1584, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, included an area of 55,958 square miles, a little more than one-fourth the surface of France. From east to west its extreme length was 326 miles, and from north to south the average distance was 193 miles.

On looking at a map of Virginia, one is struck with all that nature has done to render it rich and prosperous. Very easy of access, it presents a vast plain, little broken except near the mountains. Numerous rivers, with their affluents, offer so many means for penetrating to the heart of the country. The Potomac, with a course of 367 miles, serves as a boundary to the north, through two-thirds of its extent, between Maryland and Virginia. The James has a length of 280 miles. The York, Rappahannock, Pamunkey, and Rapidan are deep rivers, which, rising to the west, in the Alleghanies, all flow towards the east, not very far apart, and fall into the Atlantic by large mouths.

The neighbouring zone of sea-board resembles the rest of the southern coasts of the United States. The Atlantic coasts are low and sandy; marshes where the pitch-pine abounds and engenders pestilential fevers. There are bays and creeks innumerable, but life is wanting: there is but one harbour worthy of the name-Norfolk-and very little commerce; for the rest, the coast is of small extent, compared with the area of the Virginian territory. This narrow belt once passed the country becomes very healthy.

The soil is fertile, although dusty, (i.e. light,) and even stony where the first undulations of the Alleghanies appear; but, on the other hand, along the rivers there are tracts of alluvial soil of great fertility, where cotton, maize, and tobacco grow to perfection. The inhabitants are occupied in breeding cattle, felling timber in the widely extending woods, and agriculture on a very grand scale. At Richmond there were already a large number of arts and manufactures; coal and iron abound in Upper Virginia, and several blast-furnaces were established there.

About 185 miles from the sea the vapour-clad outline of the

The Alleghany

Blue Ridge, a long line of mountains, is seen. Mountains, divided into two principal parallel chains from north to south, one the Blue Ridge, the other, more to the west, preserving the name of Alleghanies, cut Virginia into two equal parts, called, one the Eastern district, that which extends from the Atlantic to the mountains, the other the Western district, which extends from the mountains to Ohio and the borders of Kentucky. Between these two ranges, parallel to the mountains, run long valleys, often very wide. The soil here is richer than in any other part of the state. It is the region known as the Valley of Virginia. It extends northwards to the Potomac. This spot, besides being one of the most fertile, is also one of the most picturesque of North America. The eye, wearied with the monotony of unbroken plains, rests with pleasure on the varied outline of the Blue Ridge or Alleghanies in the distance, rising to the sky. With change of place and level there is also a change of aspect. Far away extend these laughing valleys, which, more than any other. American scene, remind one of the landscapes of old Europe.

The population of this part of Virginia is purely English, intermingled here and there with Scottish blood, settled in the country in the early days of the colony. These men, honourable and frank, devoted to agriculture, always in the saddle, inured to fatigue, tall, strong, simple in their habits, wearing wide-brimmed felt sombreros, riding-boots, and gloves with beaver-skin backs, like the cavaliers of the time of Charles I.; these men, Virginians above all things, furnished Jackson and Lee their most valiant soldiers.

The belt beyond the Alleghanies, stretching towards the Ohio, belongs to the Mississippi basin. It is quite another country, higher and colder than Eastern Virginia. It produces cereals, is rich in ore, and covered with thick timber.

Winter rains cover the plains of Eastern Virginia with deep reddish sticky mud; the roads become impassable. When the heat comes, deep cracks and bottomless ruts replace the

liquid mud, and render the maintenance of the roads very

onerous.

The climate, very warm in summer, becomes, in winter, rainy, and, in the part near the mountains, it is as cold as in the north of France. Snow falls everywhere in the Alleghanies after the month of November.

The state was divided into 119 counties or communes. The number of inhabitants amounted, in 1861, to 1,569,083 souls, of whom 490,887 were negroes, and of them 54,333 were free. There remained, therefore, 1,078,196 whites. It was with such a feeble population that Virginia prepared herself for the struggle pro aris et focis.

