y fought
the bloody fight of Antietam. There we captured cannon, small arms, and
standards, and lost none. Many have forgotten that ever since spring the
rebels have boasted that the war was to be carried within our territory;
that they had begun this programme; and that General Lee in entering
Maryland had issued a boasting proclamation, promising to redeem it from
a hated tyranny. If he had succeeded, and defeated McClellan, as he had
beaten Pope between Manassas and Washington, we had no reinforcements or
forts to prevent his march to Philadelphia. McClellan's presence stirred
the common soldier as Napoleon's did, and it was this unbounded
enthusiasm which he excited, that saved the nation when he took command
at Washington. I know of nothing that made me more indignant than the
folly of some ladies who, among his soldiers on the Potomac, decried and
denounced him as an imbecile. What treachery can be worse than the
attempt to destroy the confidence of the soldiers in their leader, when
their lives depend upon his judgment and skill, and there can be only
dejection and despair when that judgment and skill are doubted.

Upon our return from the battle field to Pleasant Valley, we heard that
orders to McClellan to advance had come from Washington. The only
answers to inquiries when the advance would take place, were ominous
shakings of the head or shrugs of the shoulders, which were indicative
of anything but belief in a speedy movement. We also heard of the
appointment of General Burnside to the command of three army corps, the
precursor of a greater command yet to come. We have in our new
commander-in-chief a general who has an implicit belief that our cause
is just, and a trust in Providence that he will make the just cause
victorious. In General McClellan we had also a general who believed in
Providence, and who has always shown great reverence in his writings.
General McClellan is reticent. You can, however, tell somewhat of the
opinion of the head of the house from his children; and judging from the
tone of belief among the General's military family, from that long delay
after Antietam, it was pretty evident that in his opinion the South
cannot be subdued, and that the question between us was a matter of
boundary. With General Burnside we have no such belief. His faults, if
they are faults, are those of the bold general, not of the Fabian order.
At Newbern he brought at once into the fight every soldier he had, no