ecalled to Winchester. If the action of Johnston had not been guided by the reports received, he would have evacuated Harper's Ferry at once upon the passage of the Potomac by Patterson. Harper's Ferry was not a defensible point. It was a cul-de-sac commanded thoroughly by Maryland Heights. Later in the war a large force of Federal troops was easily  forced to capitulate by a portion of the Confederate army approaching from the direction of Maryland. Patterson commenced to cross the Potomac with the avowed purpose of fighting a battle with the army under Johnston, but when about two thirds of his troops had crossed he received a telegram from General Scott ordering him to send to Washington at once all the regular troops he had, horse and foot, as well as the Rhode Island regiment under Burnside, which was a very fine one. If this telegram had not been received, and Patterson had continued the march of his troops into Virginia, he would have reached Martinsburg on the 17th of June, and on the 18th could have attacked the Confederate troops then in line of battle awaiting him at Bunker Hill, eleven miles distant, and there might have been on the pages of American history a second battle of that name. The explanation of General Scott's telegram is to be found in the fact that he had changed his plan of offensive operations. He had reversed his former purposes and now proposed to fight the first battle with the army around Washington, while the army of Patterson should make the feint, to prevent a junction of Johnston's army with that of Beauregard's at Manassas. General Sanford, who commanded the State troops of New York, was the senior officer at that time on duty in Washington; and at two o'clock on the morning of May 21, 1861, with eleven thousand men first invaded Virginia and took possession of Arlington Heights and the adjacent section as far as Alexandria. The Department of Virginia was created, and General Irvin McDowell was selected by the Washington Cabinet to command it. Up to that time it is said General Scott did not want anything done on the Virginia side of the Potomac except to fortify Arlington Heights. He was “piqued and irritated” that the Cabinet should have sent McDowell into Virginia, and sent him two messages by his aid-de-camp asking him to make a personal request not to be sent on the other side of the river, and took occasion to say to the Cabinet that he was never in favor of going over into Virginia. He did not believe in a little war by piecemeal, but he believed in a  war of large bodies. He was in favor of moving down the Mississippi River with eighty thousand men, fight all the battles that were necessary, take all the positions he could find and garrison them, fight a battle at New Orleans, win it, and thus end the war. His marvelous plan met with serious objections from the powers at Washington. Could it have been submitted to those in Richmond it would have been unanimously adopted. Irvin McDowell, the commander selected to lead the Federal army against its opponent at Manassas, was a native of Ohio, and graduated at the Military Academy at West Point in 1838. He was assigned to the First Artillery, served in the Mexican War, and was brevetted major for gallant and meritorious conduct at Buena Vista. He was afterward transferred to the Adjutant General's Department, and served there till he was promoted brigadier general in 1861. At this period McDowell was about forty-three years of age, a capable soldier, and a gallant and courteous gentleman. He was kind-hearted, considerate, and tender of the feelings of others. His letter to Mrs. Lee, in reply to one received from her, addressed to the commander of the Federal forces at Arlington, has the ring of the pure metal, and is as follows:
Generals Scott and Lee were organizing their respective armies with the same celerity apparently, for on the 24th of June McDowell had twenty regiments of infantry, aggregating less than fourteen thousand men, two hundred and fifty cavalry, two batteries of light artillery, and three other batteries in the 