Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/517

 Reunion of Virginia Division A. N. V. Association. 507

and at Second Manassas, over Banks, Fremont, Shields, McClellan and Pope. Jackson's men had been marching and fighting from May 23rd to September 1st. The two Hill's and Longstreet's, from June 25th to the same date.

The troops who were left after these campaigns were as hard and tough as troops ever have been, for the process of elimination had dropped out all the inferior materials.

Jackson left the Waterloo bridge on the Rappahannock on the 25th of August, and no rations were issued to his people until they camped about Frederick on the 6th of September — twelve days after- wards. They had marched and fought during that time, subsisting on green corn, or such supplies as the men individually could pick up on the roadside, except some rations captured at Manassas, The rest of the army was no better off; therefore, when Lee undertook the forward movement over the Potomac, numbers of brave men fell out of ranks, barefooted and utterly broken down from want of proper food.

While the army was in Virginia they struggled along as best they could, and a (ew days' halt for rest or battle enabled them to catch up and rejoin their colors. As soon as the Potomac was crossed, they were cut off and prevented from reoccupying their positions in ranks until the army returned to Virginia. Thus it was that the army which followed Lee into Maryland was so reduced that the statements as to its numerical strength have ever since furnished ground for incredulous criticism by Northern writers. It is a fact, however, that when the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac on the 4th and 5th days of September, 1862, not more than 35,000 men were present for duty. There were then in and about Washington 160000, as McClellan's report shows.

The first days of September were laden with anxious forebodings to the leaders of the Union side.

The Army of the Potomac had been driven to shelter behind those intrenchments it had constructed in 1861, to protect the capital from the victorious troops of Johnston and Beauregard. The Army of Virginia, demoralized and disorganized, had sought the protection of the same works.

The armies of Fremont and of Burnside had ceased to exist, and had been absorbed in the rout of the armies of the Potomac and of Virginia. The President of the United States, distracted by grave cares, seems to have been the only one who preserved his faculties