After he arose from his sleepless bed the morning following the battle of Bull Run, Lincoln devoted every spare moment to the study of the map of the seat of war and to reading military history. A shelf in his private library was filled with books on tactics, the histories of great campaigns, and such military authorities upon the science of warfare as might afford him ideas, valuable information, and suggestions. He undertook the preparation of a plan of campaign precisely as he had been accustomed to prepare for a trial in court, and before many days his quick perceptions, his retentive memory, and his reasoning powers had given him wider knowledge than was possessed by any of his generals. He did not fail to consult every person in whom he had confidence both upon abstract military questions and geographical and political conditions, and before long he developed a plan which he submitted to the military committees of Congress a few days after Congress assembled in December, 1861. Several of the most influential Senators and Representatives who did not belong to the committees were invited to be present. He proposed, first to maintain the military force along the Potomac to menace Richmond; second, to move an army from Cairo southward within easy communication of a flotilla upon the Mississippi; and, third, to send an army from Cincinnati eastward to Cumberland Gap in East Tennessee. Preliminary to the latter movement he proposed the construction of a railway from Cincinnati to Knoxville by way of Lexington, Kentucky, in order to avoid the difficulties and delays of transportation through the mountains, and military authorities now agree that if his advice had been followed the war would have been shortened at least two years. Mr. Nicolay, his private secretary, reports the substance of the President's appeal to Congress, as he stood before a map of Tennessee in the President's room at the Capitol: