In any case this would have involved a long halt in a secure
position, and in a few weeks the Federal strength would be increased
by fresh levies, and the morale of their defeated troops restored.
But even had time been given the Government would have been powerless
to render substantial aid. Contingents of recruits were being drilled
into discipline at Richmond; yet they hardly exceeded 20,000 muskets;
and it was not on the Virginia frontier alone that the South was hard
pressed. The Valley of the Mississippi was beset by great armies;
Alabama was threatened, and Western Tennessee was strongly occupied;
it was already difficult to find a safe passage across the river for
the supplies furnished by the prairies of Texas and Louisiana, and
communication with Arkansas had become uncertain. If the Mississippi
were lost, not only would three of the most fertile States, as
prolific of hardy soldiers as of fat oxen, be cut off from the
remainder, but the enemy, using the river as a base, would push his
operations into the very heart of the Confederacy. To regain
possession of the great waterway seemed of more vital importance than
the defence of the Potomac or the secession of Maryland, and now that
Richmond had been relieved, the whole energy of the Government was
expended on the operations in Kentucky and Tennessee.
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