Wilder was in something of a quandary. A former Indiana industrialist, he had been thirteen months in service, but nothing so far in his experience had taught him how much credence to give the claims that accompanied such demands for capitulation. Finally he arrived at an unorthodox solution. Knowing that Simon Buckner commanded a division on this side of the river, and knowing moreover that Buckner was a man of honor, he went to him under a flag of truce and asked his advice-as one gentleman to another. If resistance was hopeless, he said, he did not want to sacrifice his men; but neither did he want to be stampeded into surrendering because of his lack of experience in such matters. What should he do? Buckner, taken aback, declined to advise him. Wars were not fought that way, he said. He offered, however, to conduct him on a tour of the position and let him see for himself the odds against him. The colonel took him up on that, despite the fact that it was now past midnight and the truce had expired two hours ago. After counting 46 guns in position on the south bank alone, Wilder was convinced. "I believe I"ll surrender," he said sadly.
It was arranged without further delay; Bragg subsequently listed the capture of 4267 prisoners, 10 guns, 5000 rifles, "and a proportionate quant.i.ty of ammunition, horses, mules, and military stores." While the bluecoats were being paroled-officers retaining their side arms and the men marching out, as Wilder proudly reported, "with all the honors of war, drums beating and colors flying"-Bragg wired the Adjutant General: "My junction with Kirby Smith is complete. Buell still at Bowling Green."
He had cause for elation. Already astride the Green River, halfway across Kentucky, the western p.r.o.ng of his two-p.r.o.nged offensive had scored a victory as rich in spoils as the one the eastern p.r.o.ng had scored against Nelson, eighteen days ago at Richmond. In an order issued at Munfordville that same morning, he congratulated his soldiers "on the crowning success of their extraordinary campaign which this day has witnessed," and he told the Adjutant General: "My admiration of and love for my army cannot be expressed. To its patient toil and admirable discipline am I indebted for all the success which has attended this perilous undertaking."
This last sounded more like McClellan than it did like Bragg, and less like Jackson than it did like either: the Jackson of the Valley, that is, whom Bragg had announced as his prototype. And now that he had begun to sound like Little Mac, the terrible-tempered Bragg began to imitate his manner. After telling his men, "A powerful foe is a.s.sembling in our front and we must prepare to strike him a sudden and decisive blow," when Buell moved forward to Cave City, still waiting for Thomas to join him, Bragg left Polk"s wing north of the Green and maneuvered Buckner"s division across Buell"s front, attempting to provoke him into attacking the south-bank intrenchments much as Chalmers had done, to his sorrow, five days back. But when Buell refused to be provoked, Bragg pulled Hardee"s troops across the river and resumed his northward march, leaving Buell in his rear.
He had his reasons, and gave them later in his report: "With my effective force present, reduced...to half that of the enemy, I could not prudently afford to attack him there in his selected position. Should I pursue him farther toward Bowling Green he might fall back to that place and behind his fortifications. Reduced at the end of four days to three days" rations, and in a hostile country, utterly dest.i.tute of supplies, a serious engagement brought on anywhere in that direction could not fail (whatever its results) to materially cripple me. The loss of a battle would be eminently disastrous.... We were therefore compelled to give up the object and seek for subsistence."
So he said. But it seemed to others in his army that there was more to it than this; that the trouble, in fact, was personal; that it lay not within the situation which involved a shortage of rations and a surplus of bluecoats, but somewhere down deep inside Bragg himself. For all the audacity of his conception, for all his boldness through the preliminaries, once the critical instant was at hand he simply could not screw his nerves up to the sticking point. It was strange, this sudden abandonment of Stonewall as his model. It was as if a lesser poet should set out to imitate Shakespeare or Milton. With luck and skill, he might ape the manner, the superficial arrangement of words and even sentences; but the Shakespearian or Miltonic essence would be missing. And so it was with Bragg. He lacked the essence. Earlier he had said that the enemy was to be broken up and beaten in detail, Jackson-style, "by rapid movements and vigorous blows." Now this precept was revised. As he left Munfordville he told a colonel on his staff: "This campaign must be won by marching, not fighting."
When Thomas came up on the 20th, Buell pushed forward and found the rebels gone. Convinced that they were headed for Louisville, he followed at a respectful distance, fearing an ambush but hoping to strike their rear while they were engaged with the troops William Nelson was a.s.sembling for the defense of the city. To his surprise, however, less than twenty miles beyond the river Bragg swung east through Hodgenville, over Muldraugh"s Hill and across the Rolling Fork to Bardstown, leaving his opponent a clear path to Louisville. Gratefully Buell took it.
He was not the only one who was grateful. Nelson, his flesh wounds healing rapidly since the removal of the bullet from his thigh, had been preparing feverishly, and with a good deal of apprehension based on previous experience, to resist the a.s.sault he expected Bragg to launch at his second collection of recruits. When he learned that the gray column had turned off through Lincoln"s birthplace he drew his first easy breath since the early-morning knocking at his bedroom door, almost four weeks ago, first warned him that Kirby Smith"s invaders had come over Big Hill and were nearing Richmond. The arrival, September 24, of Buell"s advance division-12,000 veterans and half a dozen batteries of artillery-produced a surge of confidence within his s.h.a.ggy breast. He wired department headquarters, Cincinnati: "Louisville is now safe. We can destroy Bragg with whatever force he may bring against us. G.o.d and liberty."
2 As Pope"s frazzled army faded eastward up the pike toward Washington, and as Lee"s-no less frazzled, but considerably lighter-hearted-poked among the wreckage in search of hardtack, the problem for them both was: What next? For the former, the battered and misused conglomeration of troops now under McClellan, who had ridden out to meet them, the question was answered by necessity. They would defend their capital. But for the victors, confronted as usual with a variety of choices, the problem was more complex. Lee"s solution, reached before his men"s clothes were dry from the rain-lashed skirmish at Chantilly, resulted-two weeks later, and by coincidence on the same date as Wilder"s surrender to Bragg at Munfordville-in the bloodiest single day of the whole war.
The solution, arrived at by a narrowing of choices, was invasion. He could not attack the Washington defenses, manned as they were by McClellan"s army, already superior in numbers to his own and about to be strengthened, as he heard, by 60,000 replacements newly arrived in response to Lincoln"s July call for "300,000 more." Nor could he keep his hungry soldiers in position where they were. The northern counties had been stripped of grain as if by locusts, and his wagon train was inadequate to import enough to feed the horses, let alone the troops. A third alternative would be to fall back into the Valley or south of the Rappahannock. But this not only would be to give up much that had been gained; it would permit a renewal of pressure on the Virginia Central-and eventually on Richmond. By elimination, then, the march would be northward, across the Potomac.
