born
valor of the Union soldiers at Fair Oaks and in the seven days' battles
ending at Malvern Hills, the Army of the Potomac would probably have been
destroyed. When Malvern Hills was won by the splendid fighting of the
National troops, without any agency of their commander, and when they
were enthusiastic for a forward movement upon Richmond, McClellan
consulted his tactical horoscope, and ordered them to retreat just as if
they had been beaten. The second battle of Bull Run, with General John
Pope in command on the Union side, and Generals Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson
and James Longstreet leading the Confederates, stopped short of being as
disastrous a defeat for the National arms as the first Bull Run, but that
was all.

Lee pushed into Maryland with about 45,000 troops, and encountered
McClellan at Antietam, on September 17, with 85,000. McClellan was
"cautious," as usual, but fighting had to be done, and the rank and file
of the Union forces were, as ever, anxious to fight. Lee was repulsed
after a fearful conflict, in which about 20,000 men were killed and
wounded. General Joseph Hooker, known as "Fighting Joe Hooker," was under
McClellan at Antietam, and behaved most gallantly. Wounded before noon,
Hooker was carried from the field. "Had he not been disabled," wrote a
war correspondent, "he would probably have made it a decisive conflict.
Realizing that it was one of the world's great days, he said: 'I would
gladly have compromised with the enemy by receiving a mortal wound at
night, could I have remained at the head of my troops until the sun went
down.'" McClellan neglected to take advantage of the success achieved at
the cost of so many brave lives, and Mr. George W. Smalley, then of the
_Tribune_, who was on the field, is authority for the statement that
General Hooker was privately requested in behalf of a number of Union
officers, to assume command and follow up the victory. In Hooker's
condition this was impossible, even had he been inclined to take a step
so serious in its possible consequences for himself.

McClellan was superseded in November by General Ambrose E. Burnside, who
had distinguished himself at Antietam, as he always did in a subordinate
command. On December 13, General Burnside suffered a fearful defeat at
Fredericksburg, with a loss of 12,000 men. It was one of Lee's most
brilliant victories, and on the Union side it was a useless sacrifice of
life. "Lee's position," says General Fitzhugh Le