For the moment the North was stunned by the blow. Deceived by Pope's
loud dispatches claiming victory for the first two days it was
impossible to realize that his shattered and broken army was cowering
and bleeding under the shadow of the Federal Capitol.

Even on the night of August thirtieth, with his men lying exhausted at
Centreville where they had dropped at ten o'clock when Lee's army had
mercifully halted, poor Pope continued to send his marvelous messages to
the War Department.

He reported to Halleck:

"The enemy is badly whipped, and we shall do well enough. Do not be
uneasy. We will hold our own here. We have delayed the enemy as long as
possible without losing the army. We have damaged him heavily, and I
think the army entitled to the gratitude of the country."

To this childish twaddle Halleck replied:

"My dear General, you have done nobly!"

Abraham Lincoln, however, realized the truth quickly. He removed Pope
and in spite of the threat of his Cabinet to resign called McClellan to
reorganize the dispirited army.

The North was in no mood to listen to the bombastic defense of General
Pope. They were stunned by the sudden sweep of the Confederate army from
the gates of Richmond on June first, to the defenses at Washington
within sixty days with the loss of twenty thousand men under McClellan
and twenty thousand more under Pope.

The armies of the Union had now been driven back to the point from which
they had started on July 16, 1861. It had been necessary to withdraw
Burnside's army from eastern North Carolina and the forces of the Union
from western Virginia. The war had been transferred to the suburbs of
Washington and the Northern people who had confidently expected
McClellan to be in Richmond in June were now trembling for the safety of
Pennsylvania and Maryland, to say nothing of the possibility of
Confederate occupation of the Capital.

An aggressive movement of all the forces of the South under Lee in the
East and Bragg and Johnston in the West was ordered.

In spite of the fact that Lee's army could not be properly shod--the
supply of army shoes being inadequate and the lack of shoe factories a
defect the Confederacy had yet been unable to remedy, the Southern
Commander threw his army of barefooted veterans across the Potomac and
boldly invaded Maryland on September the fifth.

The appearance of Stonewall Jackson on his entrance into Frederick City,
Maryland, was described by a Norther