"On to Richmond!"

The Confederates under General Johnston remained encamped at Manassas, and were compelled to be idle for want of cavalry and adequate subsistence; while the National army was hourly increasing in strength at the rate of two thousand men a day from the teeming free-labor States, with ample supplies of munitions of war. Beauregard urged Johnston to attack the National fortifications which were rising around Washington, but the wise leader prudently refused; and while the hearts of the loyal people yearned to see a forward movement, and some of the newspapers raised and prolonged the insane cry of "On to Richmond!" the civil and military leaders of the Government, remembering the disaster at Bull's Run, were circumspect and cautious. For several months these two principal armies lay within thirty miles of each other, the quiet of camp life broken only by an occasional skirmish or midnight alarm. Detachments of Confederates reconnoitering, sometimes approached within a few miles of Washington; and they held possession of Munson's Hill, within six miles of the dome of the Capitol, as the bird flies. They also kept up the blockade of the Potomac River by batteries on the Virginia shore, already alluded to--a state of things not only perilous to the capital and the army that surrounded it, but exceedingly disgraceful to that great army. So felt the Government, and in September it was resolved to remove these obstructions. McClellan was ordered to co-operate with the naval force on the river, in the necessary business; but his unfortunate habit of procrastination paralyzed the efforts of the naval commanders, and the blockade was kept up until the Confederates voluntarily abandoned their position in front of Washington, in the spring of 1862.

When the Government ordered the removal of the blockade of the Potomac, the National troops began to push back the Confederate advance on the Virginia side of the river. Late in September the latter retired from Munson's Hill; and struggles for the possession of the Upper Potomac occurred at Lewinsville in Virignia, and Darnestown in Maryland. In these struggles the Nationals won the victory; and by the middle of October (1861) they occupied a line from Fairfax Court-House well up toward Leesburg, and the most advanced outpost of the Confederates was at or near Centreville. Meanwhile some National troops had crossed the Potomac at Harper's Ferry to seize some wheat, when they were menaced by a large body of Confederates. Colonel (afterward General) Geary went over with reinforcements for the invaders, and on the hills back of the village, he had a severe engagement with the insurgents, and repulsed them. Then all the Nationals recrossed the river with their spoils.

This event was soon followed by a more important one at Balls' Bluff, on the Upper Potomac. The left wing of the Confederate army was commanded by General (late Colonel) Evans. It lay at Leesburg, and was confronted by a National force commanded by General Charles P. Stone, who were encamped between Conrad's and Edwards's ferries. His headquarters were at Poolesville. Misinformation had caused a belief that the Confederates had left Leesburg at a little past the middle of October, when McClellan ordered General McCall, who commanded the advance of the right of the National forces in Virginia, to move forward and occupy Drainsville. At the same time he ordered General Stone to co-operate with General McCall, which he did by making a feint of crossing the river at the two ferries above-named, on the afternoon of Sunday the 20th of October. At the same time a part of a Massachusetts regiment, under Colonel Devens, was ordered to take post on Harrison's Island in the Potomac, abreast of Ball's Bluff. Devens went with four companies in flat-boats taken from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Three thousand men commanded by Colonel E. D. Baker, a member of the National Senate, acting as a brigadier, were held in readiness as a reserve, in the event of a battle.