I asked him in the presence of the committee: "What is to prevent you from being struck by a superior force of the enemy and overwhelmed?" Said he: "Nothing on earth is more probable than that I shall be struck by a superior force and shall be whipped; but I will keep my troops near the mountains, and there are no ten miles where there is not a gulch up which I can take my men and small-arms, and, by abandoning my artillery and baggage, save my men; I shall probably be whipped, but it must be done." Any military man can see and appreciate the difficulties and responsibilities of so desperate a campaign. "Yet," said he, "it must be done." Well, sir, General Pope started on that campaign. Had he announced to the newspaper press of Washington, or of the North, the number of his men or his object, the object itself would have been defeated. General Pope did what I believe is allowable in war: he perpetrated a _ruse de guerre_. He sent his scouts all through the mountains of Virginia proclaiming that he had an army of 120,000 men. And, sir, he fooled the newspaper correspondents of the city of Washington and of the whole North. General Pope, when he started on that campaign, had no more idea of going to Richmond than he had of following Elijah to Heaven in a chariot of fire without seeing death. He started with one single object, and that was to save the army of McClellan, or to do all that was in his power to save it. He massed his troops, and that terrible battle of Cedar Mountain was fought; and by that battle he not only fooled the people of this country, but he fooled the rebels. The rebels believed that he had 120,000 men, and that, unless they fought him and crushed him before he could unite with the Army of the Potomac, their cause was lost; and he drew upon his shoulders with that little force the whole rebel army, so that, when McClellan started for Yorktown, there was not even a popgun fired at his troops. The _ruse_ was a perfect success, and, as I told General Pope then, "I consider that your campaign has been one of the most brilliant that has been fought up to this time"--which was February, 1863--"you saved two armies; you first saved the Army of the Potomac, and then you saved your own."