Part 8 (2/2)
This address, couched in terms of such dignity, had little effect upon the people. Either their sentiment in favor of the Union was too strong, or they found nothing in the condition of affairs to encourage their Southern feelings. A large Federal force was known to be advancing; Lee's army, in tatters, and almost without supplies, presented a very uninviting appearance to recruits, and few joined his standard, the population in general remaining hostile or neutral.
The condition of the army was indeed forlorn. It was worn down by marching and fighting; the men had scarcely shoes upon their feet; and, above the tattered figures, flaunting their rags in the suns.h.i.+ne, were seen gaunt and begrimed faces, in which could be read little of the ”romance of war.” The army was in no condition to undertake an invasion; ”lacking much of the material of war, feeble in transportation, poorly provided with clothing, and thousands of them dest.i.tute of shoes,” is Lee's description of his troops. Such was the condition of the better portion of the force; on the opposite side of the Potomac, scattered along the hills, could be seen a weary, ragged, hungry, and confused mult.i.tude, who had dragged along in rear of the rest, unable to keep up, and whose miserable appearance said little for the prospects of the army to which they belonged.
From these and other causes resulted the general apathy of the Marylanders, and Lee soon discovered that he must look solely to his own men for success in his future movements. He faced that conviction courageously; and, without uttering a word of comment, or indulging in any species of crimination against the people of Maryland, resolutely commenced his movements looking to the capture of Harper's Ferry and the invasion of Pennsylvania.[1]
[Footnote 1: The reader will perceive that the intent to invade Pennsylvania is repeatedly attributed in these pages to General Lee. His own expression is, ”by threatening Pennsylvania, to induce the enemy,” etc. That he designed invasion, aided by the recruits antic.i.p.ated in Maryland, seems unquestionable; since, even after discovering the lukewarmness of the people there by the fact that few joined his standard, he still advanced to Hagerstown, but a step from the Pennsylvania line. These facts have induced the present writer to attribute the design of actual invasion to Lee with entire confidence; and all the circ.u.mstances seem to him to support that hypothesis.]
The promises of his address had been kept. No one had been forced to follow the Southern flag; and now, when the people turned their backs upon it, closing the doors of the houses in the faces of the Southern troops, they remained unmolested. Lee had thus given a practical proof of the sincerity of his character. He had promised nothing which he had not performed; and in Maryland, as afterward in Pennsylvania, in 1863, he remained firm against the temptation to adopt the harsh course generally pursued by the commanders of invading armies. He seems to have proceeded on the principle that good faith is as essential in public affairs as in private, and to have resolved that, in any event, whether of victory or disaster, his enemies should not have it in their power to say that he broke his plighted word, or acted in a manner unbecoming a Christian gentleman.
Prompt action was now necessary. The remnants of General Pope's army, greatly scattered and disorganized by the severe battle of Mana.s.sas, had been rapidly reformed and brought into order again, and to this force was added a large number of new troops, hurried forward from the Northern States to Was.h.i.+ngton. This new army was not to be commanded by General Pope, who had been weighed and found wanting in ability to contend with Lee. The force was intrusted to General McClellan, in spite of his unpopularity with the Federal authorities; and the urgent manner in which he had been called upon to take the head of affairs and protect the Federal capital, is the most eloquent of all commentaries upon the position which he held in the eyes of the country and the army. It was felt, indeed, by all that the Federal s.h.i.+p was rolling in the storm, and an experienced pilot was necessary for her guidance. General McClellan was accordingly directed, after General Pope's defeat, to take command of every thing, and see to the safety of Was.h.i.+ngton; and, finding himself at length at the head of an army of about one hundred thousand men, he proceeded, after the manner of a good soldier, to protect the Federal capital by advancing into upper Maryland in pursuit of Lee.
III.
MOVEMENTS OF THE TWO ARMIES.
General Lee was already moving to the accomplishment of his designs, the capture of Harper's Ferry, and an advance into the c.u.mberland Valley.
His plan to attain the first-mentioned object was simple, and promised to be successful. Jackson was to march around by way of ”Williamsport and Martinsburg,” and thus approach from the south. A force was meanwhile to seize upon and occupy the Maryland Heights, a lofty spot of the mountain across the Potomac, north of the Ferry. In like manner, another body of troops was to cross the Potomac, east of the Blue Ridge, and occupy the Loudon Heights, looking down upon Harper's Ferry from the east. By this arrangement the retreat of the enemy would be completely cut off in every direction. Harper's Ferry must be captured, and, having effected that result, the whole Confederate force, detached for the purpose, was to follow the main body of this army in the direction of Hagerstown, to take part in the proposed invasion of Pennsylvania.
This excellent plan failed, as will be seen, from no fault of the great soldier who devised it, but in consequence of unforeseen obstacles, and especially of one of those singular incidents which occasionally reverse the best-laid schemes and abruptly turn aside the currents of history.
