CHAP. XVII.

BATTLE AT ANTIETAM CREEK.

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The best of McClellan's generals expecting a heavy engagement in the morning, awaited these movements with great anxiety. In this feeling the army of Lee concurred. At dawn on the morning of the 17th (September, 1862), Hooker opened the battle by assailing the Confederate left with about eighteen thousand men. The enemy were led by Jackson. Hooker had

Doubleday on his right, Meade on his left, and Ricketts in the centre, With varying fortunes the contest raged on that wing of the army and along the centre until late in the afternoon. The National chief, with a lofty faith that all would be well, did not leave his room at Pry's (his headquarters) that morning until eight o'clock, when the hills had been echoing the cannon-thunder for hours. Then he went out and viewed the progress of the battle from the opposite side of the Antietam, where he held Porter's

corps, with artillery, and Pleasonton's cavalry in reserve until toward evening, when he sent some troops to assist the fighters.

Meanwhile General Burnside, with the left wing of the Nationals, had been holding in check, and fighting the Confederate right under Longstreet, since eight o'clock in the morning, with varying success; and he was on the point of gaining a victory there, when the Confederates were reinforced by General A. P. Hill's division, which had hurried up from Harper's Ferry to the support of Lee. Darkness ended the struggle, which had lasted from twelve to fourteen hours. Both armies were severely smitten. The Nationals lost twelve thousand four hundred and seventy men, and McClellan estimated the Confederate loss to have been much greater. The advantage was decidedly with the Nationals that night. Lee's army, shattered and disorganized, and his supplies nearly exhausted, was without reinforcements near; while McClellan's was joined the next morning by fourteen thousand fresh troops. A vigorous movement on his part, that morning, might have put the whole Confederate force into McClellan's hands as prisoners of war; but with chronic hesitation and indecision, he refused to allow his army to pursue the retreating foe until thirty-six hours after the battle. His reasons for his dilatoriness were given in an apologetic tone, in his report, as follows: "Virginia was lost, Washington was menaced, Maryland invaded-the National cause could afford no risks of defeat.”

When, on the morning of the 19th of September, McClellan advanced, Lee had fled, under cover of the night, and was with his shattered army behind strong batteries on the Virginia side of the Potomac. A feeble pursuit was attempted and abandoned. Two brigades crossed the river, and were surprised and driven back into Maryland, when Lee, counting upon McClellan's habitual slowness, moved leisurely up the Shenandoah Valley. McClellan took possession of abandoned Harper's Ferry, and called for reinforcements and supplies to enable him to pursue the fugitives; and ten days afterward, when the news was hourly expected that the Army of the Potomac were in swift pursuit of Lee's shattered columns, the commander of the National army proclaimed that he intended to hold his troops where they were, and "attack the enemy should he attempt to cross into Maryland." The President, astounded by this declaration, hastened to McClellan's headquarters, in person, to ascertain the true state of the case. He was so well satisfied that the army was capable of a successful pursuit at once, that he ordered McClellan (October 6, 1862) to cross the Potomac immediately for that purpose. Twenty precious days were afterward spent in correspondence between the disobedient general and his patient superiors, before the former obeyed, during which time Lee's army was thoroughly

CHAP. XVII.

MILITARY OPERATIONS AT FREDERICKSBURG.

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recruited in every way, and his communications with Richmond were well established.

The beautiful month of October passed away. The roads in Virginia were never in a finer condition; and the loyal people were becoming exceedingly impatient, when, on the 2d of November, McClellan announced that his great army was once more on the soil of Virginia, prepared to move southward on the east side of the Blue Ridge instead of up the Shenandoah Valley, as he had been ordered to do. The patience of the Government and its friends was now exhausted. They had lost faith in McClellan's ability or disposition to achieve a decisive victory over the Confederates, and on the 5th of November he was superseded in the command of the Army of the Potomac by General Ambrose E. Burnside, of Rhode Island. So ended General McClellan's unsuccessful military career. He then entered the field of politics in opposition to the administration, and was equally unsuccessful there.

The Army of the Potomac was now about one hundred and twenty thousand in number. It was reorganized by Burnside; and he took measures for the early seizure of the Confederate capital rather than for the capture or destruction of the Confederate army. He made Acquia Creek, on the Potomac, his base of supplies; and he hastened to place his army at or near Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock, from which he might march on Richmond. Lee, in the meantime, had gathered about eighty thousand men on the Heights in the rear of Fredericksburg, with three hundred cannon, and had destroyed all the bridges that spanned the Rappahannock in that vicinity.

It was the second week in December when the opposing great armies in Virginia were lying in parallel lines within cannon-shot of each other, with a narrow river between them. Sixty thousand National troops, under Generals Sumner and Hooker, lay in front of Fredericksburg, with one hundred and fifty cannon on Stafford Heights under the chief direction of General Hunt; and the corps of Franklin, about forty thousand strong, was encamped about two miles below. The troops could cross the river only on pontcons or floating bridges; and on the 11th of December, early in the morning, the engineers went quietly at work to construct five of them. These men were assailed and driven away by sharp-shooters concealed in buildings on the opposite shore. The batteries on Stafford Heights then opened a heavy fire on the town to drive out the enemy, and the city was set on fire, in many places, by the shells; but the sharp-shooters remained. Then a party of volunteers went across the river in open boats, in the face of flying bullets from Mississippi rifles, to dislodge the sharp-shooters. A

drummer-boy from Michigan, named Hendershot, begged leave to go along, but was refused permission. Then he asked and obtained permission to push off one of the boats, when he allowed himself to be dragged into the water. Clinging to the vessel, he was conveyed to the opposite shore. Several men in the boat were killed; and when the boy was climbing the

bank, his drum was torn in pieces by a flying fragment of an exploded shell. Then he seized the musket of a slain companion, and fought gallantly until the sharpshooters were driven away or captured. The bridges were finished, and by the evening of the 12th a greater portion of the National army occupied Fredericksburg.

On the morning of the 13th the National army made a simultaneous assault all along the National line, where a most sanguinary battle occurred, which ended with a repulse of Burnside's forces with a loss of almost fourteen thousand men. In this struggle, Generals Franklin, Couch, Hooker, Sumner, Meade, Doubleday, Howard, Humphrey, Wilcox, Hancock, French, Sturgis, Getty, Meagher and others were conspicuous. In the fight, the Confederates lost about half as many as the number lost by the Nationals. Burnside, anxious to gain a victory, was disposed to renew the battle the next day, but was dissuaded by some of his best officers, and his troops remained on the city side of the river until the night of the 15th unmolested by the Confederates. Then, under cover of darkness, they crossed the stream with all their cannon, taking up the pontoons behind them.

This failure produced some dissatisfaction, and Burnside was soon after. ward superseded in the command of the Army of the Potomac by General