Not that there were no practical arguments against taking such a step. After much strenuous marching on meager rations, the men were bone-weary and Lee knew it. What was more, he wrote Davis on September 3, "The army is not properly equipped for an invasion of an enemy"s territory. It lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothes, and in thousands of instances are dest.i.tute of Shoes.... What occasions me the most concern is the fear of getting out of ammunition." Nevertheless, in Lee"s mind the advantages far outweighed the drawbacks. Two successful campaigns within two months, on Virginia soil and against superior numbers, had won for the Confederacy the admiration of the world. A third, launched beyond the Potomac in conjunction with Bragg"s two-p.r.o.nged advance beyond the c.u.mberland, might win for her the foreign recognition which Davis had known from the start was the one best a.s.surance that this second Revolution, like the first, would be successful. Besides, Maryland was a sister state, not enemy territory. Thousands of her sons were in the Virginia army, and it was believed that thousands more would join the colors once they were planted on her soil. In any event, invasion would draw off the northern armies and permit the Old Dominion farmers, now that the harvest was at hand, to gather their crops unmolested. The one thing Lee could not do was nothing; or as he put it, "We cannot afford to be idle, and though weaker than our opponents in men and military equipments, must endeavor to hara.s.s them if we cannot destroy them." Next day, having convinced himself-and hoping, by the usual kid-gloves treatment, to have convinced the President-he wired Davis that he was "fully persuaded of the benefit that will result from an expedition into Maryland, and I shall proceed to make the movement at once, unless you should signify your disapprobation."
Without waiting for a reply-indeed, without allowing time for one-he put the army in motion that same day for White"s Ferry, twenty miles south of Frederick, the immediate objective. Approaching the ford on September 6 and 7, the men removed their shoes, those who had them, rolled up their trouser legs, and splashed across the shallows into Maryland. One cavalryman considered it "a magnificent sight as the long column...stretched across this beautiful Potomac. The evening sun slanted upon its clear placid waters and burnished them with gold, while the arms of the soldiers glittered and blazed in its radiance." There were for him, in the course of the war, "few moments...of excitement more intense, or exhilaration more delightful, than when we ascended the opposite bank to the familiar but now strangely thrilling music of Maryland, My Maryland." Maryland, My Maryland."
Not everyone was so impressed, however, with the beauty of the occasion. A boy who stood on that opposite bank and watched the vermin-infested scarecrows come thronging past him, hairy and sunbaked, with nothing bright about them but their weapons and their teeth, was impressed by them in much the same way as the Kentucky civilian, this same week, had been impressed by their western counterparts. They made him think of wolves. "They were the dirtiest men I ever saw," he afterwards recalled, "a most ragged, lean, and hungry set of wolves." Accustomed to the Federals he had seen marching in compact formations and neat blue uniforms, he added: "Yet there was a dash about them that the northern men lacked. They rode like circus riders. Many of them were from the far South and spoke a dialect I could scarcely understand. They were profane beyond belief and talked incessantly."
Their individuality, which produced the cackling laughter, the endless chatter, and the circus-rider gyrations, was part of what made them "terrible in battle," as the phrase went. But in the present instance it also produced hampering effects: one being that Lee had considerably fewer men in Maryland than he had counted on when he made his decision to move north. Hampton"s cavalry brigade, the reserve artillery, and three divisions of infantry under D. H. Hill, Major General Lafayette McLaws, and Brigadier General John G. Walker-20,000 troops in all-had been forwarded from Richmond and had joined the army on its march to the Potomac. After the deduction of his Mana.s.sas casualties, this should have given Lee a total strength of 66,000. The truth was, he had barely more than 50,000 men in Maryland; which meant that close to 15,000 were absent without leave. Some few held back because of conscientious objections to invasion, but most were stragglers, laggards broken down in body or skulkers broken down in spirit. They would be missed along the thin gray line of battle, invalids and cowards alike, though their defection gave the survivors an added sense of pride and resolution. "None but heroes are left," one wrote home.
Hard-core veterans though they were, they were subject to various ills. Diarrhea was one, the result of subsisting on green corn; "the Confederate disease," it was coming to be called, and the sufferers, trotting white-faced to catch up with the column, joked ruefully about it, offering to bet that they "could hit a dime at seven yards." Another was sore feet; a fourth of the army limped shoeless on the stony Maryland roads. In addition to these ailments, mostly but by no means entirely confined to the ranks, a series of accidents had crippled the army"s three ranking generals, beginning with Lee himself. Clad in rubber overalls and a poncho, he had been standing beside his horse on the rainy last day of August when a sudden cry, "Yankee cavalry!" startled the animal. Lee reached for the bridle, tripped in his clumsy clothes, and caught himself on his hands as he fell forward, with the result that a small bone was broken in one and the other was badly sprained. Both were put in splints, and Lee, unable to handle a mount, entered Maryland riding in an ambulance. Longstreet too was somewhat incapacitated by a raw blister on his heel; he crossed the river wearing a carpet slipper on his injured foot. Marylanders thus were robbed of the chance to see these two at their robust and energetic best. The third high-ranking casualty was Jackson. Ox-eyed Little Sorrel having been missing for two weeks, the gift of a sinewy gray mare from a group of Confederate sympathizers was welcome on the day he crossed the Potomac. Next morning, however, when he mounted and gave her the reins she did not move. He touched her with his spur: whereupon she reared, lost her balance, and toppled backward. Stunned, Jackson lay in the dust for half an hour, fussed over by surgeons who feared for a spinal injury, then was transferred, like Lee, to an ambulance.
These were partial incapacitations. Two others involving men of rank were unfortunately total, at least for the time being. The charges against Bob Toombs had been dropped in time for him to share in the final hour of victory at Mana.s.sas, but no sooner was the battle won than his place in arrest was taken by a general whose services the army could less afford to lose. When Shanks Evans laid claim to some ambulances Hood"s Texans had captured, Hood, although outranked, refused to give them up. Evans referred the matter to the wing commander, who ruled in his favor, and when Hood still declined to yield, Longstreet ordered him back to Culpeper to await trial for insubordination. Lee intervened to the extent of allowing Hood to remain with his division, though not to exercise command.
By then the trouble between A. P. Hill and Jackson had come to a head, with the result that another of the army"s hardest fighters was in arrest. On the march to the Potomac, Little Powell"s division straggled badly. As far as Stonewall could see, Hill was doing little to correct this. What was more, he broke regulations by not calling resthalts at the specified times. Finally Jackson himself halted one brigade: whereupon the red-bearded general came storming back down the column, asking by whose orders the troops were being delayed. The brigadier indicated Stonewall, who sat his horse beside the road. Hill unbuckled his sword and held it out to Jackson. "If you are going to give the orders, you have no need of me," he declared, trembling with rage. Stonewall did not take it. "Consider yourself under arrest for neglect of duty," he said coldly. "You"re not fit to be a general," Hill snapped, and turned away.
