The summer of 1863 presented the most interesting epoch of the war. The baffling of Lee's second attempt to invade the North left the struggle in Virginia about as it had been before, except that Lee's veteran army continued to grow steadily stronger in morale and weaker in numbers. The operations at the West, however, had been very disastrous to the Confederates. Their chief city had been taken and was firmly held. Their armies had been driven out of Missouri, Kentucky and the greater part of Tennessee. The Mississippi river had been completely wrested from their possession and the Confederacy had been cut in two. Some critics, writing at a later time, have held that these conditions demanded the abandonment of the Confederate cause, and called for a suit for peace on the part of the Southerners, upon whatever terms the Federal Government might be willing to grant. Those who take this view do so, it would seem, upon inadequate conceptions of the conditions and the facts. Had the South been a European country, with all its problems of military geography wrought out, with its strategic positions marked upon myriads of maps, with all lines of communication definitely settled and fixed, the situation at midsummer in 1863 might well have justified an opinion of this kind. But none of these conditions existed. The South was still possessed of a vast area unplatted for military purposes, abounding in obstacles that might be made effective against any adversary's advance. Still more important, there remained the spirit of the army and an unconquerable determination on the part of the people to exhaust every conceivable resource before surrendering a cause which they believed to be absolutely and eternally right.