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(All Quiet of the Potomac)

All Quiet on the Potomac

The Union catastrophe at First Manassas was the end of Irvin McDowell's tenure in command.  Within a week Lincoln had installed George McClellan, the hero of the West Virginia campaign, to command forces based in Washington.  McClellan was a strong organizer, and the situation called for precisely those talents.
He brought order out of chaos, got a training program underway, improved the distribution of supplies, organized a staff to support the army in everything from bakeries to post offices.  He spent a great deal of time explaining the rudiments of military strategy to amateurs - like the President.

The Confederates were happy to participate in this quiet period.  Their armies needed training, their supply system was even more of a shambles.  They too had to equip men, and they had even less material than the Federal Government.  Joe Johnston entrenched a long line, with the Potomac on both flanks and the center at Centreville.  Johnston's right, on the Potomac, closed the river to Union shipping, a sore point in Washington because the railroads could barely supply the swollen population of the city and the army.

Being the center of events stroked the worst parts of McClellan's character.  He was bolder on paper than in the real world.  Yet the rebellion would not be defeated by well-trained troops as long as those troops were in Washington.  McClellan came under tremendous pressure to do something aggressive, almost anything.  He in turn passed some of the pressure on to some of his subordinates.  Charles Stone made the wrong choice in picking the inexperienced Edward Baker to actually command the attack.  Baker was well-connected politically - he'd been an Illinois Congressman with Lincoln, had ridden in Lincoln's carriage to the inauguration - but completely green militarily.  As a result the battle of BALL'S BLUFF was a catastrophe for the North.  Baker was killed, Stone was politically crucified by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. 

This was probably the most important result of the battle: it was a tool of the Radical Republicans, which they would use for the rest of the war.  Seldom was any measure against the Confederates, military or civilian, strong enough; the Lincoln Administration did very little right in the eyes of the Radicals.  On the other hand, the Democrats were even worse, and the Radicals had to save some of their vitriol for them.

Meanwhile, McClellan was doing, if possible, even less.  In December there was a skirmish at DRANESVILLE as Union troops intercepted a Confederate foraging party under JEB Stuart, but it was nothing serious.  Along the Potomac, in January 1862 there were some minor efforts to destroy Confederate batteries at COCKPIT POINT, but they failed.

Not all the Confederates were as deliberate as Joe Johnston.  Out in the Shenandoah Valley, 'Stonewall' Jackson had been calling for reinforcements so that he could attack.  There weren't any spare troops in the Confederacy, but once Robert E. Lee had been beaten in the West Virginia campaign, some of his men were transferred to Jackson.  In the middle of winter Jackson moved.  Starting on January 1, 1862 and marching hard, despite inadequate protection against the weather, at first Jackson swept through scattered Union forces.  Nobody had expected a campaign in the middle of winter, and the Union troops were dispersed to winter camps, so Jackson's men captured a useful amount of supplies and also damaged the B&O.  They were checked at HANCOCK, and fell back into western Virginia, taking the town of Romney and garrisoning it with the three new brigades.  At the end of January the Romney garrison, perched on the end of a tenuous supply line, was withdrawn on orders from Richmond.

The net effect was a few captured supplies and a temporary increase in the foraging area.  The cost in battle was slight, but more men had been sickened or even killed by exposure.

So the winter of 1861-62 passed in the east.  So little happened that the newspapers could sum up the events for their readers with the phrase 'All quiet on the Potomac' which became an accusation of inactivity as well as a report of events.

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(All Quiet of the Potomac)