With his army thus short of equipment and presenting its worst appearance, himself and his two chief lieutenants distracted by injuries, and two of his best division commanders in arrest, Lee busied himself and his staff with the composition, in accordance with instructions received from Davis, of a proclamation addressed "To the People of Maryland": The people of the Confederate States...have seen with profound indignation their sister State deprived of every right and reduced to the condition of a conquered province.... [We] have long wished to aid you in throwing off this foreign yoke, to enable you again to enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen.... We know no enemies among you, and will protect all, of every opinion. It is for you to decide your destiny freely and without constraint...and while the Southern people will rejoice to welcome you to your natural position among them, they will only welcome you when you come of your own free will.
Having thus complied with the President"s recommendations, he made some of his own concerning another matter. The time had come, it seemed to him, in view of the present military situation, for the Confederacy to make a peace proposal to the North, based of course on permanent separation. "Such a proposition, coming from us at this time, could in no way be regarded as suing for peace," he wrote Davis; "but, being made when it is in our power to inflict injury upon our adversary, would show conclusively to the world that our sole object is the establishment of our independence and the attainment of an honorable peace. The rejection of this offer would prove to the country that the responsibility of the continuance of the war does not rest upon us, but that the party in power in the United States elect to prosecute it for reasons of their own." This he thought might have an effect upon the pending congressional elections in the North, enabling the voters "to determine...whether they will support those who favor a prolongation of the war, or those who wish to bring it to a termination, which can but be productive of good to both parties without affecting the honor of either."
This was perhaps more opportune than he suspected, especially with regard to the effect it might have on foreign opinion, if Davis would act on the advice and Lee could give him time in which to do so. Napoleon III had been friendly all along; but now, stimulated by the offer of one hundred thousand bales of badly needed cotton, as well as by concern for the success of certain machinations already in progress south of the Texas border, he was downright eager. Across the English Channel, meanwhile, the news of Pope"s defeat and Lee"s entry into Maryland caused Lord Palmerston to write Earl Russell: "The Federals...got a very complete smashing.... Even Washington or Baltimore may fall into the hands of the Confederates. If this should happen, would it not be time for us to consider whether in such a state of things England and France might not address the contending parties and recommend an arrangement on the basis of separation?" The Foreign Minister replied: "I agree with you that the time is come for offering mediation to the United States Government, with a view to recognition of the independence of the Confederates. I agree further that, in case of failure, we ought ourselves to recognize the Southern States as an independent State." Presently the Prime Minister wrote again: "It is evident that a great conflict is taking place to the northwest of Washington, and its issue may have a great effect on the state of affairs. If the Federals sustain a grave defeat, they may be at once ready for mediation, and the iron should be struck while it is hot. If, on the other hand, they should have the best of it, we may wait a while and see what may follow."
What followed was in a large part up to Lee and his tatterdemalion army, and having given his attention to the question of peace, he turned his mind once more to thoughts of war-in particular to the problem of securing his lines of communication and supply. Once he moved westward, beyond the Catoctins and the trans-Potomac prolongation of the Blue Ridge, these would extend southward up the Shenandoah Valley, through Martinsburg and Winchester. He had expected the Federals to evacuate those places when they found him in their rear, and in the latter case they had done so; but the former still was occupied in strength, as was Harpers Ferry, sixteen miles away. Lee felt obliged to detach part of his army to reduce them before continuing his advance. When he broached this to Longstreet, however, Old Pete argued forcefully against such a division of strength in the enemy"s own back yard. Jackson, on the other hand-recovered by now from his fall the day before-was delighted at the prospect, remarking somewhat wistfully that of late he had been entirely too neglectful of his friends in the Valley. Lee thought so, too. Dividing the army had worked wonders against Pope; now he would attempt it against McClellan, whose return to command had been announced in the northern papers. Despite Longstreet"s objections, Lee began to work out a plan, not only for removing the threat to his supply line, but also for capturing the bluecoats who made it.
The result was Special Orders 191, which called for another of those ambitious simultaneous convergences by widely separated columns upon an a.s.signed objective; in short, a maneuver not unlike the one that had failed, a year ago this week, against Cheat Mountain. In this case, however, since the capture of the Federals could be effected only by cutting off all their avenues of escape, the complication was unavoidable. The basis for it was geography. Low-lying Harpers Ferry, more trap than fortress, was dominated by heights that frowned down from three directions: Bolivar Heights to the west, Maryland Heights across the Potomac, and Loudoun Heights across the Shenandoah. With this in mind, Lee designed a convergence that would occupy all three. Jackson, who had been in command of the Ferry the year before and therefore knew it well, would be in general charge of the operation in its final stage. He would move with his three divisions through Boonsboro to the vicinity of Williamsport, where he would cross the Potomac and descend on Martinsburg, capturing the garrison there or driving it eastward to Harpers Ferry, where he would occupy Bolivar Heights. McLaws, with his own and Anderson"s divisions, would move southwest and take position on Maryland Heights. Walker would move south with his two-brigade division, cross the Potomac below Point of Rocks, and occupy Loudoun Heights. The result, with all those guns bearing down on the compact ma.s.s of bluecoats, should be something like shooting fish in a rain barrel. Longstreet meanwhile would move westward, beyond the mountains, and occupy Boonsboro with his other four divisions, supported by D. H. Hill. The order was dated September 9; all movements would begin the following morning, with the convergence scheduled for the 12th. After the capitulation, which was expected to be accomplished that same day, or the next day at the latest, Jackson, McLaws, and Walker would rejoin the main body at Boonsboro for a continuation of the campaign through Maryland and into Pennsylvania.
Distribution of the order, which was quite full and gave in detail the disposition of Lee"s whole army for the next four days, was to the commanders of the various columns as well as to the commanders of those divisions whose normal a.s.signments were affected. Longstreet took one look at it and, realizing the danger if it should fall into unfriendly hands, committed it to memory; after which he tore it up and chewed the pieces into pulp. Jackson, too, hugged it close. Observing, however, that Harvey Hill, who had been attached to his wing for the river crossing, was now a.s.signed to Longstreet, he decided that the best way to let his brother-in-law know that he was aware of the transfer would be to send him a copy of the order. With his usual regard for secrecy, Stonewall himself made the transcript in his spidery handwriting and dispatched it under seal. Hill studied it, then put it carefully away. When the copy arrived from Lee"s adjutant, one of Hill"s staff officers decided to keep it for a souvenir, but meanwhile used it as a wrapper for three cigars which he carried in his pocket.
