e given:

"I have always believed," said General Sumner afterward, before the
war committee, "that, instead of sending these troops into that action
in driblets, had General McClellan authorized me to march _there forty
thousand men_ on the left flank of the enemy," etc.

"Hooker formed his corps of _eighteen thousand_ men," etc., says Mr.
Swinton, the able and candid Northern historian of the war.

Jackson's force is shown by the Confederate official reports. His
corps consisted of Ewell's division and "Jackson's old division."
General Jones, commanding the latter, reported: "The division at the
beginning of the fight numbered not over one thousand six hundred
men." Early, commanding Ewell's division,[1] reported the three
brigades to number:

Lawton's 1,150

Hayes's 550

Walker's 700

2,400

"Old Division," as above 1,600

Jackson's corps 4,000

[Footnote 1: After General Lawton was disabled.]

This was the entire force carried by General Jackson into the fight,
and these four thousand men, as the reader will perceive, bore the
brunt of the first great assault of General McClellan.

Just as the light broadened in the east above the crest of mountains
rising in rear of the Federal lines. General Hooker made his assault.
His aim was plainly to drive the force in his front across the
Hagerstown road and back on the Potomac, and in this he seemed
about to succeed. Jackson had placed in front Ewell's division of
twenty-four hundred men. This force received General Hooker's charge,
and a furious struggle followed, in which the division was nearly
destroyed. A glance at the casualties will show this. They were
remarkable. General Lawton, division commander, was wounded and
carried from the field; Colonel Douglas, brigade commander, was
killed; Colonel Walker, also commanding brigade, was disabled;
Lawton's brigade lost five hundred and fifty-four killed and wounded
out of eleven hundred and fifty, and five out of six regimental
commanders. Hayes's brigade lost three hundred and twenty-three out of
five hundred and fifty, and all the regimental commanders. Walker's
brigade lost two hundred and twenty-eight out of less than seven
hundred, and three out of four regimental commanders; and, of the
staff-officers of the division, scarcely one remained.

In an hour after dawn, this heavy slaughter had be