there must be hard riding. Horses break down, but the riders help themselves to others at the first farm. At sunset on the 11th Stuart is at Emmettsburg, in Maryland. The sympathies of the people in that town are with the South, and they welcome him with open arms. He cannot stay to enjoy their hospitality, but through the night the column moves on, avoiding Frederick, where there is a Union force, reaching the Potomac at the mouth of the Monocacy, and escaping to the Virginia shore just as two bodies of Union troops were closing upon him. The Union cavalry sent to cut him off, by false information had gone west, when it should have gone east, and had lost so much time in retracing its steps that Stuart escaped, losing only three men, carrying twelve hundred horses into Virginia, besides destroying the supplies at Chambersburg. It was mortifying to General McClellan and irritating to the people of the North. New regiments had been sent him, and the army on October 20th numbered one hundred and sixteen thousand. We now know that Lee's army numbered about sixty thousand, though General McClellan believed it to be as large as his own.

The President wrote a letter to General McClellan. Thus it read :

"You say that you cannot subsist your army at Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point is in working order; but the enemy subsists his army at Winchester at a distance nearly twice as far from railroad transportation as you would have to do. He wagons his supplies from Culpeper Court-house. You dread his going into Pennsylvania, but if he does so in full force he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin him. If he does so with less than full force, fall upon him and beat what is left behind.

"If he should move northward, I would follow him closely. If he should move towards Richmond, I would press closely to him, if a favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track. We must beat him somewhere. If we cannot beat him where he now is, we never can, he being again within the intrenchments of Richmond."

On October 26th three pontoon-bridges were laid across the Potomac, and the army began to cross, but not until November 2d was the whole body of troops on the other side. Fifteen thousand men were left to guard Harper's Ferry, but twenty thousand were sent out from Washington to join McClellan. The roads were in excellent condition, the days delightful, the army in good spirits.

General Lee knew all that was going on, and when the army began to move south along the base of the Blue Ridge, Longstreet's corps passed through one of the gaps and took position at Culpeper, leaving Jackson's corps in the valley.

There were engagements between the cavalry of the two armies.

Stuart was covering the falling back of Longstreet. There was a sharp fight at the little town of Markham; another at Barbee's Cross-roads, in which the Confederates were driven. The Union cavalry for the first time had been organized in brigades, and was doing effective work.

This was General McClellan's plan: "It was my intention if, upon reaching Ashby's or any other pass, I found that the enemy were in force between it and the Potomac, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, to move into the Valley and endeavor to gain their rear. I hardly hoped to accomplish this, but did expect that by striking in between Culpeper Courthouse and Little Washington I could either separate their army and beat them in detail or else force them to concentrate as far back as Gordonsville, and thus place the Army of the Potomac in position either to adopt the Fredericksburg line of advance upon Richmond or to be removed to the Peninsula if, as I apprehended, it were found impossible to supply it by the Orange and Alexandria Railroad beyond Culpeper."

It was not a very definite plan. It looked once more towards a removal of the army to the Peninsula.

General McClellan was sitting in his tent at eleven o'clock in the evening, November 7th. Two officers entered-General Buckingham, bringing a letter from Washington, and General Burnside. General McClellan opened the letter and read:

"By direction of the President of the United States, it is ordered that Major-general McClellan be removed from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and that Majorgeneral Burnside take command of the army.

"By order of the Secretary of War."

General Burnside did not wish to be commander-in-chief. He felt that he was not competent to command an army numbering one hundred and twenty-seven thousand. Twice he had refused the offered command, and accepted it only because he felt it to be his duty.

He reorganized the army, creating three grand divisions. The right wing was commanded by General Sumner, and included the Second Corps, commanded by Couch, and the Ninth, by Wilcox. The left wing was commanded by General Franklin, and included the First Corps, under Reynolds, and the Sixth, under General Smith. The centre was commanded by General Hooker, and included the Third Corps, under Sickles, and the Fifth, under Butterfield. General Burnside thought that it would be easier to handle the army by such an organization. At Antietam, when he was making his attack, he called upon General Porter for help, but Porter could not assist him without orders from McClellan; but un

der this arrangement a grand division commander could always have two corps at his disposal.

General Burnside determined to make a rapid march south-east along the north bank of the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg, cross the river and move on towards Richmond, establishing a new base of supplies at Acquia Creek, on the Potomac.

Why not attack where he was? General Halleck visited the army and endeavored to persuade Burnside to attack Lee at Gordonsville. They had long consultations. Halleck returned to Washington and laid the matter before President Lincoln, who assented to what Burnside proposed. It was to make Lee believe that he was going to attack him at Gordonsville, at the same time make a rapid march with Sumner's grand division down the north bank of the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg, and cross the Rappahannock on pontoons which General Halleck agreed to have there.

At eleven o'clock on the morning of November 14th General Burnside issued his orders for the right wing, under Sumner, to move at daylight the next morning. A strong party of pioneers with axes started in advance to cut bushes from the path. On Monday afternoon the troops were on the Falmouth Hills overlooking Fredericksburg; the other grand divisions followed.

The Confederate force in Fredericksburg consisted of the Fifteenth Virginia Cavalry, four companies of Mississippi infantry, and Lewis's battery-only six or seven hundred — who were surprised to see the men in blue swarming upon the opposite side of the river. Captain Lewis, of the Confederate artillery, wheeled his battery into position and sent a shell which struck a wheel of one of Captain Pettit's cannon, who the next moment opened fire with his ten-pounder Parrott guns, firing with such sure aim that the Confederate gunners drew off their pieces.

General Lee, in his report of operations, states that Sumner "was driven back by Colonel Ball with the Fifteenth Virginia Cavalry, four companies of Mississippi infantry, and Lewis's light battery." There was no driving back, for General Sumner made no attempt to cross. There was no fighting, except the brief cannonade and the retirement of the Confederate battery.

The pontoons had not arrived; the railroad to Acquia Creek had not been repaired; the part which General Halleck had promised to see to had not been done. While the troops are standing there they see a herd of cattle feeding in the pastures along the south bank of the Rappahannock, just above the town. A steer goes down to drink, steps into the stream, keeps wading till it reaches the Falmouth side.