MCDOWELL’S ADVANCE TO BULL RUN.

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After the firing of the first gun upon Sumter, the two sides were equallyactive in marshaling their forces on a line along the border States fromthe Atlantic coast of Virginia in the east to Kansas in the west. Manyof the earlier collisions along this line were due rather to special causes orlocal feeling than to general military considerations. The prompt advanceof the Union forces under McClellan to West Virginia was to protect thatnew-born free State. Patterson’s movement to Hagerstown and thence toHarper’s Ferry was to prevent Maryland from joining or aiding the rebellion,to re-open the Baltimore and Ohio railroad , and prevent invasion from theShenandoah Valley. The Southerners having left the Union and set up theConfederacy upon the principle of State rights, in violation of that principle