destinies with those of her sister States, that all her
sympathies were with the people of the South, and that her young men
were anxious and only awaiting the opportunity to join the ranks as
soldiers under Lee. But these ideas and promises were all delusions,
for the people we saw along the route remained passive spectators and
disinterested witnesses to the great evolutions now taking place. What
the people felt on the "eastern shore" is not known; but the acts of
those between the Potomac and Pennsylvania above Washington indicated
but little sympathy with the Southern cause; and what enlistments were
made lacked the proportions needed to swell Lee's army to its desired
limits. Lee promised protection and he gave it. The soldiers to a man
seemed to feel the importance of obeying the orders to respect and
protect the person and property of those with whom we came in contact.
It was said of this, as well as other campaigns in the North, that "it
was conducted with kid gloves on."

While lying at Frederick City, Lee conceived the bold and perilous
project of again dividing his army in the face of his enemy, and that
enemy McClellan. Swinging back with a part of his army, he captured
the stronghold of Harper's Ferry, with its 11,000 defenders, while
with the other he held McClellan at bay in front. The undertaking was
dangerous in the extreme, and with a leader less bold and Lieutenants
less prompt and skillful, its final consummation would have been more
than problematical. But Lee was the one to propose his subalterns to
act. Harper's Ferry, on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where that
river is intersected by the Shenandoah, both cutting their way through
the cliffs and crags of the Blue Ridge, was the seat of the United
States Arsenal, and had immense stores of arms and ammunition, as well
as army supplies of every description. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
and the canal cross the mountains here on the Maryland side, both
hugging the precipitous side of the mountain and at the very edge of
the water. The approaches to the place were few, and they so defended
that capture seemed impossible, unless the heights surrounding could
be obtained, and this appeared impossible from a military point of
view. On the south side are the Loudon and Bolivar Heights. On the
other side the mountains divide into two distinct ranges and gradually
bear away from each other until they reach a distance of three miles
from crest to cr