render. white flag had been raised on the de- | at the head of his men, among the fenses. At 8 A. M., a capitulation first to enter our lines after the surwas agreed to, under which 11,583 men were passed over to the enemy -about half of them New Yorkers; the residue mainly from Ohio and Maryland. Nearly all were raw levies; some of them militia, called out for three months. Among the spoils were 73 guns, ranging from excellent to worthless; 13,000 small arms, 200 wagons, and a large quantity of tents and camp-equipage. Of horses, provisions, and munitions, the captures were of small account. Jackson, whose appreciation of the value of time was unsurpassed, did not wait to receive the surrender; but, leaving that duty to Hill, hurried off the mass of his followers to rejoin Gen. Lee; and, by marching day and night, reached the Antietam next morning." It is impossible to resist the conclusion that Miles, in this affair, acted the part of a traitor. He had been ordered, one month before his surrender, to fortify Maryland Heights; which he totally neglected to do. He refused or neglected to send the axes and spades required by Col. Ford, giving no reason therefor. He paroled, on the 13th, 16 Rebel prisoners, authorizing them to pass out of our lines into those of the enemy; thus giving the Rebel commanders the fullest knowledge of all wherewith ours should have wished to keep them ignorant. Another Rebel, an officer named Rouse, who had been captured and had escaped, being retaken, was allowed a private interview by Miles, and thereupon paroled to go without our lines. He, still under parole, appeared in arms 21 Sept. 16. As to Gen. McClellan, his most glaring fault in the premises would seem to have been his designation" of Col. Miles, after his shameful behavior at Bull Run, to the command of a post so important as Harper's Ferry. It is easy now to reproach him with the slowness of his advance from Washington to Frederick; but it must be borne in mind that his force consisted of the remains of two beaten armies-his own and Pope's not so much strengthened as swelled by raw troops, hastily levied for an emergency; while opposed to him was an army of veterans, inferior indeed in numbers, but boasting of a succession of victories from first Bull Run onward, and proudly regarding itself as invincible. Perplexed as to Lee's intentions, and hampered by the necessity of covering at once Washington and Baltimore, McClellan moved slowly, indeed; but only a great military genius, or a rash, headstrong fool, would have ventured to do otherwise. After he learned at Frederick that Lee had divided his army, in his eagerness to clutch the tempting prize, McClellan blundered sadly in not hurling his army at once on McLaws, and thus cutting his way swiftly to the Ferry; yet, with all his mistakes, he moved vigorously enough to have seasonably relieved Miles, had that officer evinced loyalty and decent fitness for his position, or had Ford defended Maryland Heights with vigor and tenacity. Halleck's insisting that Harper's Ferry should be held, after he knew 22 March 29. MCCLELLAN ADVANCES TO THE ANTIETAM. Gen. McClellan, at 3 A. M. of the 15th, was aware-for he telegraphed to Halleck—that he had been fighting the forces of D. H. Hill and Longstreet; that they had disappeared from his front; and that Franklin had likewise been completely successful at Crampton's Gap, on his left. He says in this dispatch: "The enemy disappeared during the night; our troops are now advancing in pursuit." At 8 A. M., he telegraphed again—still from Bolivar, at the foot of Turner's Gap: 203 that the Rebel army had crossed into | Potomac. Precious hours had been Maryland, is one of those puzzles so lost by massing on his right instead frequently exhibited in the strategy of his left, and fighting for Turner's of that Generalissimo, which must Gap, when he should only by a feint find their solution in some higher, have kept as many Rebels there as subtler, and more leisurely existence. possible, while he poured the great body of his army, in overwhelming strength and with the utmost celerity, through Crampton's Gap, crushing McLaws and relieving Harper's Ferry. But there was still time, if not to retrieve the error, at least to amend it. Our soldiers, flushed with unwonted victory, and full in the faith that they had just wrested two strong mountain-passes from the entire Rebel army, were ready for any effort, any peril. To press forward with the utmost rapidity, and so relieve Harper's Ferry, if that might still be, but at all events to crush that portion of the Rebel army still north of the Potomac, if it should stand at bay, and rout and shatter it should it attempt to ford the river at the very worst, to interpose between it and the other half, under Jackson and Walker, should it attempt to escape westward by Hagerstown and Williamsport, and thus be in position to assail and overwhelm either half before it could unite with the other, was the course which seems to have been as obvious to McClellan as it must be to every one else. "I have just learned from Gen. Hooker, in the advance-who states that the information is perfectly reliable-that the enemy is making for the river in a perfect panic; and Gen. Lee last night stated publicly that he must admit they had been shockingly whipped. I am hurrying every thing forward to endeavor to press their retreat to the utmost." Had even the last sentence of this dispatch been literally true, Lee's destruction was imminent and certain. It was now too late to save Harper's Ferry--for it had this moment fallen-but not too late to superbly avenge it. With Lee's order in his hand, McClellan must have known that the forces from which he and Franklin had just wrested the passes of the South Mountain were all that Lee had to depend upon, save those which he had detached and senters and 2 guns. Richardson's divimainly by long circuits-to reduce Harper's Ferry, and which must now be mainly on the other side of the 23 The advance was again led by Gen. Pleasanton's cavalry, who overtook at Boonsborough the Rebel cavalry rear-guard, charged it with spirit, and routed it, capturing 250 prison sion, of Sumner's corps, followed; pressing eagerly on that afternoon;" and, after a march of 10 or 12 miles, Sept. 15. ; descried the Rebels posted in force | arrived at Shepherdstown early on the morning of the 16th; crossing and reporting to Lee at Sharpsburg by noon.' across ANTIETAM CREEK, in front of the little village of SHARPSBURG. Richardson halted and deployed on the right of the road from Keedysville to Sharpsburg; Sykes, with his division of regulars, following closely after, came up and deployed on the left of that road. Gen. McClellan himself, with