that of Malvern Hill. To their disappointment, General McClellan ordered the retreat continued, and on the 3d of July the remnant of the army was at Harrison's Landing on the banks of the James. Of the Army of the Potomac that had at one time been swelled to 160,000, McClellan reported to President Lincoln that he had only 50,000 men left. The "Peninsular campaign" had been a great Moloch, that had swallowed its prey by thousands upon thousands.

President Lincoln came at once to Harrison's Landing to talk with McClellan. Discouraged, almost heart-broken by these long series of failures, the president ordered the army to come back and guard Washington, for whose safety much alarm had been felt. McClellan returned, slowly and reluctantly, and took command of the Washington defenses. General Halleck was called from Missouri to the seat of government, and was made general-in-chief of the armies. Lee, satisfied with driving the Union army from its position before Richmond, returned to that city to be hailed by the rebels as a conquering hero.

AFTER General Pope's success on the Mississippi, he was called to take command in Virginia. He was given the three armies commauded by Frémont, Banks, and McDowell. As Frémont had been a superior officer, he did not choose to serve under Pope, and was accordingly relieved, and his command given to Sigel, the brave German who had done such good fighting in Missouri. All mustered, Pope's whole army numbered about 40,000 men. This army lay across Virginia from Frederickburg to Harper's Ferry, then west to Winchester, in the pleasant valley of the Shenandoah. It was an outer girdle of defense guarding Washington, where McClellan was again bringing into order the remnant of the Army of the Potomac.

Lee, who had been so long on the defensive in Richmond, now

began to show signs of an attack upon our national capital. He advanced his army towards Pope's lines, to beat upon them and force them back. If he could invade Washington,

drive President Lincoln from the seat of government, that would be a victory worth having.

I am sorry that I cannot write of Pope's successes in his new field. He had done so well in the West that great things were hoped of him, and, unfortunately, he made a good many boasts of what he was going to do. He reminds one a good deal of Gates in Revolutionary times, when, after his success in New York, he came to the Carolinas and talked loudly about" Burgoyning the armies of Cornwallis." But all this summer and fall defeat seemed to cover with a pall the track of our arms in Virginia. The armies of Pope and Lee met in a bloody, deadly battle on Cedar Mountain, sometimes called Slaughter's Mount. The latter name would suit the place best, for the sun set on a scene of slaughter such as I should pray it might never look on again. Both sides claimed the victory, but if victory rested on either side, it was probably with the rebels. This was August 8th. During the next three weeks three more battles were fought at Groveton, Bull Run, and Chantilly. The Bull Run battle raged on the banks of the same stream, across which the Union army had fled in such panic, early in the war. It was an unlucky place to us. The second Bull Run battle was also a defeat, though much less disgraceful than the first. On the 1st of September the Army of Virginia was also recalled to Washington, as broken and dispirited as the Army of the Potomac on its recall from the Peninsula. The two armies were again blended into one, with General McClellan in command. The soldiers, who had always had a great affection for McClellan-"Little Mac," they called him received him again as their commander with great delight. As he rode along their lines they threw up their hats and shouted for joy.

War Balloon.

Very greatly satisfied with his success in the contest with Pope, General Lee turned to invade Maryland. He was not yet quite ready to attack Washington, and he concluded to try what he could do in Maryland in enlisting soldiers for his army. A rebel song, sung all over the South, had this verse: —

"I hear the distant thunder hum,

Maryland!

The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!

She is not dead, or deaf, or dumb;

Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!

She breathes she burns! she 'll come ! she 'll come !

Maryland my Maryland!"

But although Lee's soldiers marched to this music, yet Maryland did not come, and in fact refused very unequivocally to have anything to do with rebellion. Perhaps the appearance of Lee's army would have damped the ardor of the warmest rebel. They were the raggedest set of poor fellows, in butternut-colored homespun cloth, that ever marched behind a leader. Many of them had no shoes or hats, many were coatless, and Stonewall Jackson himself, so famous as a general, looked almost as dirty and ragged as one of his men. The heart aches in viewing these miserable, misguided adherents of a bad cause, laying

down their lives to establish a

government which they had

boasted should have human slavery" for its corner-stone."