Lee knew nothing of this duplication, nor of the menial use to which an important army order was being put. He was doing all he could, however, to make certain that nothing went astray in the intended convergence, as unfortunately had happened every time such a maneuver had been attempted in the past. One precaution he took was to have a personal interview with each of the generals in charge: with Longstreet, who would guard the trains while the others were gone, and with Jackson, McLaws, and Walker, who would be on their own throughout the expedition. In the latter"s case this was particularly apt; for Walker, a forty-year-old regular army Missourian, had just come up from the James with his small division-formerly a part of Holmes", in which he had commanded a brigade during the Seven Days-and was therefore unfamiliar with what had since become the army"s operational procedure. Lee went over the plan with him, indicating details on the map with his crippled hands. When this was done, he spoke of what he intended to do once his forces were reunited north of the Potomac. If Walker, with his "Show Me" background, had been inclined to suspect that much of the recent praise for the Virginian"s audacity was overdone, that doubt was ended now. The sweep and daring of the prospect Lee exposed, speaking quietly here in the fly-buzzed stillness of his tent, widened Walker"s eyes and fairly took his breath away.
Sixty airline miles beyond Hagerstown lay Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed the Susquehanna River. "That is the objective point of the campaign," Lee explained. Destruction of the bridge there, supplementing the previous seizure of the B & O crossing at Harpers Ferry and the wrecking of the Monocacy aqueduct of the Chesapeake & Ohio Ca.n.a.l-this last would be done by Walker, in accordance with instructions already given him, on the way to Point of Rocks-would isolate the Federal East from the Federal West, preventing the arrival of reinforcements for McClellan except by the slow and circuitous Great Lakes route. "After that," Lee concluded, "I can turn my attention to Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington, as may seem best for our interests." The war would be over-won.
Observing Walker"s astonishment, Lee said: "You doubtless regard it hazardous to leave McClellan practically on my line of communication, and to march into the heart of the enemy"s country?" When the Missourian said he did indeed, Lee asked him: "Are you acquainted with General McClellan?" Walker replied that he had seen little of him since the Mexican War. "He is an able general," Lee said, "but a very cautious one. His enemies among his own people think him too much so. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations (or he will not think it so) for three or four weeks. Before that time I hope to be on the Susquehanna."
This judgment contained several errors of degree as to the Federal potential, but in none of them was Lee more mistaken than in his estimate of the present condition of the Army of the Potomac, which in fact was less "chaotic" than his own, at least so far as its physical well-being was concerned. Nor was it "demoralized." McClellan was back, along with regular rations, a sense of direction, and a general sweeping up of croakers such as had followed the previous Bull Run fiasco which had brought him on the scene the year before. All this had been the source of much rejoicing, but there were others, no less heartening for being negative. Pope and McDowell, whom the men considered the authors of their woe, were gone-the former to pack his bags for the long ride to Minnesota, the latter to await the outcome of a formal hearing he had demanded in order to clear himself of all the charges brought by rumor-and so was Banks, a sort of junior-grade villain in their eyes, to a.s.sume command of the Washington defenses after McClellan marched the field force out the National Road to challenge the invaders up in Maryland.
That too was heartening. After four solid weeks of retreating, some from the malarial bottoms of the Peninsula, some from the blasted fields that bordered the dusty rivers of northern Virginia, and some from both-followed always by eyes that watched from roadside windows, hostile and mocking-not only were they moving forward, against the enemy, but they were doing it through a region that was friendly. "Fine marching weather; a land flowing with milk and honey; a general tone of Union sentiment among the people, who, being little cursed by slavery, had not lost their loyalty; scenery, not grand but picturesque," one young abolition-minded captain wrote, "all contributed to make the march delightful." A Maine veteran recorded that, "like the Israelites of old, we looked upon the land and it was good."
Best of all was Frederick, which they entered after the rebels had withdrawn beyond the Catoctins. "Hundreds of Union banners floated from the roofs and windows," one bluecoat recalled, "and in many a threshold stood the ladies and children of the family, offering food and water to the pa.s.sing troops, or with tiny flags waving a welcome to their deliverers." Army rations went uneaten, "so sumptuous was the fare of cakes, pies, fruits, milk, dainty biscuit and loaves." A Wisconsin diarist apparently spoke for the whole army in conferring the accolade: "Of all the memories of the war, none are more pleasant than those of our sojourn in the goodly city of Frederick."
Presently it developed that there was more here for soldiers than an abundance of smiles and tasty food. For two of them, at any rate-three, in fact, if Private B. W. Mitch.e.l.l and Sergeant J. M. Bloss, Company E, 27th Indiana, decided to share the third with a friend-there were cigars. Or so it seemed at the outset. Sat.u.r.day morning, September 13, the Hoosier regiment was crossing an open field, a recent Confederate camp site near Frederick, when the men got orders to stack arms and take a break. Soon afterwards Mitch.e.l.l and Bloss were lounging on the gra.s.s, taking it easy, when the former noticed a long thick envelope lying nearby. He picked it up and found the three cigars inside, wrapped in a sheet of official-looking paper. While Bloss was hunting for a match, Mitch.e.l.l examined the doc.u.ment. "Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, Special Orders 191," it was headed. At the bottom was written, "By command of General R. E. Lee: R. H. Chilton, a.s.sistant Adjutant-General." In between, eight paragraphs bristled with names and place-names: Jackson, Martinsburg, Harpers Ferry; Longstreet, Boonsboro; McLaws, Maryland Heights; Walker, Loudoun Heights. Mitch.e.l.l showed it to Bloss, and together they took it to the company commander, who conducted them to regimental headquarters, where the colonel examined the handwritten sheet, along with the three cigars-as if they too might have some hidden significance-and left at once for division headquarters, taking all the evidence with him. Mitch.e.l.l and Bloss returned to their company area and lay down again on the gra.s.s, perhaps by now regretting that they had not smoked the lost cigars before taking the rebel paper to the captain. As it turned out, they had sacrificed most of their rest-halt, too; for, according to Bloss, "In about three-quarters of an hour we noticed orderlies and staff officers flying in all directions."
