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186

INVASION OF MARYLAND.

[1862.

received with closed doors, drawn blinds, and the silence of a graveyard. In Frederick all the places of business were shut. The Marylanders did not flock to his recruiting-offices to the extent of more than two or three hundred, while on the other hand he lost many times that number from straggling, as he says in his report. Several reasons have been assigned for the failure of the people to respond to his appeal, in each of which there is probably some truth. One was, that it had always been easy enough for Marylanders to go to the Confederate armies, and those of them that wished to enlist there had done so already. Another — and probably the principal one-was, that Maryland was largely true to the Union, especially in the western counties; and she furnished many excellent soldiers to its armies - almost fifty thousand. Another was, that the appearance of the Southern veterans was not calculated either to entice the men or to arouse the enthusiasm of the The Confederate General Jones says, women. "Never had the army been so dirty, ragged, and ill-provided for, as on this march." General Lee complained especially of their want of shoes. is difficult to understand why an army that claimed to have captured such immense supplies late in August should have been so destitute early in September.

It

On the 2d of September the President went to General McClellan's house in Washington, asked him to take command again of the Army of the Potomac, in which Pope's army had now been

1862.] THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC IN PURSUIT.

187

merged, and verbally authorized him to do so at once. The first thing that McClellan wanted was the withdrawal of Miles's force, eleven thousand men, from Harper's Ferry-where, he said, it was useless and helpless-and its addition to his own force. All authorities agree that in this he was obviously and unquestionably right; but the marplot hand of Halleck intervened, and Miles was ordered to hold the place. Halleck's principal reason appeared to be a reluctance to abandon a place where so much expense had been laid out. Miles, a worthy subordinate for such a chief, interpreted Halleck's orders with absolute literalness, and remained in the town, instead of holding it by placing his force on the heights that command it.

As soon as it was known that Lee was in Maryland, McClellan set his army in motion northward, to cover Washington and Baltimore and find an opportunity for a decisive battle. He arrived. with his advance in Frederick on the 12th, and met with a reception in striking contrast to that accorded to the army that had left the town two days before. Nearly every house displayed the National flag, the streets were thronged with people, all the business places were open, and everybody welcomed the Boys in Blue.

But this flattering reception was not the best fortune that befell the Union army in Frederick. On his arrival in the town, General McClellan came into possession of a copy of General Lee's order, dated three days before, in which the whole campaign was laid out. By this order,

188

LEE'S PLANS.

[1862

Jackson was directed to march through Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac, capture the force at Martinsburg, and assist in the capture of that at Harper's Ferry; Longstreet was directed to halt at Boonsboro with the trains; McLaws was to march to Harper's Ferry, take possession of the heights commanding commanding it, and capture the force there as speedily as possible; Walker was to invest that place from the other side and assist McLaws; D. H. Hill's division was to form the rear guard. All the forces were to be united again at Boonsboro or Hagerstown. General Lee had taken it for granted that Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry would be evacuated at his approach (as they should have been); and when he found they were not, he had so far changed or suspended the plan with which he set out as to send back a large part of his army to capture those places and not leave a hostile force in his rear.

On the approach of Jackson's corps, General White evacuated Martinsburg and with his garrison of two thousand men joined Miles at Harper's Ferry. That town, in the fork of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, can be bombarded with the greatest ease from the heights on the opposite sides of those streams. Miles, instead of taking possession of the heights with all his men, sent a feeble detachment to those on the north side of the Potomac, and stupidly remained in the trap with the rest. McLaws sent a heavy force to climb the mountain at a point three or four miles north, whence it marched along the crest through the

1862.]

CAPTURE OF HARPER'S FERRY.

189

woods, and attacked three or four regiments that Miles had posted there. This force was soon driven away, while Jackson was approaching the town from the other side, and a bombardment the next day compelled a surrender when Jackson was about to attack. General Miles was mortally wounded by one of the last shots. About eleven thousand men were included in the capitulation, with seventy-three guns and a considerable amount of camp-equipage. A

body of two thousand cavalry, commanded by Colonel Davis, had been with Miles, but had escaped the night before, crossed the Potomac, and by morning reached Green

MILES 5

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castle, Pa. On the way they captured Longstreet's ammunition train of fifty wagons. Jackson, leaving the arrangements for the surrender to A. P. Hill, hurried with the greater part of his force to rejoin Lee, and reached Sharpsburg on the morning of the 16th.

The range known as the South Mountain, which is a continuation of the Blue Ridge north of the Potomac, is about a thousand feet high. The two principal gaps are Turner's and Crampton's, each

190

BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN.

[1862.

about four hundred feet high, with the hills towering six hundred feet above it.

When McClellan learned the plans of the Confederate commander, he set his army in motion to thwart them. He ordered Franklin's corps to pass through Crampton's Gap and press on to relieve Harper's Ferry; the corps of Reno and Hooker, under command of Burnside, he moved to Turner's Gap. The movement was quick for McClellan, but not quite quick enough for the emergency. He might have passed through the Gaps on the 13th with little or no opposition, and would then have had his whole army between Lee's divided forces, and could hardly have failed to defeat them disastrously and perhaps conclusively. But he did not arrive at the passes till the morning of the 14th; and by that time Lee had learned of his movement and recalled Hill and Longstreet, from Boonsboro and beyond, to defend Turner's Gap, while he ordered McLaws to look out for Crampton's.

Turner's Gap was flanked by two old roads that crossed the mountain a mile north and south of it; and using these, and scrambling up from rock to rock, the National troops worked their way slowly to the crests, opposed at every step by the Confederate riflemen behind the trees and ledges. Reno assaulted the southern crest, and Hooker the northern, while Gibbon's brigade gradually pushed along up the turnpike into the Gap itself. Reno was opposed by the Confederate brigade of Garland, and both these commanders were killed. There was stubborn and bloody fighting all day,

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