Woods, stream, and rolling country made General Beauregard’s position a peculiarly strong one. In fact, as General McDowell, the commander of the forces of the North, soon found, the position was well-nigh invulnerable. To attack the Confederates in front, fording Bull Run, scaling the high bank and charging into a wood, was out of the question. Moreover, to strengthen Beauregard’s hands, General J. E. Johnston, a soldier of energy and experience, was stationed at Winchester, to which town he had retreated from Harper’s Ferry when he found himself confronted by General Patterson. General Patterson’s orders from Washington were to retake Harper’s Ferry from General Johnston. But the Southern general, fully convinced that Harper’s Ferry was of no strategical importance, and more of a trap than anything else, fell back at Patterson’s approach, and entrenched himself at Winchester. To the Federals the great danger lay in the risk of Johnston by a forced march joining Beauregard, and opposing a united force to McDowell. To prevent this, General Patterson’s second orders were to hold Johnston in Winchester. Patterson had plenty of men for the purpose, but failed to do what was expected of him. When the crucial moment arrived, Johnston arrived with it and ruined McDowell’s chance of victory. McDowell marched from Washington. It had originally been General Scott’s intention to give the command of the Federal forces to Robert E. Lee; but that officer, destined to become the most famous general of the South, resigned his position, and journeying south, took charge of the raising of Confederate soldiers. McDowell, however, was an officer in every way competent to worthily represent the North. A civil war makes strange opponents. Men hitherto the closest friends, found themselves divided, friends still, but facing one another on the field of battle, and fighting to the death for what each considered the right. This curious division affected officers and men alike. In fact, a large majority of the officers who, at the outbreak of hostilities found themselves in charge of the newly-enlisted regiments, had been educated together at West Point, and together received their baptism of fire and learned what real war meant under the sweltering sun of Mexico. General Irvin McDowell, as has been told, stood side by side with General Beauregard at West Point, and side by side with him on the battle-fields of Mexico. For some years he acted as assistant-instructor in infantry tactics in the Military Academy, and when war broke out he was relieved of his duties in the Adjutant-General’s Department at Washington, and placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, now on its way to Bull Run.