464 THE REPUBLIC IN PERIL CHAPTER XVIII. LEE'S INVASION OF MARYLAND, AND HIS RETREAT TOWARD RICHMOND. NLY thirty days had passed by since Lee was in the attitude of a defender of the Confederate capital, with two large armies threatening it from different points, when he was seen in the position of an exultant victor, ready to take the offensive in a bold menace of the National capital. He sent troops to check Pope, and the effect was the withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula. Relieved of all danger in the latter direction, he moved in heavy force and pushed the Army of Virginia across the Rappahannock before the other great army lent it any aid; and now, at the beginning of September, he saw both armies which had threatened him, shattered and disordered behind the strong fortifications of the National capital, where McClellan concentrated them to defend that capital from an expected assault. From Fortress Monroe to the head waters of the James and the Rappahannock, and far up the Potomac and the intervening country, as well as the whole valley of the Shenandoah to its northern entrance at Harper's Ferry, there were no National troops, and the harvests in all that region were poured into the Confederate granary. The Republic now seemed to be in great peril, and the loyal people were very anxious. Long before the disastrous termination of the campaign on the Peninsula, thoughtful men were losing faith in the ability, and some in the patriotism of the commander of the Army of the Potomac; and it was clearly seen that if one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand men could not make more headway in the work of crushing the rebellion than they had done under his leadership during full ten months, more men must be called to the field at once, or all would be lost. Accordingly the loyal Governors of eighteen States signed a request that the President should immediately take measures for largely increasing the effective force in the field. He had already, by a call on the 1st of June, drawn forty thousand men, for three months, from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. In compliance with a request of the governors, he called for three hundred thousand volunteers "for the war," on the 1st of July; and on the 9th of August, when Pope was struggling with Jackson near the Rapid Anna, he called for three hundred thousand men for nine months, with the understanding that an equal number of men would be drafted from the great body of the citizens who were over eighteen and less than forty-five years of age, if they did not appear as volunteers. LEE'S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 465 These calls met with a hearty response, and very soon men were seen flocking to the standard of the Republic by thousands. The Conspirators at Richmond well knew that such a response would be made, and while they were wickedly deceiving the people of the Confederacy with the idea that "the Lincoln government," as they said in derision, was bankrupt in men and money, they were trembling with fear because of its wealth in both, which they well comprehended. Therefore they instructed Lee to take immediate advantage of the fortunate situation in which McClellan's failure to sustain Pope had placed him, to act boldly, vigorously, and even desperately, if necessary. Lee saw clearly that an assault on the fortified National capital would be foolish and disastrous, and he conceived the idea of throwing his army across the Potomac to the rear of Washington, when, perhaps, after sweeping victoriously on to the Susquehanna, he might return and seize Baltimore and the National city. He believed the people of "sovereign" Maryland were chafing under the domination of the Government, and were ready to give all the support in their power to the Confederate cause; and that the presence of his army would produce a general uprising in that State. The conspirators at Richmond were in accord with Lee in this view, and he made instant preparations for throwing his army across the Potomac. ¿Sept. 8. Lee Lee was joined on the 2d by the fresh division of D. H. Hill, from Richmond, and this was immediately sent as a vanguard a Sept. 1862. toward Leesburg. The whole Confederate army followed, and between the 4th and 7th it had crossed the Potomac by the fords in the vicinity of the Point of Rocks, and encamped not far from the city of Frederick, on the Monocacy River. There General Lee formally raised the standard of revolt, and issued a proclamation' in words intended to be as seductive to the people of that commonwealth as those of Randall's impassioned appeal, entitled "Maryland! my Maryland!"" declared it was the wish "of the people of the South" to aid those of Maryland in throwing off the "foreign yoke" they were compelled to bear, that they might be able to "again enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen, and to restore the independence and sovereignty of their State;" and he assured them that his mission was to assist them with the power of arms "in regaining their rights," of which they had "been so unjustly despoiled." Lee discoursed as fluently and falsely of the "outrages" inflicted by the generous Government which he had solemnly sworn to protect, and against which he was waging war for the perpetuation of injustice and inhumanity,2 1 See page 555, volume I. 2 In a speech at the raising of the National flag over Columbia College, in New York, immediately after the attack on Fort Sumter, in April, 1861, Dr. Francis Lieber