In the Eastern Theater, there were two major campaigns in Virginia. The first, the Western Virginia Campaign, started in May. Union forces commanded by Major General George B. McClellan invaded western Virginia and drove the Confederate forces from the area following a series of small skirmishes. Although these fights involved only a few hundred men on either side, the newspaper coverage of the campaign turned McClellan into a national hero. After McClellan was transferred to command the Army of the Potomac, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was assigned to drive the Union forces out of the state but failed to do so at Cheat Mountain and in the Kanawha Valley; Lee was subsequently transferred to other duties in November. The other major campaign ended with the First Battle of Bull Run on July 17, when Union forces commanded by Major General Irvin McDowell attacked the Confederate Army of the Potomac, commanded by Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard; although initially successful, Confederate reinforcements from the Shenandoah Valley routed McDowell and forced him back to Washington, D.C. McDowell was replaced by McClellan, who renamed his force the Army of the Potomac and spent the rest of the year training his men and stockpiling supplies, despite pressure from the Union government to launch an offensive as soon as possible. There were several minor skirmishes in Virginia during the remainder of the year, the most significant being the Battle of Ball's Bluff, due to the death of Colonel Edward Baker, a senator from Oregon. Outrage in Congress over his death led to the creation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was used by the Radical Republicans in Congress in an attempt to prosecute the war according to their views.