h
the passes of South Mountain, to face Lee, who was stretched from
Chambersburg to Harper's Ferry. Having unaccountably permitted his
cavalry to separate from him, and deprived himself of adequate means of
information, Lee was to some extent taken unawares. His thin lines at
Antietam, slowly fed with men jaded by heavy marching, were sorely
pressed. There was a moment, as Hooker's advance was stayed by the wound
of its leader, when McClellan, with _storge_ of battle, might have led
on his reserves and swept the field. Hard would it have been for the
Confederates, with the river in rear; but this seemed beyond McClellan
or outside of his nature. Antietam was a drawn battle, and Lee recrossed
into Virginia at his leisure.

While it may be confidently believed that McClellan would have continued
to improve by experience in the field, it is doubtful if he possessed
that divine spark which impels a commander, at the accepted moment, to
throw every man on the enemy and grasp complete victory. But his
Government gave him no further opportunity. He disappeared from the war,
to be succeeded by mediocrity, too well recognized to disturb the
susceptibility of a War Secretary who, like Louvois, was able, but
jealous of merit and lustful of power.

* * * * *

Although in the last months of the war, after he had assumed command of
the armies of the Confederacy, I had some correspondence with General
Lee, I never met him again, and indeed was widely separated from him,
and it now behooves me to set forth an opinion of his place in Southern
history. Of all the men I have seen, he was best entitled to the epithet
of distinguished; and so marked was his appearance in this particular,
that he would not have passed unnoticed through the streets of any
capital. Reserved almost to coldness, his calm dignity repelled
familiarity: not that he seemed without sympathies, but that he had so
conquered his own weaknesses as to prevent the confession of others
before him. At the outbreak of the war his reputation was exclusively
that of an engineer, in which branch of the military service of the
United States he had, with a short exception, passed his career. He was
early sent to Western Virginia on a forlorn hope against Rosecrans,
where he had no success; for success was impossible. Yet his lofty
character was respected of all and compelled public confidence. Indeed,
his character seemed perfect, his bath in Styg