three corps in all, came up during the evening. Lee had of course chosen a strong position; but delay could only serve to strengthen it, while giving opportunity for the arrival of Jackson, Walker, and McLaws, from Harper's Ferry; which McClellan now knew had fallen that morning: Franklin having apprised him of the hour when the sound of guns from that quarter ceased. Had McClellan then resolved to attack at daylight next morning," he might before noon have hurled 60,000 gallant troops against not more than half their number of Rebels; for, though Jackson arrived with his overmarched men that morning, he left A. P. Hill behind at the Ferry, while McLaws, still confronting Franklin in Pleasant Valley, was obliged to cross the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, and recross it at Shepherdstown, in order to come up at all; and did not arrive until the morning of the 17th. Walker, clearing Loudon Heights and crossing the Shenandoah on the 15th, had followed Jackson during the night, and 24 Sept. 16. 25 McClellan, in his report, says: "It had been hoped to engage the enemy during the 15th;" but, "after a rapid examination of the position, I found that it was too late to attack that day, and at once directed the placing of the batteries in position in the center, and indicated the bivouacs for the different corps, massing them near and on both sides of the Sharpsburg turnpike. The corps were not Lee, aware that every hour's delay was an inestimable advantage to him, made as great a display of force as possible throughout the 15th and 16th, though he thereby exposed his infantry-it seemed wantonly-to the fire of our artillery. But, on the morning of the 17th, when our columns advanced to the attack, and the battle began in earnest, his whole army, save A. P. Hill's division, being on hand, the regiments and brigades hitherto so ostentatiously paraded seemed to have sunk into the earth; and nothing but grim and frowning batteries were seen covering each hill-crest and trained on every stretch of open ground whereby our soldiers might attempt to scale those rugged steeps. The struggle was inaugurated on the afternoon of the 16th, by our old familiar maneuver: Hooker, on our right, being directed to flank and beat the enemy's left, backed by Sumner, Franklin, and Mansfield, who were to come into action successively, somewhat nearer the enemy's center. It would have been a serious objection, ten hours before, to this strategy, that it tended, even if successful, to concentrate the enemy, by driving him back on his divisions arriving or expected from Har all in their positions until the next morning after sunrise." George W. Smalley, correspondent of The Tribune, writes from the battle-field on the 17th as follows: "After the brilliant victory near Middletown, Gen. McClellan pushed forward his army rapidly, and reached Keedysville with three corps en Monday night. On the day following, the two armies faced each other idly until night." per's Ferry, rather than to interpose shots, followed by volleys of musketry between him and them. Hooker moved at 4 P. M.; and, making a long detour, crossed the Antietam out of sight and range of the Rebel batteries. Turning at length sharply to the left, he came to an open field, with woods in front and on either side, whence our skirmishers were saluted by scattering from the left and front. Here Hooker reconnoitering in the advance, as usual-halted and formed his lines; Ricketts's division on the left; Meade, with the Pennsylvania Reserves, in the center; while Doubleday, on the right, planting his guns on a hill, opened at once on a Rebel battery that had begun to enfilade our cen ter. By this time, it was dark, and the firing soon ceased; the hostile infantry lying down for the night at points within half musket-shot of each other. At daylight next morning," the battle was commenced in earnest: the left of Meade's and the right of Ricketts's line becoming engaged at nearly the same moment, the former with artillery, the latter with infantry; while a battery was pushed forward beyond the woods directly in 'Hooker's front, across a plowed field, to the edge of a corn-field beyond it, destined before night to be soaked with blood. beyond, and was following with eager, exulting cheers. But Hood's division, somewhat refreshed, had by this time returned to the front, backed by the brigades of Ripley, Colquitt, Garland (now under Col. McRae), and D. R. Jones, by whom the equilibrium of the fight was restored; our men being hurled back by terrible volleys from the woods, followed by a charge across the corn-field in heavy force. Hooker called up his nearest brigade; but it was not strong enough, and he sent at once to Doubleday: "Give me your best brigade instantly!" That brigade came down the hill on our right at double-quick, and was led by Hartsuff into the corn-field, and steadily up the slope beyond it, forming on the crest of the ridge, under a hurricane of shot and shell, and firing steadily and rapidly at the Rebel masses just before them. They held their position half an hour, unsupported, though many fell; among them their leader, Hartsuff, wounded severely; until for a second time the enemy was driven out of the cornfield into the woods. Hood's thin division, which had confronted us at evening, had been withdrawn during the night, and replaced by Lawton's and Trimble's brigades of Ewell's division, under Lawton, with Jackson's own division, under D. R. Jones, on its left, supported by the remaining brigades of Ewell. Jackson was in chief command on this wing, and here was substantially his old corps around him. Against these iron soldiers, Hooker's corps hurled itself, and, being superior in numbers, compelled them to give Meantime, both sides were strengthground; but not until Jones and ening this wing. Ricketts's division, Lawton had been wounded, with having attempted to advance and many more field officers, and Starke, failed, had fallen back. Part of who succeeded Jones in command, Mansfield's corps had gone in to their killed. Early, who succeeded Law- aid, and been driven back likewise, ton, was ordered by Jackson to re- with their General mortally woundplace Jackson's own division, which ed. Doubleday's guns were still had suffered so severely and was busy on our extreme right, and had so nearly out of ammunition that silenced a Rebel battery which for it had to be temporarily withdrawn half an hour had enfiladed Hooker's from the combat. By this time, center. Ricketts sent word that he Ricketts and Meade had pushed could not advance, but could hold the Rebel line back across the corn- his ground. Hooker, with Crawfield and the road, into the woods ford's and Gordon's fresh brigades of |