On the Confederate side the criticism was almost as severe, because, while claiming the result of the six days as a Confederate success, it was also claimed that the campaign should have resulted in the complete destruction of McClellan's army. The use of balloons for reconnoitring the enemy's position formed a picturesque feature of this campaign. T. S. C. Lowe, J. H. Stiner, and other aëronauts were at the National headquarters with their balloons, and several officers of high rank accompanied them in numerous ascents. But it seems to have been demonstrated that the balloon was of little practical value. {163} CHAPTER XIV. POPE'S CAMPAIGN. FORMATION OF THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA--HALLECK MADE GENERAL-IN-CHIEF--McCLELLAN LEAVES THE PENINSULA--BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN--POPE AND LEE MANOEUVRE--BATTLE OF GROVETON--THE SECOND BULL RUN--BATTLE OF CHANTILLY--THE PORTER DISPUTE--GENERAL GRANT'S OPINION--COMPLICATED MOVEMENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN--INTERESTING INCIDENTS. While McClellan was before Richmond, it was determined to consolidate in one command the corps of Banks, Frémont, and McDowell, which were moving about in an independent and ineffectual way between Washington and the Shenandoah Valley. Gen. John Pope, who had won considerable reputation by his capture of Island No. 10, was called from the West and given command (June 26, 1862) of the new organization, which was called the Army of Virginia. Frémont declined to serve under a commander who had once been his subordinate, and consequently his corps was given to General Sigel. General Pope, on taking command of this force, which numbered all told about thirty-eight thousand men, and also of the troops in the fortifications around Washington, had the bad taste to issue a general order that had three capital defects: it boasted of his own prowess at the West, it underrated his enemy, and it contained a bit of sarcasm pointed at General McClellan, the commander of the army with which his own was to coöperate. Pope says, in his report, that he wrote a cordial letter to McClellan, asking for his views as to the best plan of campaign, and offering to render him any needed assistance; and that he received but a cold and indefinite reply. It is likely enough that a courteous man and careful soldier like McClellan would be in no mood to fall in with the suggestions of a commander that entered upon his work with a gratuitous piece of bombast, and seemed to have no conception of the serious nature of the task. When it became evident that these two commanders could not act sufficiently in harmony, the President called Gen. Henry W. Halleck from the West to be General-in-Chief, with headquarters at Washington, and command them both. Halleck had perhaps more military learning than any other man in the country, and his patriotic intentions were unquestionably good; but in practical warfare he proved to be little more than a great obstructor. He had been the bane of the Western