McClellan"s first considered reaction, after the leap his heart took at his first sight of the doc.u.ment which dispelled in a flash the fog of war and pinpointed the several components of Lee"s scattered army, was that it must be spurious, a rebel trick. It was just too good to be true. But a staff officer who had known Chilton before the war identified the writing as unquestionably his. This meant that the order was valid beyond doubt: which in turn meant that McClellan"s army, once it crossed the unoccupied Catoctins just ahead, would be closer to the two halves of Lee"s army than those halves were to each other. What was more, one of those halves was itself divided into unequal thirds, the segments disposed on naked hilltops on the opposite banks of un-fordable rivers. The thing to do, quite obviously, was to descend at once on Boonsboro, where the nearest half was concentrated, overwhelm it, and then turn on the other, destroying it segment by segment. The war would be over-won. At any rate that was how McClellan saw it. Standing there with the doc.u.mentary thunderbolt in his hand, he said to one of his brigadiers: "Here is a paper with which if I cannot whip Bobby Lee I will be willing to go home."
Partly his elation was a manic reaction to the depression he had been feeling throughout most of the eleven days since Halleck"s order, issued in confirmation of Lincoln"s verbal instructions, gave him "command of the fortifications of Washington and of all the troops for [its] defense." This had not been supplemented or broadened since. What he did beyond its limitations he did on his own-including the march into Maryland to interpose his army between Lee"s and the capital whose defense was his responsibility. Consequently, as he said later, he felt that he was functioning "with a halter around my neck.... If the Army of the Potomac had been defeated and I had survived I would, no doubt, have been tried for a.s.suming authority without orders." What the Jacobins wanted, he knew, was his dismissal in disgrace, and he had long since given up the notion that the President would support him in every eventuality. In fact, knowing nothing of Lincoln"s defiance of a majority of the cabinet for his sake, he no longer trusted the President to stand for long between him and the political clamor for his removal; and he was right. Back at the White House, after telling Hay, "McClellan is working like a beaver. He seems to be aroused to doing something after the snubbing he got last week," Lincoln added thoughtfully: "I am of the opinion that this public feeling against him will make it expedient to take important command from him...but he is too useful just now to sacrifice."
All this while, moreover, Halleck had been giving distractive twitches to the telegraphic lines attached to the halter. Though Banks had three whole corps with which to man the capital fortifications-Heintzelman"s, Sigel"s, and Porter"s, which, together with the regular garrison, gave him a total defensive force of 72,500 men-the general in chief swung first one way, then another, alternately tugging or nudging, urging caution or headlong haste. Four days ago he had wired: "It may be the enemy"s object to draw off the ma.s.s of our forces, and then attempt to attack us from the Virginia side of the Potomac. Think of this." Two days later he was calmer: "I think the main force of the enemy is in your front. More troops can be spared from here." Today, however, his fears were back, full strength: "Until you know more certainly the enemy forces south of the Potomac you are wrong in thus uncovering the capital." McClellan, his natural caution thus enlarged and played on-he estimated Lee"s army at 120,000 men, half again larger than his own-pushed gingerly northwestward up the National Road, which led from Washington to Frederick, forty miles, then on through Hagerstown and Wheeling, out to Ohio.
He averaged about six miles a day, despite the fact that he had reorganized his army into two-corps "wings" in order to march by parallel roads rather than in a single column, which would have left the tail near Washington while the head was approaching Frederick. The right wing, a.s.signed to Burnside, included his own corps, still under Reno, and McDowell"s, now under Hooker, who had already won the nickname "Fighting Joe." The center wing was Sumner"s and included his own and Banks" old corps, now under the senior division commander, Brigadier General Alpheus Williams. The left wing, Franklin"s, included his own corps and the one division so far arrived from Keyes", still down at Yorktown. Porter"s corps, which was released to McClellan on the 12th, the day his advance units reached Frederick, was the reserve. Including the troops arrived from West Virginia and thirty-five new regiments distributed throughout the army since its retreat from Mana.s.sas, McClellan had seventeen veteran divisions, with an average of eight brigades in each of his seven corps; or 88,000 men in all. Yet he believed himself outnumbered, and he could not forget that the army he faced-that scarecrow mult.i.tude of lean, vociferous, hairy men who reminded even noncombatants of wolves-had two great recent victories to its credit, while his own had just emerged from the confusion and shame of one of the worst drubbings any American army had ever suffered. Nor could he dismiss from his mind the thought of what another defeat would mean, both to himself and to his country. Despised by the leaders of the party in power, mistrusted by Lincoln, badgered by Halleck, he advanced with something of the manner of a man walking on slippery ice through a darkness filled with wolves.
It was at Frederick, that "goodly city," that the gloom began to lift. "I can"t describe to you for want of time the enthusiastic reception we met with yesterday in Frederick," he wrote his wife next morning. "I was nearly overwhelmed and pulled to pieces. I enclose with this a little flag that some enthusiastic lady thrust into or upon Dan"s bridle. As to flowers-they came in crowds! In truth, I was seldom more affected.... Men, women, and children crowded around us, weeping, shouting, and praying." Then, near midday, his fears were abolished and his hopes were crowned. "Now I know what to do," he exclaimed when he read Special Orders 191, and one of the first things he did was share his joy with Lincoln in a wire sent at noon. In his elation he had the sound of a man who could not stop talking: "I have the whole rebel force in front of me, but am confident, and no time shall be lost. I have a difficult task to perform, but with G.o.d"s blessing will accomplish it. I think Lee has made a gross mistake, and that he will be severely punished for it. The army is in motion as rapidly as possible. I hope for a great success if the plans of the rebels remain unchanged. We have possession of Catoctin. I have all the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in their own trap if my men are equal to the emergency. I now feel that I can count on them as of old.... My respects to Mrs. Lincoln. Received most enthusiastically by the ladies. Will send you trophies."
He said he would lose no time, and five days ago he had told Halleck, "As soon as I find out where to strike, I will be after them without an hour"s delay." But that did not mean he would be precipitate. In fact, now that the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was at hand, its very magnitude made him determined not to m.u.f.f it as a result of careless haste. Besides, despite its fullness in regard to the location of the Confederate detachments, the order gave him no information as to their various strengths. For all he knew, Longstreet and Hill had almost any conceivable number of men at Boonsboro, and the nature of the terrain between there and Frederick afforded them excellent positions from which to fight a delaying action while the other half of their army shook itself together and rejoined them-or, worse still, moved northward against his flank. He already had the Catoctins, as he said, but beyond them reared South Mountain, the lofty extension of the Blue Ridge. The National Road crossed this range at Turner"s Gap, with Boonsboro just beyond, while six miles south lay Crampton"s Gap, pierced by a road leading down to Harpers Ferry from Buckeystown, where Franklin"s left wing was posted, six miles south of Frederick. These roads and gaps gave McClellan the answer to his problem. He would force Turner"s Gap and descend on Boonsboro with his right and center wings, smashing Longstreet and Hill, while Franklin marched through Crampton"s Gap and down to Maryland Heights, where he would strike the rear of Anderson and McLaws, capturing or brushing their men off the mountaintop and thereby opening the back door for the escape of the 12,000 Federals cooped up in Harpers Ferry. That way, too, the flank of the main body would be protected against an attack from the south, in case resistance delayed the forcing of the upper gap.
