As the opposing armies of the war now stood, the South had causes for congratulation and pride such, perhaps, as no other people ever had in similar circumstances. The North had a population of twenty-three millions against eight millions serving the South, and of these eight millions nearly three millions were African slaves. The white population of New York and Pennsylvania was greater than that of the Confederate States. Manufacturing establishments of all descriptions rendered the North a self-sustaining people for all the requirements of peace or war, and, with these advantages, they retained those of an unrestricted commerce with foreign nations. The North had all the ports of the world open to its ships; it had furnaces, foundries, and workshops; its manufacturing resources, compared with those of the South, were as five hundred to one; the great marts of Europe were open to it for supplies of arms and stores; there was nothing of material resource, nothing of the apparatus of conquest that was not within its reach.

The South, on the other hand, with only a few insignificant manufactories of arms and materials of war, textile fabrics, leather, &c., had been cut off by an encircling blockade for fifteen months from all those supplies upon which she had depended from the North and from Europe, in the way of arms, munitions of war, clothing, medicines, and many of the essentials of subsistence. The South was without the vestige of a navy, except a straggling ship or two, while that of the North in this war was equal to a land force of three or four hundred thousand men. The South was pearly exhausted of the commonest articles of food, while the Northern States had a superabundance of all the essentials and luxuries of life. The Northern troops, en masse, were better armed, equipped, and subsisted than those of any other nation, while those of the South were armed with all sorts of weapons-good, bad, and indifferent-clothed in rags and fed upon half rations.

The result of all this immense and boasted superiority on the part of the North, coupled with the most immense exertions, was that the South remained unconquered. The result was humiliating enough to the warlike reputation of the North. It had not been separated from its feeble adversary by seas or mountains, but only by a geographical line; nature had not

interfered to protect the weak from the strong. Three " grand armies" had advanced against Richmond; and yet not only was the South more invincible in spirit than ever, but her armies of brave and ragged men were already advancing upon the Northern borders, and threatening, at least so far as to alarm their enemy, the invasion of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the occupation of the Northern capital.

CHAPTER IV.

Rescue of Virginia from the Invader.-Gen. Loring's Campaign in the Kanawha Valley. A Novel Theatre of the War.-Gen. Lee's Passage of the Potomac.-His Plans. Disposition of our Forces.-McClellan again at the Head of the Yankee Army.-THE Battle of BooNSBORO'.-THE CAPTURE OF HARPER'S FERRY.-Its Fruits. -THE BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG.-Great Superiority of the Enemy's Numbers.-Fury of the Battle.-The Bridge of Antietam.-A Drawn Battle.-Spectacles of Carnage.The Unburied Dead.- Gen. Lee retires into Virginia.-McClellan's Pretence of Victory. The Affair of Shepherdstown.-Charges against McClellan.-His Disgrace. -Review of the Maryland Campaign. Misrepresentations of Gen. Lee's Objects.— His Retreat.-Comment of the New York "Tribune."-The Cold Reception of the Confederates in Maryland.-Excuses for the Timidity of the Marylanders.—What was accomplished by the Summer Campaign of 1862.—The Outburst of Applause in Europe.-Tribute from the London "Times."-Public Opinion in England.-Distinction between the People and the Government.-The Mask of England.—OUR ForEIGN RELATIONS IN THE WAR.-An Historical Parallel of Secession.-Two Remarks on the "Neutrality" of Europe.-The Yankee Blockade and the Treaty of Paris.-The Confederate Privateers.-Temper of the South.-Fruits of the Blockade.

THE close of the summer found the long-harassed soil of Virginia cleared of the footsteps of the invader. The glorious victory of Manassas was followed by other propitious events in this State of lesser importance, but which went to complete the general result of her freedom from the thraldom of the Yankee.

In the early part of September the campaign of Gen. Loring in the valley of the Kanawha was consummated by a vigorous attack on the enemy at Fayette Court-house, and the occupation of Charlestown by our troops. On the 10th of that month we advanced upon the enemy's front at Fayette Court-house, while a portion of our forces made a detour over the mountain so as to attack him in the rear. The fighting continued from noon until night, our artillery attacking desperately in front; and the enemy took advantage of the darkness to effect his escape, not, however, without leaving his trains in our hands. The Yankees made a stand at Cotton Hill, seven miles further on. A few hours' fighting dislodged them, and we pursued on to Kanawha Falls, where they again made a stand; but a few hours' contest made us again masters of the field, with more than a million dollars' worth of stores and some prisoners.