admirably defined the character of soldiers like Robert E. Lee, who professed to believe in the State supremacy, but who had served in the armies of the Republic and deserted their flag. Men," he said, "who believed, or pretended to believe in State sovereignty alone, when secession broke out, went over with men and ships, abandoning the flag to which they had sworn fidelity; thus showing that all along they served the United States like Swiss hirelings and not as citizens, in their military service. They did more: not only did they desert the service of the United States, on the ground that their individual States, to whom they owed allegiance, had declared themselves out of the Union; but in many cases they took with them, or attempted to take with them, the men who owed no such allegiance, being either foreigners or natives of other American States. In other cases they actually called publicly on their former comrades to be equally faithless, and desert their ships or troops. The Swiss mercenaries used to act more nobly. Once having sold their services, and having taken the oath of fidelity, they used to remain faithful unto death." VOL. II.-68 466 LEE'S PROCLAMATION SCORNED. as did Jefferson Davis, his coadjutor in the monstrous crime; but he soon found to his shame and confusion that the disloyal Marylanders like Bradley Johnson, who had joined the Confederate army, had deceived him by false representations, and that, with the exception of a large rebellious faction in the more Southern slaveholding counties, the people of that State looked upon the gigantic iniquity of the conspirators and their abettors with abhorrence. BARBARA FRIETCHIE He was met with sullen scorn in the form of apparent indifference, and he was soon made to feel that under that passivity there was burning a spirit like that of the venerable and more demonstrative Barbara Frietchie, of Frederick, one of the true heroines of whom history too often fails to make honorable mention.' Lee lost more men in Maryland by desertion than he gained by his proclamation. Had there been nothing repulsive in the work to which they were invited, the filthy and wretched condition of Lee's troops would have made the citizens of Maryland scornful of such an "army of liberators." McClellan was informed of Lee's movement on the morning of the 3d, and immediately put his troops in motion to meet the threatened peril. His army was thrown into Maryland north of Washington, and on the 7th, 1 Barbara Frietchie (who died in June, 1864) lived close to a bridge which spans the stream that courses through Frederick. When, in this invasion of Maryland, "Stonewall Jackson" marched through Frederick, his troops passed over that bridge. He had been informed that many National flags were flying in the city, and he gave orders for them all to be hauled down. Patriotic Barbara's was displayed from one of the dormer-windows, seen in the sketch of her house here given, from a drawing made by the writer in September, 1866, in which, just beyond it, the bridge is seen. Her flag was pulled down. The remainder of the story has been told in the following words of John G. Whittier : Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, She took up the flag the men hauled down; It shivered the window, pane and sash; BARBARA FRIETCHIE'S HOUSE. "Shoot," if you must, this old gray head, LEE'S PLANS DISCOVERED. 467 leaving General Banks in command at the National capital, he hastened to the field, making his head-quarters that night with the Sixth Corps at Rockville. His army, composed of his own and the forces of Pope and Burnside, numbered a little more than eighty-seven thousand effective men. It advanced slowly toward Frederick by five parallel roads, and was so disposed as to cover both Washington and Baltimore. The left rested on the Potomac, and the right on the Baltimore and Ohio railway.' Great caution was necessary, for the real intentions of Lee were unknown. Fortunately, these were discovered on the 13th, when McClellan's advance entered Frederick, after a brisk skirmish with the Confederate rear-guard, and found there a copy of Lee's general order issued on the 9th. It revealed the fact that he was not to make a direct movement against Washington or Baltimore, so long as McClellan lay between him and the two cities; but so soon as he could draw him toward the Susquehanna by menacing Pennsylvania, and thus take him away from his supplies, he might attack and cripple him, and then march upon one or both of those cities. To accomplish this he designed to take possession of Harper's Ferry (which he believed would be evacuated on his crossing the Potomac) and establish communication with Richmond by way of the Shenandoah Valley; and then, marching up the Cumberland Valley, endeavor to draw McClellan toward the heart of Pennsylvania. Lee's maneuvers for the end proposed were most hazardous in their character, under the circumstances. He ordered Jackson to go over the South Mountain' by way of Middletown, and then, passing by Sharpsburg to the Potomac, cross that river above Harper's Ferry, sever the Baltimore and Ohio railway, and intercept any troops that might attempt to escape from the Ferry. Longstreet was to follow the same road to Boonsborough, westward of the South Mountain; while McLaws, with his own and Anderson's division, was to march to Middletown, and then press on toward Harper's Ferry and possess himself of Maryland Heights, on the left bank of the Potomac, overlooking that post, and endeavor to capture it and its dependencies. General