On the 12th of March he submitted his modified plan to the adjutant-general of the army. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 744.] It had grown more complex with the passage of time. The eastern line of the department had been moved forward so as to bring the South Branch of the Potomac and the Cow-pasture branch of the James River under Rosecrans's command. He now planned four separate columns. The first was to move up the south branch of the Potomac with a view to turn and to capture the enemy's position at Alleghany Summit or Monterey on the Staunton turnpike. The second and third were to be in my district, and to move toward the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad on the two sides of New River. The fourth should march from the Big-Sandy valley on the line indicated above. Rosecrans seems to have limited his plan to the occupation of the mountain valleys as far east as the Blue Ridge, and did not submit any scheme for uniting his columns for further work. He asked for reinforcements to the extent of six regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and two field batteries to enable him to perform his task. The use of pack trains was given up, as they required a greater number of animals than could be procured. In fact, it was never found to be an economical use of mule power, and important movements were always confined to lines upon which wheel vehicles could be used. A rapid cavalry raid could be thus supplied, but heavy columns of infantry and artillery demanded wagon trains. The weakness of Rosecrans's scheme is found in the wide separation of parallel columns, which could never have co-operated with success, and which had no common object had success been possible. To be sure, it was presumed that McClellan with the Army of the Potomac, and Banks in the Shenandoah valley, would be operating in eastern Virginia; but as McClellan was already bent on making Chesapeake Bay his base, and keeping as far as possible from the mountains, there was no real connection or correlation between his purposed campaign and that of the others. Indeed, had he succeeded in driving Lee from Richmond toward the west, as Grant did three years later, the feeble columns of National troops coming from West Virginia would necessarily have fallen back again before the enemy. If the general scheme had been planned by Lee himself, it could not have secured for him more perfectly the advantage of interior lines. Yet it was in substance that which was tried when the spring opened.