Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/122

 116 Southern Historical Society Fapers.

the splendid achievement of a dead comrade, whose battles, like Ney's, were all for his country, and none against it, and who crowned a brilliant career by shedding his life's blood to avert the crowning disaster. A. P. Hill's march was a splendid one. He left Harper's Ferry sixteen hours after McLaws, but reached the battle-field only five hours behind him. McLaws had, however, the night to contend with. The vigor of Hill's attack, with hungry and march worn men, is shown by the fact that he completely overthrew forces twice as numerous as his own. Though his force of from two thousand to three thousand five hundred men was too small to permit of an extended aggressive, his arrival was not less opportune to Lee than was that of Blucher to Wellington at Waterloo, nor was his action when on the field in any way inferior to that of the Prussian field- marshal.

The battle of Sharpsburg was a very bloody one, and a very ex- hausting one to the Confederate army. As General Longstreet says: " Nearly one-fourth of Lee's men were killed and wounded," but they had met and defeated all the attempts of an army more than twice as numerous as themselves to drive them from their position. We think General Longstreet must have forgotten much of the bat- tle when he says that " at the close of the day lo.coo fresh troops could have come in and taken Lee's army and everything he had." A fact or two will show how wide he is of the mark. In the after- noon McClellan visited the right of his lines, where the main battle had taken place. Sumner had refused permission to Franklin, with more than " 10,000 fresh men," to resume the attack. Sumner de- clared that these troops were the only ones available for any effec- tive resistance in case of attack; that Hooker's, Mansfield's, and his own corps had suffered so heavily that they could not be counted on, and that it was not safe to risk in fight the last body of fresh troops that was within reach.

This opinion of one of the bravest of his subordinates, of the man who had had charge for hours of that part of the battle-field, and who had been in tlie midst of the battle himself, was approved by McClellan. About the same time, or somewhat before it, Jackson, under Lee's direction, was trying to organize a force of 4,000 or 5,000 men from his meagre Imes with which to move out and attack the right flank of the Federal army. A little later Longstreet himself was ordering J. G. Walker, near the Dunker church, to resume the offensive. Stuart went out in advance of Jackson to feel the way for his movements. He found the enemy commanding, with a great