onel W.H.F. Lee, son of the general. A third and
more important attempt to reconnoitre took place toward the end of
October. General McClellan then crossed a considerable body of troops
both at Shepherdstown and Harper's Ferry; the columns advanced to
Kearneysville and Charlestown respectively, and near the former
village a brief engagement took place, without results. General
McClellan, who had come in person as far as Charlestown, then returned
with his troops across the Potomac, and further hostilities for the
moment ceased.

These reconnoissances were the prelude, however, of an important
movement which the Federal authorities had been long urging General
McClellan to make. Although the battle of Sharpsburg had been
indecisive in one acceptation of the term, in another it had been
entirely decisive. A drawn battle of the clearest sort, it yet decided
the future movements of the opposing armies. General Lee had invaded
Maryland with the design of advancing into Pennsylvania--the result of
Sharpsburg was, that he fell back into Virginia. General McClellan
had marched from Washington with no object but an offensive-defensive
campaign to afford the capital protection; he was now enabled to
undertake anew the invasion of Virginia.

To the success of such a movement the Federal commander seems rightly
to have considered a full and complete equipment of his troops
absolutely essential. He was directed at once, after Sharpsburg, to
advance upon Lee. He replied that it was impossible, neither his men
nor his horses had shoes or rations. New orders came--General Halleck
appearing to regard the difficulties urged by General McClellan as
imaginary. New protests followed, and then new protests and new orders
again, until finally a peremptory dispatch came. This dispatch was,
"Cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south,"
an order bearing the impress of the terse good sense and rough
directness of the Federal President. This order it was necessary in
the end to obey, and General McClellan, having decided in favor of
a movement across the Potomac east instead of west of the mountain,
proceeded, in the last days of October, to cross his army. His plan
was excellent, and is here set forth in his own words:

"The plan of campaign I adopted during this advance," he says, "was
to move the army well in hand, parallel to the Blue Ridge, taking
Warrenton as the point of direction for the main army, seizing each
p