eleven thousand men, thirteen thousand
small-arms, and seventy-three cannon. It was probably this large
number of men and amount of military stores falling into the hands of
the Confederates which afterward induced the opinion that Lee's sole
design in invading Maryland had been the reduction of Harper's Ferry.

General McClellan had thus failed, in spite of every effort which he
had made, to relieve Harper's Ferry,[1] and no other course remained
now but to follow Lee and bring him to battle. The Federal army
accordingly moved on the track of its adversary, and, on the afternoon
of the same day (September 15th), found itself in sight of Lee's
forces drawn up on the western side of Antietam Creek, near the
village of Sharpsburg.

[Footnote 1: All along the march he had fired signal-guns to inform
the officer in command at Harper's Ferry of his approach.]

At last the great opponents were in face of each other, and a battle,
it was obvious, could not long be delayed.

IV.

THE PRELUDE TO SHARPSBURG.

General Lee had once more sustained a serious check from the skill and
soldiership of the officer who had conducted the successful retreat of
the Federal army from the Chickahominy to James River.

The defeat and dispersion of the army of General Pope on the last day
of August seemed to have opened Pennsylvania to the Confederates. On
the 15th of September, a fortnight afterward, General McClellan, at
the head of a new army, raised in large measure by the magic of his
name, had pursued the victorious Confederate, checked his further
advance, and, forcing him to abandon his designs of invasion, brought
him to bay a hundred miles from the capital. This was generalship,
it would seem, in the true acceptation of the term, and McClellan,
harassed and hampered by the authorities, who looked but coldly upon
him, could say, with Coriolanus, "Alone I did it."

Lee was thus compelled to give up his movement in the direction of
Pennsylvania, and concentrate his army to receive the assault of
General McClellan. Jackson, marching with his customary promptness,
joined him with a portion of the detached force on the next day
(September 16th), and almost immediately those thunders which prelude
the great struggles of history began.

General Lee had drawn up his army on the high ground west of the
Antietam, a narrow and winding stream which flows, through fields
dotted with homesteads and clumps of fruit and forest trees,