1. When McClellan first arrived in Washington he positioned himself as being more aggressive than Winfield Scott's "Anaconda Plan" and declared that the war required the Union to not merely beat the enemy in the field but to "display such an overwhelming strength as will convince all our antagonists, especially those of the governing aristocratic classes of the utter impossibility of resistance". In what way was his Harrison's Landing letter in the summer of 1862 consistent (and inconsistent ) with his original position?

2. What was McClellan's nickname?

3. Words were whispered into the ear of generals celebrating a triumph in Rome. Triumphs were hard to come by, and were the most important achievements possible for Roman generals. Pompey the Great had three. Most never had one. What advice from another Emperor - Marcus Aurelius - would have served McClellan and Pope well?

3. By the summer of 1862 what were Lincoln and McClellan's opinions of each other?

4. "One matter further, gentlemen. We fight on their level. With trickery, brutality, finality. We match their evil. I know, James. I was reputed to be a gentle man. But I was commander in chief during the four bloodiest years of my country's history. I gave orders that sent a hundred thousand men to their death at the hands of their brothers. There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending." Not an actual Lincoln quote but a nice summation of Lincoln's thinking by the summer of 1862 and a far cry from McClellan's approach. What are some events that brought Lincoln to these conclusions?

5. While the professional solders on both sides were constrained to inaction by their "acceptance" of the interior lines doctrine; by the end of 1861 two civilians had "light bulb" moments in which they fully grasped the winning strategy for the Union army. And the two forward thinkers in the Confederate army were beginning to grasp the inevitability of this development. What was this insight and who were these four men and how did this early realization influence the conduct of the war in 1862? (Hint: the more obscure of the civilians had some military training as he was a graduate of Captain Partridge’s American Literary, Scientific & Military Academy).

6. Just prior to his February 22, 1862 inauguration (up till then he was a provisional president) in an address to Congress, Jefferson Davis showed some real insight, lamenting southern miscalculation in going to war and commenting on how the southern people had floated to war or oratory. "It was not deemed possible that anything so insane as a persistent attempt to subjugate these states could be made, still less that the delusion would so far prevail as to give the war the vast proportions which it has assumed". Then he turned around and resorted to pure demagoguery saying that hopes for a reunion "have been dispelled by the malignity and barbarity of the Northern states in the prosecution of the existing war". Why was this statement factually absurd at that point in time?

7. Fort Pulaski, a defense system that had taken nearly 50 years to perfect, was made useless in less than two days with minimal casualties. What was the cause and what impact did this have on Southern plans to fight a defensive interior lines war?

8. What about McClellan's actions in 1862 were justifiably compared to those of the "Grand Old Duke of York" in the British nursery rhyme?

9. A more unpromising set of corps commanders than those Pope inherited, and was tasked with integrating into the new Army of Virginia, hardly be imagined. Who were they?

April 16, 1862 - Confederate Congress passes the first Conscription Act (all white males between 18 and 35), the first draft in American History was considered by Davis and the Congress as a military necessity. The Richmond government, founded on the most unwavering faith in states' rights, suddenly found itself empowered and directed to reach into the sovereign states and compel citizens to enter the Army - a power which the government at Washington did not then have and did not especially want to have.

This was shortly after Lincoln had made an open offer to each border and seceding state to compensate them at fair market value for each freed slave, should they individually seek reunion. His argument being that the cost to the government of this program would be far less than the cost of continuing the war. Lincoln viewed slavery as an indigestible lump, the one thing that made compromise impossible.

In this cartoon published in Harper's Weekly on March 15, 1862, the artist mocks Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Address as President of the Confederate States of America at Richmond on February 22, 1862. The artist depicted Jefferson Davis as a cotton king who brought ruin and war to the country over the issue of slavery. He is pictured as a skeleton sitting on a throne of cotton and whiskey and holding a pirate flag with a slave bound at his feet. Davis holds a torch of desolation while a crowd cheers him on. A noose and gallows loom in the background.