times, if we take in consideration the
number of troops engaged, its duration, and its casualties. After
three days of incessant marching and fighting over mountain heights,
rugged gorges, wading rivers--all on the shortest of rations, many
of the men were content to fall upon the bare ground and snatch a few
moments of rest without the time and trouble of a supper.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI

Sharpsburg or Antietam--Return to Virginia.

When Lee crossed the Potomac the Department at Washington, as well
as the whole North, was thrown into consternation, and the wildest
excitement prevailed, especially in Maryland and Pennsylvania. "Where
was Lee?" "Where was he going?" were some of the questions that
flitted over the wires to McClellan from Washington, Philadelphia,
and Baltimore. But the personage about whose movements and whereabouts
seemed to excite more anxiety and superstitious dread than any or
all of Lee's Lieutenants was Jackson. The North regarded him as some
mythical monster, acting in reality the parts assigned to fiction. But
after it was learned that Lee had turned the head of his columns to
the westward, their fears were somewhat allayed. Governor Curtis, of
Pennsylvania, almost took spasms at the thought of the dreaded rebels
invading his domain, and called upon the militia "to turn out and
resist the invader." In less than three weeks after the battle of
Manassas, the North, or more correctly, New York, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, had out 250,000 State troops behind
the Susquehanna River.

The great horde of negro cooks and servants that usually followed the
army were allowed to roam at will over the surrounding country, just
the same as down in Virginia. The negroes foraged for their masters
wherever they went, and in times of short rations they were quite
an adjunct to the Commissary Department, gathering chickens, butter,
flour, etc. Even now, when so near the Free States, with nothing
to prevent them from making their escape, the negroes showed no
disposition to take advantage of their situation and conditions, their
owners giving themselves no concern whatever for their safety. On more
occasions than one their masters told them to go whenever they wished,
that they would exercise no authority over them whatever, but I do not
believe a single negro left of his own accord. Some few were lost,
of course, but they were lost like many of the sol