federates could not advance from the field they had held at such
bitter cost. And when night stopped the aimless carnage, each army, too
crippled to renew the fight, withdrew toward its base. McClellan could
not pursue; and the Confederates fell back doggedly, sullenly, and
recrossed into Virginia.

As usual in the North, a wild howl went up against McClellan. In
response to this _brutum fulmen_, he was promptly removed by Halleck,
for not conquering an army that had proved itself invincible!

Bitter indeed was the hour that brought to Richmond the story of
Sharpsburg. Flushed with hope, undoubting of triumph, her citizens only
listened for the wild cheer that would echo back from conquered
Washington. But the sound that reached their ears was the menacing roar
from retreating ranks that left near one-third their number stark and
ghastly on that grim field, where the Death Angel has so darkly flapped
his wings.

Thus ended the first Maryland campaign.

It had given the people their wish; it had carried the gray jackets
over the border and stricken the enemy sorely on his own soil. But it
had left that soil drenched with the blood of some of the bravest and
best; the noble Branch and chivalric Starke had both fallen where their
men lay thickest--torn and ghastly on that terrible field.

The details of that field which the Richmond people gathered from the
northern papers, deepened their gloom. And through it rose a hoarse
whisper, swelling at last into angry query, why had the campaign
miscarried? If the army was inadequate in numbers, why had General Lee
carried it over that river he had never crossed before, when his own
army was better and the enemy less prepared? And if, as stated, the men
were ill-provided in munitions and transportation--as they were known
to be with clothes and rations--why had Government forced its only
bulwark well-nigh to annihilation?

It mattered little, the people said, that the results had been far more
disastrous to the North than to the South--both in prestige and loss.
The North could far better afford it. What was the killing of a few
thousand raw troops, or the destruction of a few thousand stand of
arms, compared to the precious cost of holding the field at Sharpsburg?

And gradually these complaints, as in all such cases, answered
themselves; and then the vials of southern wrath began to empty over
the unfortunate Marylanders, who had not risen to aid their brothers in
their