oil of
Maryland. As we have intimated on a preceding page, the result of this
attempt to pursue would seem to relieve General McClellan from the
criticism of the Washington authorities. If he was repulsed with heavy
slaughter in his attempt to strike at Lee on the morning of September
20th, it is not probable that an assault on his adversary on September
18th would have had different results.

No further crossing at that time was undertaken by the Federal
commander. His army was moved toward Harper's Ferry, an important base
for further operations, and Lee's army went into camp along the banks
of the Opequan.

VI.

LEE AND McCLELLAN--THEIR MERITS IN THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN.

General Lee and his adversary had displayed conspicuous merit in the
campaign thus terminated, and we shall pause for a moment to glance
back upon this great passage at arms.

To give precedence to General McClellan, he had assembled an army,
after the defeat at Manassas, with a promptness for which only his
own great personal popularity can adequately account, had advanced to
check Lee, and had fully succeeded in doing so; and had thus not only
protected the fertile territory of Pennsylvania from invasion, but had
struck a death-blow for the time to any designs General Lee might have
had to advance on the Federal capital. If the situation of affairs at
that moment be attentively considered, the extreme importance of these
results will not fail to appear. It may perhaps be said with justice,
that General McClellan had saved the Federal cause from decisive
defeat. There was no army to protect Washington but the body of troops
under his command; these were largely raw levies, which defeat would
have broken to pieces, and thus the way would have been open for
Lee's march upon Washington or toward Philadelphia--a movement whose
probable result would have been a treaty of peace and the independence
of the Southern Confederacy. All these hopes were reversed by
McClellan's rapid march and prompt attack. In the hours of a single
autumn day, on the banks of the Antietam, the triumphant advance of
the Confederates was checked and defeated. And, if the further fact be
considered that the adversary thus checkmated was Lee, the military
ability of General McClellan must be conceded. It is the fashion, it
would appear, in some quarters, to deny him this quality. History will
decide.

The merit of Lee was equally conspicuous, and his partial failure