When Jackson entered the town of Frederick, some of the Union people, frightened at his coming, had made haste to pull down the stars and stripes. There was one loyal old woman named Barbara Frietchie, however, who was resolved not to disgrace her flag in that way.

When the

Barbara Frietchie

steady tread of the soldiers marched down the street, her flag floated from an attic window. But John G. Whittier, our good old poet, tells the story best. I will give it to you in his words.

"Down the street came the rebel tread,

Stonewall Jackson marching ahead.

"Under his slouched hat, left and right

He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

"Halt! The dust brown ranks stood fast.
Fire! Out blazed the rifle blast.

"It shivered the window, pane and sash,
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

"Quick as it fell from the broken staff,
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

"She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,

But spare your country's flag,' she said."

It is not often that treason gets so wholesome a rebuke as it got that day from the lips of this gray-haired old woman.

Discouraged by his success in recruiting in Maryland, Lee began a new line of march. Not strong enough to attack Washington

Barbara Frietchie's House.

directly, he planned to go up into Pennsylvania and draw McClellan with his army up to the defense of this Northern State. After McClellan's advance had uncovered Washington, and left it defenseless, he would go back and possess the national seat of government.

He therefore divided his army, and sent part of his men under Stonewall Jackson, to take

Harper's Ferry, - first made famous by John Brown's raid, while he went west through Maryland into northern Virginia, and so across the line into Pennsylvania. It was very evident to a clever soldier, that Lee never would have divided his army in this way, in the enemy's own country, if he had any very great fear of his antagonists. But so far, the rebels had had it very much their own way in the Virginia campaign. They had beaten two armies back behind their defenses at Washington, and Lee was getting a little reckless from success. Back he marched over the mountains, in

Western Maryland, down which his army had moved in their march to Frederick. There were two passes, called Turner's Gap and Crampton's Gap, in the range through which he was to march westward; and the 14th day of September found him just marching through these gaps, to the other side of South Mountain. Just beyond was the Potomac, dividing Maryland from Virginia. Once across into Virginia, he would be joined by Jackson, who would probably by that time have taken Harper's Ferry, and be ready to carry his victorious banners into the hated State of Pennsylvania. And then what might not his armies do with all the prestige they had gained? Even Washington might be disdained as too easy a prize. They might march to New York city itself, — reinforced by more soldiers, who could pour up through the Shenandoah Valley, after Harper's Ferry was taken, and join his march. It had been predicted that blood should flow like water in the streets of the great metropolis of our nation, that grass should grow on the unused paving-stones of Broadway, after its commerce had been destroyed by waste of Southern cotton. While from Bunker Hill, hallowed in the eyes of Bostonians, Robert Tombs had boasted he would call the roll of his slaves in the ears of that accursed city of abolitionists. Many hearts in the domains of rebellion beat high with hope that all these things were to be realized, when Lee marched, in that pleasant September weather, over the hills of Maryland.

In the mean time, McClellan made haste from Washington, with his army at his back, when the news came that Lee was at Frederick. On reaching Frederick, he found the town empty of the invaders. But he found there a slip of paper which an impatient rebel general had thrown under his feet in a fit of ill-temper. It was Lee's private order, showing, in clearest black and white, his whole plan of the Pennsylvania invasion.

It had been one of McClellan's faults as a general that he could not make haste to do anything, and this had lost him good opportunities heretofore. But on this occasion he hurried. He followed on Lee's track as fast as any one could reasonably suppose so large an army could follow, and caught up with him just as Lee's troops were ready to cross through the two mountain gaps into the valley beyond. Here McClellan also divided his army, sending General Burnside to Turner's Gap, and General Franklin to Crampton's Gap. These two passes were only a few miles apart, and once passed, the army was but six miles from Harper's Ferry.