's.

The Southern Commander had but forty thousand men with which to meet
McClellan's ninety thousand, but at sunrise on September seventeenth,
his batteries opened fire and the bloodiest struggle of the Civil War
began. Through the long hours of this eventful day the lines of blue and
gray charged and counter-charged across the scarlet field. When darkness
fell neither side had yielded. The dead lay in ghastly heaps and the
long pitiful wail of the wounded rose to Heaven.

Lee had lost two thousand killed and six thousand wounded. McClellan had
lost more than twelve thousand. His army was so terribly shattered by
the bloody work, he did not renew the struggle on the following day. Lee
waited until night for his assault and learning that reenforcements were
on the way to join McClellan's command withdrew across the Potomac.

It was a day later before Lee's movements were sufficiently clear for
McClellan to claim a victory.

On September nineteenth, he telegraphed Washington:

"I do not know if the enemy is falling back or recrossing the river. We
may safely claim the victory as ours."

Abraham Lincoln hastened to take advantage of McClellan's claim to issue
his Emancipation Proclamation. And yet so utter had been the failure of
his general to cope with Lee and Jackson, the President of the United
States relieved McClellan of his command.

While Lee's invasion had failed of the larger purpose, its moral effect
on the North had been tremendous. He carried back into Virginia fourteen
thousand prisoners, eighty pieces of artillery and invaluable equipment
for his army.

In the meantime the Western army under Bragg had invaded Kentucky,
sweeping to the gates of Cincinnati and Louisville and retiring with
more than five thousand prisoners, five thousand small arms and ten
pieces of artillery.

The gain in territory by the invasion of Maryland and Kentucky had been
nothing but the moral effect of these movements had been far reaching.
The daring valor of the small Confederate armies fighting against
overwhelming odds had stirred the imagination of the world. In the west
they had carried their triumphant battle flag from Chattanooga to
Cincinnati, and although forced to retire, had shown the world that the
conquest at the southwestern territory was a gigantic task which was yet
to be seriously undertaken.

The London _Times_, commenting on these campaigns, declared:

"Whatever may be the fate of the new nationality