CHAP. XVII. STRUGGLES OF AN UNSUPPORTED ARMY. 1595 repeated with urgency; but it was twenty days after it was first given before the transfer was accomplished. In the meantime there had been stirring events in the direction of the capital. Alarmed at the force which Lee had concentrated on his front, Pope retired behind the forks of the Rappahannock. Lee pushed forward to that river with heavy columns, and on the 20th and 21st of August, a severe artillery duel was fought above Fredericksburg, for seven or eight miles along that stream. Finding that they could not force a passage of the river, the Confederates took a circuitous route toward the mountains to flank the Nationals, when Pope made skillful movements to thwart them. But danger to the National Capital increased every hour. Troops were coming with tardy pace from the Peninsula; and on the 25th, when those of Franklin, Heintzelman and Porter had arrived, Pope's army, somewhat scattered, numbered about sixty thousand men. On that day, Jackson, leading the great flanking force, crossed the Rappahannock. By a swift march he went over the Bull's Run Mountain at Thoroughfare Gap, and at daylight the next morning he was at Manassas Junction on the railway between the Army of Virginia and the National Capital. Pope took meas ures for the capture of Jackson or to prevent his uniting with Longstreet, then coming to support him; but the latter event soon occurred at Groveton, not far from the Bull's Run battle-ground. There, on the 29th of August (1862), the combined Confederates fought the whole of Pope's army excepting Banks's troops. The struggle was severe but indecisive. The loss in the battle at Groveton was about seven thousand men on each side. Not doubting that he would be instantly reinforced by McClellan, who was at Alexandria, Pope prepared to renew the conflict the next morning. He confidently expected rations and forage from Alexandria, for McClellan had been ordered to supply them; but on the morning of the 30th, when it was too late to retreat and perilous to stand still, Pope received an astounding note from General Franklin, written by direction of McClellan, that "rations and forage would be loaded into the available wagons and cars" as soon as he (Pope) should send a cavalry escort for the train! It was impossible. Assured that he would not receive support from McClellan, Pope was compelled to fight under great disadvantages. Deceived by what appeared to be a retreat of Lee's army, he was drawn into an ambuscade on a part of the former battle-ground of Bull's Run, not far from Groveton, and there a most sanguinary conflict ensued. The Nationals were defeated and flying across Bull's Run to Centreville, they were there reinforced by the troops of Franklin and Sumner. Pope had labored hard under many difficulties; and he complained bitte ly of a lack of co-operation with him, in his later struggles, by McClellan and some of his subordinates. After the most strenuous efforts of the President and General Halleck to have the Army of the Potomac join the Army of Virginia in confronting Lee, Pope was joined by only about twenty thousand of the ninety-one thousand who were at Harrison's Landing. McClellan seemed more ready to give advice than to obey orders. "I am not responsible for the past, and cannot be for the future," he wrote to Halleck, "unless I receive authority to dispose of the available troops according to my judgment." And after, by delays, he had thwarted the efforts of the government to get Franklin's corps in a position to give Pope much-needed aid on the 29th, and Halleck had urged him to act promptly in finding out where the enemy was, for he was "tired of guesses," McClellan telegraphed to the President, saying: “I am clear that one of two courses should be adopted. First, to concentrate all our available forces to open communication with Pope; second, to leave Pope to get out of his scrape, and at once use all our means to make the Capital safe." Lee was afraid to attack the Nationals at Centreville, so he sent Jackson on another flank movement which brought on a battle at Chantilly, north of Fairfax Court-House. It was fought in a cold and drenching rain. For awhile the conflict was very severe, and in it Generals Philip Kearney and Isaac A. Stephens perished. The losses on each side were large. The Nationals, under General Birney, held the field that night, and the next day the broken and demoralized army was sheltered behind the fortifications around Washington city. Pope now repeated, with great earnestness, a request to leave the Army of Virginia and return to the West. His desire was gratified. Then the Army of Virginia disappeared as a separate organization and became a part of the Army of the Potomac, and McClellan was placed in command of all the troops defending the Capital. The disasters which had befallen the armies of the Potomac and of Virginia caused a momentary gloom to fall upon the spirits of the loyal people, but it was soon dispelled. At the request of the governors of many States, the President, on the first of July (1862), called for three hundred thousand volunteers to serve during the war; and in August he called for three hundred thousand more, for three months, with the understanding that an equal number would be drafted from the citizens who were between eighteen and forty-five years of age, if they did not appear among the volunteers. These calls were cheerfully responded to; and the Confederate government, alarmed, ordered General Lee to make a desperate effort to capture Washington city before the new army should be brought into the field. Lee was immediately CHAP. XVII. THE CONFEDERATE ARMY IN MARYLAND. 