By late afternoon his plans were complete, and at 6.20 he sent Franklin his instructions. After explaining the situation at some length, he told him: "You will move at daybreak in the morning.... Having gained the pa.s.s"-Crampton"s Gap-"your duty will be first to cut off, destroy, or capture McLaws" command and relieve [Harpers Ferry]." After saying, "My general idea is to cut the enemy in two and beat him in detail," he concluded: "I ask of you, at this important moment, all your intellect and the utmost activity that a general can exercise." Intellect and activity were desirable; haste, apparently, was not. Just as he did not ask it of himself, so he did not ask it of Franklin. Lee"s disjointed army lay before him, and the best way to pick up the pieces-as he saw it-was deliberately, without fumbling. The army would get a good night"s sleep, then start out fresh and rested "at daybreak in the morning."
And so it was. At sunrise, Franklin"s 18,000-who should indeed have been rested; they had seen no combat since the Seven Days, and not a great deal of it then except for the division that reinforced Porter at Gaines Mill-pushed westward out of Buckeystown, heading for the lower gap, a dozen miles away. The other two wings, 70,000 men under Sumner and Burnside, with Porter bringing up the rear, moved down the western slope of the Catoctins, then across the seven-mile-wide valley toward Turner"s Gap, a 400-foot notch in the 1300-foot wall of the mountain, where a fire fight was in progress. They moved in three heavy columns, along and on both sides of the National Road, and to one of the marchers, down in the valley, each of these columns resembled "a monstrous, crawling, blue-black snake, miles long, quilled with the silver slant of muskets at a "shoulder," its sluggish tail writhing slowly up over the distant eastern ridge, its bruised head weltering in the roar and smoke upon the crest above, where was being fought the battle of South Mountain."
McClellan was there beside the pike, astride Dan Webster, the central figure in the vast tableau being staged in this natural amphitheater, and the men cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e at the sight of him. It seemed to one Ma.s.sachusetts veteran that "an intermission had been declared in order that a reception might be tendered to the general in chief. A great crowd continually surrounded him, and the most extravagant demonstrations were indulged in. Hundreds even hugged the horse"s legs and caressed his head and mane." This was perhaps the Young Napoleon"s finest hour, aware as he was of all those thousands of pairs of worshipful eyes looking at him, watching for a gesture, and the New England soldier was pleased to note that McClellan did not fail to supply it: "While the troops were thus surging by, the general continually pointed with his finger to the gap in the mountain through which our path lay."
Harvey Hill was watching him, too, or anyhow he was looking in that direction. Seeing from the notch of Turner"s Gap, which he had been ordered to hold with his five-brigade division, the serpentine approach of those four Union corps across the valley-twelve divisions with a total of thirty-two infantry brigades, not including one corps which was still beyond the Catoctins-he said later that "the Hebrew poet whose idea of the awe-inspiring is expressed by the phrase, "terrible as an army with banners," [doubtless] had his view from the top of a mountain." He experienced mixed emotions at the sight. Although it was, as he observed, "a grand and glorious spectacle, and it was impossible to look at it without admiration," he added that he had never "experienced a feeling of greater loneliness loneliness. It seemed as though we were deserted by "all the world and the rest of mankind.""
Despite the odds, all too apparent to anyone here on the mountaintop, he had one real advantage in addition to the highly defensible nature of the terrain, and this was that he could see the Federals but they could not see him. Consequently, McClellan knew little of Hill"s strength, or lack of it, and nothing at all of his loneliness. He thought that Longstreet, in accordance with Special Orders 191, was there too; whereas he was in fact at Hagerstown, a dozen miles away. Lee had sent him there from Boonsboro, three days ago, to head off a blue column erroneously reported to be advancing from Pennsylvania. After protesting against this further division of force-"General," he said in a bantering tone which only partly covered his real concern, "I wish we could stand still and let the d.a.m.ned Yankees come to us"-Longstreet marched his three divisions northward through the heat and dust. As a result, while McClellan back in Frederick was saying that he intended "to cut the enemy in two," Lee had already obliged him by cutting himself in five:
It was puzzling, this manifest lack of caution on McClellan"s part, until late that night a message from Stuart explained the Young Napoleon"s apparent change of character. A Maryland citizen of southern sympathies had happened to be at Federal headquarters when the lost order arrived, and he had ridden west at once, beyond the Union outposts, to give the news to Stuart, who pa.s.sed it promptly on to Lee. So now Lee knew McClellan knew his precarious situation, and now that he knew he knew he moved to counteract the disadvantage as best he could. He sent for Longstreet and told him to march at daybreak in support of Hill, whose defense of Turner"s Gap would keep the Federal main body from circling around South Mountain to relieve the Harpers Ferry garrison by descending on McLaws. Longstreet protested. The march would have his men so blown that they would be in no shape for fighting when they got there, he said, and he urged instead that he and Hill unite at Sharpsburg, twelve miles south of Hagerstown and half that far from Boonsboro; there, near the Potomac, they could organize a position for defense while awaiting the arrival of the rest of the army, or else cross in safety to Virginia in case the troops from Harpers Ferry could not join them in time to meet McClellan"s attack. Lee overruled him, however, and Longstreet left to get some sleep. After sending word to McLaws of the danger to his rear and stressing "the necessity of expediting your operations as much as possible," Lee received a note from Longstreet repeating his argument against opposing the Federals at South Mountain. Later the Georgian explained that he had not thought the note would alter Lee"s decision, but that the sending of it "relieved my mind and gave me some rest." What effect it had on Lee"s rest he did not say. At any rate, he received no reply, and the march for Turner"s Gap began at dawn.
As usual, once he got them into motion, Longstreet"s veterans marched hard and fast, trailing a long dust cloud in the heat. Shortly after noon they came within earshot of the battle Hill was waging on the mountain. The pace quickened on the upgrade. About 3 o"clock, nearing the crest, Lee pulled off to the side of the road to watch the troops swing past him. Though his hands were still in splints, which made for awkward management of the reins, he was mounted; he could abide the ambulance no longer. Presently the Texas brigade approached. "Hood! Hood!" they yelled when they saw Lee by the roadside. For two weeks Hood had been in arrest, but now that they were going into battle they wanted him at their head. "Give us Hood!" they yelled. Lee raised his hat. "You shall have him, gentlemen," he said.
