a mob of
fugitives. No; except on peculiarly favourable ground, or when
defending an intrenched camp, an army matched with one of equal
efficiency and numerically superior, can never hope for decisive
success. So circumstanced, a wise general will rather retreat than
fight, and thus save his men for a more favourable opportunity.* (*
Before Salamanca, for instance, because Marmont, whose strength was
equal to his own, was about to be reinforced by 4000 cavalry,
Wellington had determined to retreat. It is true, however, that when
weaker than Massena, whom he had already worsted, by 8000 infantry
and 3800 sabres, but somewhat stronger in artillery, he stood to
receive attack at Fuentes d'Onor. Yet Napier declares that it was a
very audacious resolution. The knowledge and experience of the great
historian told him that to pit 32,000 Infantry against 40,000 was to
trust too much to fortune.)

But Lee and Jackson had not to deal with ordinary conditions.
Whatever may have been the case in the Peninsula and in the Valley,
there can be no question but that the armies in Maryland were by no
means equal in quality. The Federals were far more accustomed to
retreat than advance. For several months, whether they were engaged
on the Shenandoah, on the Chickahominy, on the Rappahannock, or on
Bull Run, they had been invariably outmanoeuvered. Their losses had
been exceedingly severe, not only in battle, but from sickness and
straggling. Many of their bravest officers and men had fallen. With
the exception of the Second and Sixth Army Corps, commanded by Sumner
and by Franklin, by far the greater part of the troops had been
involved in Pope's defeat, and they had not that trust in their
leaders which promises a strong offensive. While at Washington the
army had been reinforced by twenty-four regiments of infantry, but
the majority of these troops had been but lately raised; they knew
little of drill; they were commanded by officers as ignorant as
themselves, and they had never fired a musket. Nor were the generals
equal in capacity to those opposing them. "If a student of history,"
says a Northern officer, "familiar with the characters who figured in
the War of Secession, but happening to be ignorant of the battle of
Antietam, should be told the names of the men who held high commands
there, he would say that with anything like equality of forces the
Confederates must have won, for their leaders were men who made great
names in the