With the establishment of the Confederate authority in Virginia, reinforcements from other States were constantly added to her own levies, and by the middle of June, more than fifty thousand men were in arms for her defense. As yet, collisions between the opposing forces had been rare, and totally indecisive. A force of raw volunteers, unorganized and imperfectly armed, was surprised in Western Virginia, by a movement of considerable vigor on the part of the Federal commander, and the patriots, under Colonel Porterfield, compelled to retreat. At Great Bethel, near Fortress Monroe, a few hundred Virginians and North Carolinians, under Colonel Magruder, handsomely repulsed a large column of Federal troops, attempting to advance up the peninsula. In the then uneducated popular idea of military operations, the fight at Bethel was magnified to an extent greatly beyond its real importance. It had, nevertheless, a timely significance, in its evidence of the spirit of the Confederate soldiery. President Davis was pleased to recognize this fact in a congratulatory letter to Governor Ellis, commending the conduct of the North Carolinians who were engaged in the fight. These minor affairs were preliminary incidents to the thrilling events, upon a more extended scale of operations, and upon a more important theatre, which were to make memorable the approaching midsummer. Pending the preparations, active and extensive on both sides, for the coming grand encounter, there was a marked pause in military operations, attended by an agreeable subsidence of the feverish excitement of which war is so productive. The struggle for the mastery in Virginia, which it was plain would decide the present fate of the Southern movement, was destined also to decide, in a large measure, the extent and duration of the war. Viewed in its historical significance, it becomes chiefly important as a stage of the revolution indicating a new departure, and an altered direction of events. Preparation was now to be displaced by action. Skirmishes were to be followed by heavy engagements, and the high prestige of the South was now to be subjected to its first test, in that long series of cruel encounters, between valor and endurance on one side, and mere weight of numbers on the other. Preliminary to the narrative of these important events, appropriately arises one phase of that historical question which involves the statesmanship, the forecast, and the general fitness of Jefferson Davis in the position which he now occupied, and under the circumstances by which he was surrounded.