American Military History, Volume 1 by Richard W. Stewart

As the year 1862 began, in the Eastern Theater plans prepared in Washington were aimed at the capture of Richmond rather than destruction of the army commanded by Joseph E. Johnston, now a full general. Precise methods for reaching the Confederate capital differed. President Lincoln favored an overland advance that would always keep an army between the Confederates and Washington. McClellan agreed at first and then changed his views in favor of a waterborne move by the Army of the Potomac to Urbana on the Rappahannock. From there, he could drive to Richmond before Johnston could retire from the Manassas area to intercept him. He felt that the Washington fortifications, an elaborate system of earthen forts and battery emplacements then in advanced stages of construction, would adequately protect the capital while the field army was away. Johnston, however, rendered this plan obsolete; he withdrew from Manassas to Fredericksburg, halfway between the two capitals and astride McClellan's prospective route of advance. Early in March McClellan moved his army out to the deserted Confederate camps around Manassas to give his troops some field experience. While he was in the field, Lincoln relieved him as General in Chief, doubtless on the ground that he could not command one army in the field and at the same time supervise the operations of all the armies of the United States. Lincoln did not appoint a successor. For a time he and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton took over personal direction of the Army with the advice of a newly constituted Army board consisting of the elderly Maj. Gen. Ethan A. Hitchcock and the chiefs of the War Department bureaus.

Naval Engagement in Hampton Roads, J. Davis after C. Parsons, 1863