he men to keep quiet. In a
short time they drove McClellan back after a hard fight lasting a whole
week, and then made a sudden march to the north. Here was another Union
army, on the old battle-field of Bull Run. A dreadful battle followed;
men fell by thousands; in the end the Union army was defeated and forced
back towards Washington.

General Lee knew that he could not take Washington, so he marched away
north, waded his men across the Potomac River, and entered the state of
Maryland. This was a slave state, and he hoped many of the people would
join his army. But the farmers of Maryland loved the Union too well for
that, so General Lee got very few of them in his ranks.

Then he went west, followed by General McClellan, and at a place called
Antietam the two armies met; and there was fought the bloodiest battle
of the war. They kept at it all day long and neither side seemed beaten.
But that night General Lee and his men waded back across the Potomac
into Virginia, leaving McClellan master of the field. There was one more
terrible battle in Virginia that year, in which General Burnside, who
after McClellan commanded the Union army, tried to take the city of
Fredericksburg, but was defeated and his men driven back with a dreadful
loss of life.

Both armies now rested until the spring of 1863, and then another
desperate battle was fought. General Hooker had taken General Burnside's
place, and thought he also must fight a battle, but he did not dare to
try Fredericksburg as Burnside had done, so he marched up the river and
crossed it into a rough and wild country known as the Wilderness.

General Lee hurried there to meet him and the two armies came together
at a place called Chancellorsville. They fought in the wild woods, where
the trees in some places were so thick that the men could not see one
another. But Stonewall Jackson marched to the left through the woods
and made a sudden attack on the right wing of the Union army.

This part of the army was taken by surprise and driven back. Hooker's
men fought all that day and the next, but they could not recover from
their surprise and loss, and in the end they had to cross the river back
again. General Lee had won another great victory. But Stonewall Jackson
was wounded and soon died, and Lee would rather have lost the battle
than to lose this famous general.

Do you not think the North had a right to feel very much out of heart by
this time? The war had gone on