When the tail of the column came abreast he beckoned to the tall young man with the tawny beard and told him: "General, here I am just on the eve of entering into battle, and with one of my best officers under arrest. If you will merely say that you regret this occurrence"-referring to the clash with Evans over the captured ambulances-"I will release you and restore you to the command of your division." Hood shook his head regretfully and replied that he "could not consistently do so." Lee urged him again, but Hood again declined. "Well," Lee said at last, "I will suspend your arrest till the impending battle is decided." Beaming, Hood saluted and rode off. Presently, from up ahead, loud shouts and cheers told Lee that the Texans had their commander back again.
It was well that they did, for they had need of every man they could muster, whatever his rank. Hill had been fighting his Thermopylae since early morning, and events had shown that the gap was by no means as defensible as it had seemed at first glance. High ridges dominated the notch from both sides, and there were other pa.s.ses north and south, so that he had had to spread his small force thin in order to meet attacks against them all. Coming up just as Hill was about to be overwhelmed-one brigade had broken badly when its commander Brigadier General Samuel Garland was killed, and others were reduced to fighting Indian-style, scattered among the rocks and trees-Longstreet counterattacked on the left and right and managed to stabilize the situation until darkness ended the battle. McClellan had had about 30,000 men engaged, Lee about half that many. Losses were approximately 1800 killed and wounded on each side, with an additional 800 Confederates taken captive. Among the dead was Jesse Reno, shot from his saddle just after sundown while making a horseback inspection of his corps. Lieutenant Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes of the 23d Ohio, fifteen years away from the Presidency, was wounded. Sergeant William McKinley, another future President from that regiment, was unhurt; the bullet that would get him was almost forty years away.
For Lee it was a night of anxiety. He had saved his trains and perhaps delayed a showdown by holding McClellan east of the mountain, but he had done this at a cost of nearly 3000 of his hard-core veterans. What was more, he knew he could do it no longer: Hill and Longstreet both reported that the gap could not be held past daylight, and defeat here on the mountain would mean annihilation. The only thing to do, Lee saw, was to adopt the plan Old Pete had favored so argumentatively the night before. Gone were his hopes for an invasion of Pennsylvania, the destruction of the Susquehanna bridge, the descent on Philadelphia, Baltimore, or the Union capital. Gone too was his hope of relieving Maryland of what he called her foreign yoke. Outnumbered worse than four to one, this half of the army-which in fact was barely more than a third: fourteen brigades out of the total forty-would have to retreat across the Potomac, and the other half would have to abandon its delayed convergence on Harpers Ferry. For Jackson and Walker this would not be difficult, but McLaws was already in the gravest danger. Soon after nightfall Lee sent him a message admitting defeat: "The day has gone against us and this army will go by Sharpsburg and cross the river. It is necessary for you to abandon your position tonight." McLaws of course would not be able to do this over the Ferry bridge, which was held by the Federal garrison; he would have to cross the Potomac farther upstream. Lee urged him, however, to do this somewhere short of Shepherdstown, which was just in rear of Sharpsburg. He wanted that ford clear for his own command, which would be retreating with McClellan"s victorious army hard on its heels.
The evacuation began with Hill, followed by Longstreet; the cavalry brought up the rear. Obliged to abandon his dead and many of his wounded there on the mountain where they had fallen, Lee did not announce that he intended to withdraw across the Potomac, nor did he tell the others that he had instructed McLaws to abandon Maryland Heights. But news that arrived while the retreat was just getting under way confirmed the wisdom, indeed the necessity, of his decision. Cramp-ton"s Gap, six miles south, had been lost by the troopers sent to defend it: which not only meant that the Federals were pouring through, directly in rear of McLaws, but also that they were closer to Sharpsburg than Hill and Longstreet were. Unable to count any longer on McClellan"s accustomed caution and hesitation, Lee saw that the march would have to be hard and fast, enc.u.mbered though he was with all his trains, if he was to get there first. Whereupon, with the situation thus at its worst and his army in graver danger of piecemeal annihilation than ever, Lee displayed for the first time a side to his nature that would become more evident down the years. He was not only no less audacious in retreat than in advance, but he was also considerably more pugnacious, like an old gray wolf wanting nothing more than half a chance to turn on whoever or whatever tried to crowd him as he fell back. And presently he got it.
It came in the form of a message from Jackson, to whom Lee had been sending couriers with information of the latest developments. "Through G.o.d"s blessing," Stonewall had written at 8.15 p.m. from Bolivar Heights, "the advance, which commenced this evening, has been successful thus far, and I look to Him for complete success tomorrow.... Your dispatch respecting the movements of the enemy and the importance of concentration has been received." To Lee this represented a chance to retrieve the situation. By the shortest route, Harpers Ferry was only a dozen miles from Sharpsburg. If the place fell tomorrow, that would mean that a part at least of the besieging force could join him north of the Potomac tomorrow night; for when Jackson said that instructions had been "received," he meant that they would be obeyed. McLaws, too, might give the Federals the slip and march northwest without crossing the river. Accordingly, while Hill and Longstreet pushed on westward unpursued, Lee sent couriers galloping southward through the darkness. Unless the Army of the Potomac got into position for an all-out attack on Sharpsburg tomorrow-which seemed doubtful, despite McClellan"s recent transformation; for one thing, there would be no more lost orders-the Army of Northern Virginia would not return to native ground without the shedding of a good deal more blood, Union and Confederate, than had been shed on South Mountain.
McLaws was a methodical man, not given to indulging what little imagination he had, and in this case-his present dangers being what they were, with McClellan"s left wing coming down on his rear through Crampton"s Gap-that was preferable. A forty-one-year-old Georgian, rather burly, with a bushy head of hair and a beard to match, he had been four months a major general, yet except for commanding two brigades under Magruder during the Seven Days had seen no previous service with Lee"s army. Now he had ten brigades, his own four and Anderson"s six, and he had been given the most critical a.s.signment in the convergence on Harpers Ferry. Maryland Heights was the dominant one of the three. If the place was to be made untenable, it would be his guns that would do most to make it so.