Walker was to cross the Potomac at Cheeks' ford, and, if practicable, take possession of Loudon Heights, on the right bank of the river, at the same time, and co-operate with Jackson and McLaws. D. H. Hill's division was to form the rear-guard of the main body, and Stuart's cavalry was to cover the whole. The troops ordered to Harper's Ferry were directed to join the main army at Hagerstown or Boonsborough after capturing that post. 1 The right wing was composed of the First and Ninth Corps, under General Burnside; the center, of the Second and Twelfth Corps, under General Sumner, and the left, of the Sixth Corps, under General Franklin. The First Corps (McDowell's) was placed under General Hooker; the Ninth, of Burnside's command, was under General Reno; the Twelfth was Banks's, which was now under General Mansfield, who had not before taken the field. Porter's corps remained in Washington until the 12th, and did not join the army until it reached the vicinity of Sharpsburg. General Hunt was made Chief of Artillery, and General Pleasanton commanded the cavalry division. 2 This is a continuation into Pennsylvania of the ranges of the Blue Ridge in Virginia, severed by the Potomac at Harper's Ferry and vicinity. A lower range, called the Catoctin or Kittoctan Mountains, passes near Frederick, and is a continuation north of the Potomac, of the Bull's Run Mountains. See map on page 586, Volume I. Several roads cross these ranges, the best being the old National road from Baltimore to Cumberland, passing through Frederick and Middletown, the latter being the most considerable village in the Kittoctan Valley. The principal passes or gaps in the South Mountain range made memorable by this invasion were Crampton's and Turner's, the former five miles from Harper's Ferry. 468 MOVEMENTS OF THE NATIONAL ARMY. This bold design of separating his army, then far away from his supplies, by a river liable to be made impassable in a few hours by a heavy rain, and with a pursuing force in superior numbers close behind, marked Lee as a blunderer, unless, as he "fully understood the character of his opponent," as Magruder had lately said,' he counted upon his usual tardiness and indecision. McClellan's army had moved between six and seven miles a day since he entered Maryland, watching rather than pursuing, for reasons already alluded to, and Lee doubtless supposed that pace would be kept up. When Lee's plan was discovered, on the day after he moved westward from Frederick," the National army was in the vicinity of that a Sept. 13, city, excepting Franklin's corps of about seventeen thousand men, which was several miles nearer Harper's Ferry. Between him and that post was only the division of McLaws, not more than twenty thousand strong, while at the Ferry was a garrison of nine thousand men strongly posted, but unfortunately under Colonel D. H. Miles, who behaved so badly on the day of the first battle of Bull's Run. There were twentyfive hundred troops under General White, engaged in outpost duty at Martinsburg and Winchester, and these, with the garrison at the Ferry, were under the direct control of General Halleck. 1862. McClellan now possessed the rare advantage of knowing his opponent's plans, and a divided army to operate against, and it was believed that he would order Franklin to push vigorously forward, followed by heavy supports, to crush McLaws and save Harper's Ferry. But this was not a part of his plan. When Lee crossed into Maryland, McClellan, like the Confederate leader, considered Harper's Ferry to be untenable, and before he left Washington he advised its evacuation, and the employment of its garrison in co-operation with his army. As on the Peninsula, he seems now to have been haunted with the specter of an overwhelming force on his front, and began calling for re-enforcements. Four days after he took the field he again advised Halleck to order Miles to leave Harper's Ferry and join his army; and on the same day, in a long letter to the General-in-Chief, he counseled the abandonment of Washington City to the rebels, if that should be necessary to re-enforce his army in Maryland, and then trust to luck for the recapture of it.3 The National army moved in pursuit, from Frederick, in two columns, the right and center toward Turner's Gap, in South Mountain, in front of Middletown, Burnside leading the advance; and the left, composed of Franklin's corps, toward Crampton's Gap, in the same range, in front of Burkittsville. Lee was so confident that McClellan would be tardy, that he ordered Longstreet to follow Jackson and take post at Hagerstown, with a great portion of his corps (leaving only D. H. Hill's division to guard Turner's Gap'), and See page 606, volume I. 1 See note 2, page 420. To this portion of his extraordinary letter Halleck replied:-" You attach too little importance to the capital. I assure you that you are wrong. The capture of this place will throw us back six months, if it should not destroy us. Beware of the evils I now point out to you. You saw them when here, but you seem to forget them in the distance."-Letter to McClellan, September 13, 1862. 4 Turner's Gap is a deep and rugged pass, about 400 feet above the base of the mountain, with a crest on each side, one of them rising 600 feet higher. A good turnpike crossed the mountain eastward of the pass or hollow, and a good road went over it just westward of the pass. Crampton's Gap was a similar pass, and opened into Pleasant Valley, back of Maryland Heights, a few miles from Harper's Ferry. |