in fine condition.
McClellan commanded a total moving force of more than eighty thousand;
Lee, a total moving force of forty thousand. The Confederate army was
divided. Each of the separate portions was within twenty miles of the
Union columns; and before half-past six on the evening of September 13,
McClellan had full knowledge of the enemy's plans.

General Palfrey, an intelligent critic friendly to McClellan, distinctly
admits that the Union army, properly commanded, could have absolutely
annihilated the Confederate forces. But the result proved quite
different. Even such advantages in McClellan's hands failed to rouse him
to vigorous and decisive action. As usual, hesitation and tardiness
characterized the orders and movements of the Union forces, and during
the four days succeeding, Lee had captured Harper's Ferry with eleven
thousand prisoners and seventy-three pieces of artillery, reunited his
army, and fought the defensive battle of Antietam on September 17, with
almost every Confederate soldier engaged, while one third of McClellan's
army was not engaged at all and the remainder went into action piecemeal
and successively, under such orders that cooeperative movement and mutual
support were practically impossible. Substantially, it was a drawn
battle, with appalling slaughter on both sides.

Even after such a loss of opportunity, there still remained a precious
balance of advantage in McClellan's hands. Because of its smaller total
numbers, the Confederate army was disproportionately weakened by the
losses in battle. The Potomac River was almost immediately behind it,
and had McClellan renewed his attack on the morning of the eighteenth,
as several of his best officers advised, a decisive victory was yet
within his grasp. But with his usual hesitation, notwithstanding the
arrival of two divisions of reinforcements, he waited all day to make up
his mind. He indeed gave orders to renew the attack at daylight on the
nineteenth, but before that time the enemy had retreated across the
Potomac, and McClellan telegraphed, apparently with great satisfaction,
that Maryland was free and Pennsylvania safe.

The President watched the progress of this campaign with an eagerness
born of the lively hope that it might end the war. He sent several
telegrams to the startled Pennsylvania authorities to assure them that
Philadelphia and Harrisburg were in no danger. He ordered a
reinforcement of twenty-one thousand to join McCl