His march from Frederick had been deliberate: so much so that he was a day late in approaching his objective, after which he spent another day brushing Federal detachments off the hilltop and a night cutting a road in order to manhandle his guns up the side of the mountain. At last, two days late, he got them into position on the morning of September 14 and opened wigwag communications with Jackson and Walker, across the way. Northward, up the long ridge of South Mountain, D. H. Hill"s daylong battle rumbled and muttered; but McLaws, having posted three brigades in that direction to protect his rear, kept his mind on the business of getting his high-perched guns laid in time to open a plunging fire on the Ferry whenever Stonewall, who was a day late and still completing his dispositions, gave the signal. During the afternoon a much nearer racket broke out northward, but whatever qualms McLaws felt at the evidence that his rear guard was under attack were eased by Stuart, who had ridden down from Turner"s Gap. The bluecoats in front of Crampton"s Gap did not amount to more than a brigade, he said, and McLaws turned back to his guns. Presently, though, as the noise swelled louder, he rode in that direction to see for himself-and arrived to find that he had a first-cla.s.s panic on his hands. Right, left, and center, his troops had given way and were fleeing in disorder. That was no blue brigade pouring through the abandoned gap, they told him. It was McClellan"s entire left wing, a reinforced corps.
Fortunately they had given a good account of themselves before they broke: good enough, at any rate, to instill a measure of caution in their pursuers. McLaws had time to rally the fugitives and bring three more brigades down off the heights, forming a line across the valley less than two miles south of the lost gap. The day was far gone by then, the valley filled with shadows, and Franklin did not press the issue. McClellan had told him to "cut off, destroy, or capture McLaws" command," and apparently he figured that the seizure of Cramp-ton"s Gap had fulfilled the first of these alternatives. Also, now that he was in McLaws" rear, he had the worry of knowing that the Confederate main body was in his his. Anyhow he decided not to be hasty; he had his men bed down for the night in line of battle.
Next morning, as he was about to proceed with his advance, the rebels just ahead began to cheer. One curious bluecoat sprang up on a stone wall and called across to them: "What the h.e.l.l are you fellows cheering for?"
"Because Harpers Ferry is gone up, G.o.d d.a.m.n you!"
"I thought that was it," the Federal said, and he jumped back down again.
McLaws had stood fast and Jackson had kept the promise sent by courier to Lee twelve hours before. One hour of plunging fire from the surrounding heights smothered the batteries below. Soon afterwards the white flag went up. Except for two regiments of cavalry that had escaped under cover of darkness-across the Potomac, then northward up the same road old John Brown had come south on, three years ago next month-the whole garrison surrendered, including the men who had marched in from Martinsburg. "Our Heavenly Father blesses us exceedingly," Jackson wrote his wife, enumerating his gains: 12,520 prisoners, 13,000 small arms, 73 cannon, and a goodly haul of quartermaster stores.
According to a northern reporter"s O-my-G.o.d lay-me-down reaction to his first sight of Stonewall and his men, they had great need of the latter-especially the general himself. "He was dressed in the coa.r.s.est kind of homespun, seedy and dirty at that; wore an old hat which any northern beggar would consider an insult to have offered him, and in general appearance was in no respect to be distinguished from the mongrel, bare-footed crew who follow his fortunes. I had heard much of the decayed appearance of the rebel soldiers, but such a looking crowd! Ireland in her worst straits could present no parallel, and yet they glory in their shame." The captive Federals (except perhaps the Irish among them) could scarcely argue with this, but they drew a different conclusion. "Boys, he isn"t much for looks," one declared, inspecting Jackson, "but if we"d had him we wouldn"t have been caught in this trap."
Pleased as he was, the Valley commander took little time for gloating. "Ah," he said to a jubilant companion as they stood looking at the booty, "this is all very well, Major, but we have yet much hard work before us." Though he was unaware of the lost order-"I thought I knew McClellan," he remarked, "but this movement of his puzzles me"-he was aware that Lee was being pressed, and he was eager to move to his support. Five of the six divisions started for Sharpsburg that afternoon and night. The sixth was A. P. Hill"s. Like Hood, once combat was at hand, he had burned to pa.s.s from the rear to the front of his division on the march to Harpers Ferry, but like Hood he would not compromise his honor with an expression of regret. He simply requested, through a member of the staff, to be released from arrest for the duration of the fighting, after which he would report himself in arrest again. Jackson not only a.s.sented; he gave him a prominent part in the operation, and afterwards left him in charge of the place while he himself rode off in the wake of a message he had sent Lee that morning soon after he saw the white flag go up: Through G.o.d"s blessing, Harpers Ferry and its garrison are to be surrendered. As Hill"s troops have borne the heaviest part of the engagement, he will be left in command until the prisoners and public property shall be disposed of, unless you direct otherwise. The other forces can move off this evening so soon as they get their rations.
"That is indeed good news," Lee said when it reached him at Sharpsburg about noon. "Let it be announced to the troops."
McClellan"s soldiers were feeling good, and so was their commander. For the first time since Williamsburg, back in early May, they were following up a battle with an advance, and as they went forward, past clumps of fallen rebels, they began to observe that their opponents were by no means the supermen they had seemed at times; were in fact, as one New York volunteer recorded, "undersized men mostly...with sallow, hatchet faces, and clad in "b.u.t.ternut," a color running all the way from a deep, coffee brown up to the whitish brown of ordinary dust." He even found himself feeling sorry for them. "As I looked down on the poor, pinched faces, worn with marching and scant fare, all enmity died out. There was no "secession" in those rigid forms, nor in those fixed eyes staring blankly at the sky."
They left them where they lay and pushed on down the western slope, following McClellan, whose enthusiasm not even the fall of Harpers Ferry could dampen. Though this deprived him of 12,000 reinforcements which he thought he needed badly, it also vindicated the judgment he had shown in vainly urging the general in chief to order the post evacuated before Jackson rimmed the heights with guns. Moreover, though Old Brains could take no credit for it, his blunder had resulted in the dispersion of Lee"s army, and this in turn had made possible yesterday"s victory at South Mountain, as well as the larger triumph which now seemed to be within McClellan"s grasp. Elated, he pa.s.sed on this morning to Halleck "perfectly reliable [information] that the enemy is making for Shepherdstown in a perfect panic," and that "Lee last night stated publicly that he must admit they had been shockingly whipped." To old General Scott, in retirement at West Point, went a telegram announcing "a signal victory" and informing him that his fellow Virginian and former protege had been soundly trounced: "R. E. Lee in command. The rebels routed, and retreating in disorder." Both reactions were encouraging. "Bravo, my dear general! Twice more and it"s done," Scott answered, while Lincoln himself replied to the earlier wire: "G.o.d bless you and all with you. Destroy the rebel army if possible."
That was precisely what McClellan intended to do, if possible, and that afternoon, five miles southeast of Boonsboro-the scene of another triumphal entry and departure-he came upon a line of hills overlooking a shallow, mile-wide valley through which a rust-brown creek meandered south from its source in Pennsylvania; Antietam Creek, it was called. Beyond it, somewhat lower than the ridge on which he stood with his staff while his army filed in and spread out north and south along the line of hills outcropped with limestone, rose another ridge that masked the town of Sharpsburg, all but its s