they were in the grip of Northern sea-power. Nor could they fail
to notice the vast difference between the warlike resources of
the North and South. Northern armies had been marching through for
many months, well fed, well armed, and superabundantly supplied.
The Confederates, on the other hand, were fewer in numbers, half
starved, in ragged clothing, less well armed, and far less abundantly
supplied in every way. A Northerner who fell sick could generally
count on the best of medical care, not to mention a profusion of
medical comforts. But the blockade kept medicines and surgical
instruments out of the Southern ports; and the South could make
few of her own. So, to be very sick or badly wounded meant almost
a sentence of death in the South. Eighteen months of war had
disillusioned Maryland. The expected reinforcements never came.

Lee had again divided his army in the hope of snatching victory by
means of better strategy. On the thirteenth of September Jackson
was bombarding the Federals at Harper's Ferry, Longstreet was at
Hagerstown, and Stuart was holding the gaps of South Mountain.

The same day McClellan, whose whole army was at Frederick, received
a copy of Lee's orders. They had been wrapped round three cigars
and lost by a careless Confederate staff officer. Had McClellan
forced the gaps immediately, maneuvered with reasonable skill, and
struck home with every available man, he might have annihilated
Lee. But he let the thirteenth pass quietly; and when he did take the
passes on the fourteenth it cost him a good deal, as the Confederate
infantry had reinforced Stuart. On the fifteenth Jackson took Harper's
Ferry. On the sixteenth he joined Lee at Antietam. And on the
seventeenth, when the remaining availables had also joined Lee,
McClellan made up his mind to attack. "Ask me for anything but
time," said the real Napoleon. The "Young Napoleon" did not even
need the asking.

Antietam (so called from the Antietam Creek) or Sharpsburg (so
called from the Confederate headquarters there) was one of the
biggest battles of the Civil War; and it might possibly have been
the most momentous. But, as things turned out, it was in itself an
indecisive action, spoilt for the Federals, first, by McClellan's
hesitating strategy, and then by his failure to press the attack home
at all costs, with every available man, in an unbroken succession
of assaults. He had over 80,000 men with 275 guns against barely
40,000 with 194