1597 reinforced. Perceiving the folly of making a direct attack upon the wellfortified National Capital, he crossed the Potomac above that city (near the Point of Rocks) into Maryland to assail Baltimore, and if successful, to fall upon Washington in the rear. He made the passage with almost his entire army, and on the 7th of September was encamped at Frederick, on the Monocacy. There, on the 8th, he issued a stirring appeal, in the form of a proclamation, to the people of Maryland, and raised the standard of revolt. He did not doubt that thousands would resort to it; on the contrary, he lost more men by desertion than he gained by recruiting there. When General McClellan heard of Lee's invasion of Maryland, he left General Banks, with some troops, to defend Washington, and crossing the Potomac above the National Capital, with about ninety thousand men, he advanced cautiously toward Frederick, which Lee evacuated at their approach. There McClellan discovered Lee's plan for seizing Washington. It was to take possession of Harper's Ferry and open communication with Richmond by way of the Shenandoah Valley, and then marching toward Pennsylvania, entice McClellan far in that direction. At a proper moment Lee was to turn suddenly, smite and defeat his antagonist, and then march upon Washington. It is related that when the head of Lee's army led by "Stonewall Jackson" entered Frederick, Barbara Frietchie, a very old woman, in defiance of an order for hauling down every Union flag, kept one flying from the dormer window of her house near the bridge over the Monocacy Creek, in the town. Seeing it, Jackson ordered his riflemen to shoot away the staff. When it fell the patriotic Barbara snatched it up, and leaning, says Whittier, "Far out on the window sill, She shook it forth with a royal will; Over the head of the rebel host." The Nationals followed the Confederates from Frederick, in two columns, over the South Mountain into the beautiful valley of the Antietam Creek. The right and centre of the Nationals moved by the way of Turner's Gap, Burnside leading the advance; and the left, composed of Franklin's corps, by way of Crampton's Gap, on the same range, nearer Harper's Ferry. At Turner's Gap, Burnside fought a desperate battle on the 14th of September; and at the same time Franklin was trying to force his way at Crampton's Gap, to get between General Lee and Harper's Ferry, where Colonel Miles, a Marylander, was in command of National troops. The strife at Turner's Gap ceased at dark, with a loss to the Nationals of about fifteen hundred men, of whom a little more than three hundred were killed. Among the latter was the gallant General Reno. The Nationals intended to renew the battle in the morning; but the Confederates withdrew under cover of the night, and Lee concentrated his forces on Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg. Franklin, in the meantime, had fought his way over the Mountain into Pleasant Valley; and on the evening of the 14th (September) was within six miles of Harper's Ferry, which was then invested by a strong force under "Stonewall Jackson." The Confederates held the advantageous positions of Maryland and Loudon Heights on each side of the Potomac, which commanded the post at Harper's Ferry, and the latter could be preserved from capture only by help from outside. This Franklin was about to give; but before he could do so, Miles surrendered the post to Jackson, after sending away his cavalry. This unfortunate and unnecessary movement, deprived the Nationals of a vast advantage which they might have gained by the apparently easy possession of Harper's Ferry, at that time. Miles's conduct was such, that his loyalty to the Republic was justly suspected. On the 16th of September, the Confederate army was well posted on the heights near Sharpsburg, on the western side of the Antietam Creek. The Confederates had been followed from South Mountain cautiously, for McClellan professed to believe them to be in overwhelming numbers on his front. But Lee's army then numbered only sixty thousand, while McClellan's effective force was eighty-seven thousand. The latter hesitated to attack; and when he was put upon the defensive by a sharp artillery assault by Confederate cannon, the crisis had passed before he was ready to respond. Then the brave and energetic Hooker was permitted to cross the Antietam with a part of his corps, commanded by Generals Ricketts, Meade, and Doubleday. This passage was made on the extreme right of the Confederates, where he had a sharp and successful combat with the foe led by General Hood. Hooker's men lay upon their arms that night. Other National troops passed over under cover of the darkness. These were the divisions of Williams and Greene, of Mansfield's corps, who bivouacked a mile in Hooker's rear. |