Jackson and the commanders cooperating with him moved on September 10th. General Lee then with his main body crossed the South Mountain, taking the direction of Hagerstown. Meanwhile, General McClellan had advanced cautiously and slowly, withheld by incessant dispatches from Was.h.i.+ngton, warning him not to move in such a manner as to expose that city to danger. Such danger existed only in the imaginations of the authorities, as the army in advancing extended its front from the Potomac to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. General McClellan, nevertheless, moved with very great precaution, feeling his way, step by step, like a man in the dark, when on reaching Frederick City, which the Confederates had just evacuated, good fortune suddenly came to his a.s.sistance. This good fortune was the discovery of a copy of General Lee's orders of march for the army, in which his whole plan was revealed. General McClellan had therein the unmistakable evidence of his opponent's intentions, and from that moment his advance was as rapid as before it had been deliberate.
The result of this fortunate discovery was speedily seen. General Lee, while moving steadily toward Hagerstown, was suddenly compelled to turn his attention to the mountain-pa.s.ses in his rear. It had not been the intention of Lee to oppose the pa.s.sage of the enemy through the South Mountain, as he desired to draw General McClellan as far as possible from his base, but the delay in the fall of Harper's Ferry now made this necessary. It was essential to defend the mountain-defiles in order to insure the safety of the Confederate troops at Harper's Ferry; and Lee accordingly directed General D.H. Hill to oppose the pa.s.sage of the enemy at Boonsboro Gap, and Longstreet was sent from Hagerstown to support him.
An obstinate struggle now ensued for the possession of the main South Mountain Gap, near Boonsboro, and the roar of Jackson's artillery from Harper's Ferry must have prompted the a.s.sailants to determined efforts to force the pa.s.sage. The battle continued until night (September 14th), and resulted in heavy loss on both sides, the brave General Reno, of the United States army, among others, losing his life. Darkness put an end to the action, the Federal forces not having succeeded in pa.s.sing the Gap; but, learning that a column of the enemy had crossed below and threatened him with an attack in flank, General Lee determined to retire in the direction of Sharpsburg, where Jackson and the forces cooperating with him could join the main body of the army. This movement was effected without difficulty, and Lee notices the skill and efficiency of General Fitz Lee in covering the rear with his cavalry. The Federal army failed to press forward as rapidly as it is now obvious it should have done. The head of the column did not appear west of the mountain until eight o'clock in the morning (September 15th), and, nearly at the same moment (”the attack began at dawn; in about two hours the garrison surrendered,” says General Lee), Harper's Ferry yielded to Jackson.
Fast-riding couriers brought the welcome intelligence of Jackson's success to General Lee, as the latter was approaching Sharpsburg, and official information speedily came that the result had been the capture of more than eleven thousand men, thirteen thousand small-arms, and seventy-three cannon. It was probably this large number of men and amount of military stores falling into the hands of the Confederates which afterward induced the opinion that Lee's sole design in invading Maryland had been the reduction of Harper's Ferry.
General McClellan had thus failed, in spite of every effort which he had made, to relieve Harper's Ferry,[1] and no other course remained now but to follow Lee and bring him to battle. The Federal army accordingly moved on the track of its adversary, and, on the afternoon of the same day (September 15th), found itself in sight of Lee's forces drawn up on the western side of Antietam Creek, near the village of Sharpsburg.
[Footnote 1: All along the march he had fired signal-guns to inform the officer in command at Harper's Ferry of his approach.]
At last the great opponents were in face of each other, and a battle, it was obvious, could not long be delayed.
IV.
THE PRELUDE TO SHARPSBURG.
General Lee had once more sustained a serious check from the skill and soldiers.h.i.+p of the officer who had conducted the successful retreat of the Federal army from the Chickahominy to James River.
The defeat and dispersion of the army of General Pope on the last day of August seemed to have opened Pennsylvania to the Confederates. On the 15th of September, a fortnight afterward, General McClellan, at the head of a new army, raised in large measure by the magic of his name, had pursued the victorious Confederate, checked his further advance, and, forcing him to abandon his designs of invasion, brought him to bay a hundred miles from the capital. This was generals.h.i.+p, it would seem, in the true acceptation of the term, and McClellan, hara.s.sed and hampered by the authorities, who looked but coldly upon him, could say, with Coriola.n.u.s, ”Alone I did it.”
Lee was thus compelled to give up his movement in the direction of Pennsylvania, and concentrate his army to receive the a.s.sault of General McClellan. Jackson, marching with his customary promptness, joined him with a portion of the detached force on the next day (September 16th), and almost immediately those thunders which prelude the great struggles of history began.
General Lee had drawn up his army on the high ground west of the Antietam, a narrow and winding stream which flows, through fields dotted with homesteads and clumps of fruit and forest trees, to the Potomac. Longstreet's corps was posted on the right of the road from Sharpsburg to Boonsboro, his right flank guarded by the waters of the stream, which here bends westward; on the left of the Boonsboro road D.H. Hill's command was stationed; two brigades under General Hood were drawn up on Hill's left; and when Jackson arrived Lee directed him to post his command on the left of Hood, his right resting on the Hagerstown road, and his left extending backward obliquely toward the Potomac, here making a large bend, where Stuart with his cavalry and horse-artillery occupied the ground to the river's bank.
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