Harper's Ferry, at the entrance of the Shenandoah Valley, the beginning of the great Valley of Virginia, was guarded by General Joseph Johnston, an officer of the old United States army. General Beauregard, a Frenchman of Louisiana, was stationed at Manassas Junction, the meeting-place of three railways, coming from the north, south, and west,—that is to say, from Washington, Richmond, and the Virginian Valley. This most important place was in the plain, and permitted any one who was master of it, either to block the Richmond road, or march on Washington, only 35 miles off, or, in the face of superior forces, to retire to the west, through the Manassas Pass, into the valley. General Huger, a descendant of the refugee Huguenots, also belonging to the old army, held the command at Norfolk. All the approaches to this town, and all the important points at the entrance of the James River, were carefully fortified. The Confederate Government was transported to Richmond, which thus became the capital of the new republic. Volunteers poured in from the other states, and presently the number of troops gathered in Virginia was considerable. In West Virginia, the command was entrusted to General Garnett, who had just displayed great activity as adjutant to General Lee. It was for him to assemble and drill the volunteers

On its side, the Federal Government did not deceive itself as to the gravity of the struggle which was impending. General Scott, who had the chief control in military affairs, was too old a soldier to commit the notable blunder of despising his enemy, especially as the Southern armies had for their guide the man whose talents he had for so long a time appreciated.

On May 3rd, President Lincoln made a new appeal for 40,000 volunteers, ten supplementary regiments for the regular army, and 18,000 sailors. These forces, added to those already in existence, placed at the disposal of the Government 150,000 men. The country promptly answered this appeal. The Federal Government plan was to send a strong body of troops into the Mississippi Valley and occupy it. A second army was to take up a position in Kentucky, and there stop all Southern proclivities, while a third would march straight on Richmond. These measures, supplemented by an effective blockade, would not be long, it was thought, in crushing the rebellion. In Virginia an attack was to be made on four sides simultaneously; in the east, relying on Fortress Monroe, an ascent of the Peninsula would be made to the capital (all the country situated between the rivers James and York, comprising five or six counties, is called the Peninsula). On the north-east a start was to take place from Alexandria, opposite Washington, passing through Manassas; on the north, one ascending the Shenandoah Valley from the Potomac ; and lastly, on the north-west, it was intended to defile at Staunton, into the great Virginian Valley.

These four movements were to be made simultaneously. Richmond was the point of re-union. This town once taken, the assembled forces would have nothing more to do but co-operate with those occupying Kentucky and the Mississippi Valley, in order to insure the definitive triumph of the Federal arms. Such was the magnificent programme which was to counteract and valorously upset the lieutenants of the Southern commander-inchief.

Some skirmishes had taken place in the month of June, 1861. On the 3rd, Colonel Porterfield, sent into the west of the state to assemble volunteers, had been defeated at Philippi by a Federal corps. But the first combat of any importance was at Great Bethel on June 10th. Five thousand Federals ascended the Peninsula, starting from Fortress Monroe. They assaulted an entrenched camp not far from Yorktown, where 1800 Confederates, with 6 pieces of artillery, awaited them. The Federals were obliged to turn back. This affair, insignificant in itself, acquires importance when we remember that it was the first combat in which both parties had been able to measure their strength, and that, if Colonel Magruder had been beaten, the safety of Richmond would have been compromised. Bethel was soon followed by other feats of arms in the Valley of Virginia, between the Confederate Johnston and the Federal Patterson, the defeat of the Confederate Colonel Pegram at Richmountain in the west of the state, and the death of General Garnett, during his retreat after the battle of Laurel Bridge, also in the west of Virginia.

On July 16th, the principal Northern army, consisting of 55,000 infantry, 9 regiments of cavalry, and 49 pieces of artillery, issued from Alexandria, and advanced some hours' march, to a watercourse named Bull's Run, behind which the Confederate army, under the command of Beauregard, was posted. Johnston, warned of this movement, succeeded in stealing away from his adversary Patterson, marched night and day, and joined his colleague on July 20th. All the Southern army, on the morning of the 21st of July, only amounted to 31,431 men, and 55 cannons. That same day the Federal army attempted to force the passage of Bull's Run, but disorder spreading in its ranks, it was obliged to fall back on Washington. Its retreat was soon changed into a defeat. General Johnston came and camped in sight of the United States capital.

Let us return for a moment to the campaign in West Virginia.