Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/361



ESTING at Chantilly, with every reason to be well content with what he had accomplished during the three months that he had personally commanded the army of Northern Virginia, and anxious to keep the Federal invaders from the soil of Virginia, Lee, on the 3d of September, suggested to President Davis that now was "the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate army to enter Maryland;" but he would not conceal the condition of that army after the fierce contests it had just passed through, so he continued:

Without waiting to hear from President Davis, after having been joined by the divisions of D. H. Hill and McLaws, Hampton's cavalry and several batteries, which he had ordered forward from Richmond, Lee issued orders September 2d, for his army to march to the vicinity of Leesburg, but by way of Dranesville, as if threatening Washington, in order to bring his men into the more inviting Piedmont country of the county of Loudoun, abounding in grain and cattle, and to place it where he could easily cross the Potomac, if his Maryland campaign were not forbidden by the Confederate government. In writing to President Davis again, on the 4th, he expressed no fears as to the fighting ability of his army, but was only uneasy about his "supplies of ammunition and subsistence."