railway communications south of Manassas liable to be cut. In the course of February it was realised that his