The advance of our troops to Charlestown was the signal to the enemy for an inhuman attempt to burn the town, the women being driven from their homes on fifteen minutes' notice. As our troops approached the town, dense clouds of black smoke were seen to hang over it, mingled with the lurid glare of burning buildings, while the shrieks of frightened women and children filled the air. The sight stung to madness our troops. Two regiments of Kanawha valley men, beholding in plain view the homes of their childhood blazing, and catching the cries of distress of their mothers, wives, and sisters, rushed, furious and headlong, to the rescue. Happily they were not too late to arrest the conflagration, and a few public buildings and some private residences were all that fell under the enemy's torch.

The campaign of the Kanawha was accomplished by us with a loss of not more than a hundred men. The results were apparently of great importance, as we had secured the great salines of Virginia,* driven the enemy from the valley of the Kanawha, and put our forces in position to threaten his towns on the bank of the Ohio. But unhappily we shall have occasion hereafter to see that these results were ephemeral, and that this unfortunate part of Virginia was destined to other experiences of the rigor of the enemy.

For the present the progress of events takes us from the old battle-fields of the South and introduces us to a novel theatre of the war-that theatre being located for the first time on the soil and within the recognized dominions of the enemy.

On the fourth day of September, Gen. Lee, leaving to his right Arlington Heights, to which had retreated the shattered army of Pope, crossed the Potomac into Maryland.

The immediate designs of this movement of the Confederate

* But few persons, even in the South, have adequate ideas of the resources and facilities for the production of salt in the Kanawha valley, and of the value of that small strip of Confederate territory. In Kanawha county alone forty furnaces were in operation; some operated by gas and some by coal. Salt by the million of bushels had been sold here from year to year at twelve cents and twenty cents per bushel, filling the markets of the West and South. Ships for Liverpool had formerly taken out salt as ballast; and yet, at one time in the war, owing to the practical cutting off of the saline supplies in Virginia, this article, formerly of such cheap bulk, had been sold in Richmond at a dollar and a half a pound.

commander were to seize Harper's Ferry and to test the spirit of the Marylanders; but in order to be unmolested in his plans, he threatened Pennsylvania from Hagerstown, throwing Gov. Curtin almost into hysterics, and animating Baltimore with the hope that he would emancipate her from the iron tyranny of Gen. Wool.

After the advance of our army to Frederick, the Northern journals were filled with anxious reports of a movement of our troops in the direction of Pennsylvania. While the people of the North were agitated by these reports, the important movement undertaken for the present by Gen. Lee was in the direction of Virginia. It appears that for this purpose our forces in Maryland were divided into three corps, commanded by Generals Jackson, Longstreet, and Hill. The forces under Jackson having recrossed the Potomac at Williamsport and taken possession of Martinsburg, had then passed rapidly behind Harper's Ferry, that a capture might be effected of the garrison and stores known to be there. In the mean time, the corps of Longstreet and Hill were put in position to cover the operations of Jackson, and to hold back McClellan's forces, which were advancing to the relief of Harper's Ferry.

Gen. McClellan had resumed the chief command of the Federal armies on the second day of September. On the fourteenth of that month, he fought his first battle in Maryland, called the battle of Boonesboro', or of South Mountain.

THE BATTLE OF BOONESBORO'.

When Jackson had diverged to the left from the line of march pursued by the main body of the Confederates, recrossing the Potomac and moving rapidly upon Harper's Ferry, Gen. Longstreet had meanwhile continued his march to Hagerstown, and there awaited the result. To frustrate this design, and relieve Gen. Miles and the ten or twelve thousand men who occupied Harper's Ferry, the enemy moved their entire force upon the Gap in the mountains, to which we have alluded, and there sought to break through the barrier we were so jealously guarding, divide our lines, and defeat our armies in detail. Foreseeing this intention on the part of the Federals, Gen. Lee had posted the division of Gen. D. H. Hill in