IV.

ANTIETAM.

I.

PRELUDE TO ANTIETAM.

AT Chantilly, Lee sat alone in his tent, revolving in his mind the events of that astonishing campaign which had witnessed the defeat of two Union armies whose broken fragments lay on the Potomac like the stranded wreck of a noble fleet. While thus the Confederate commander meditated, there dawned upon him the conception of a stroke more bold than all the deeds yet done a stroke which seemed to make past performance tame by the plenitude of its promise. That for which he had assumed the offensive was already attainedthe armies of McClellan and Pope had been hurled back to the point whence they set out in the campaign of the spring and summer, the siege of Richmond was raised, the war was transferred from the banks of the James and Rapidan to the borders of the Potomac. Why should he not now pass the borders, raise the standard of revolt on Northern soil, overwhelm the demoralized remnants of his adversary and dictate a peace in the capital of the Union? The thought, assuming shape in his mind determined itself in a resolve, and hastily penning a despatch, Lee, from Chantilly on the night of the 2d September, 1862, announced to the Chief of the Confederacy in Richmond his purpose to move on the morrow into Maryland.