Historians have criticized this “cordon defense” for dispersing manpower so thinly that Union forces were certain to break through somewhere, as they did at several points in 1862.35 The second factor inhibiting a Washingtonian strategy of attrition was the temperament of the southern people. Believing that they could whip any number of Yankees, many southerners scorned the notion of “sitting down and waiting” for the Federals to attack.
