General McClellan does not seem to have been able to renew the struggle at that time.  “The next morning,” he says, referring to the day succeeding the battle, “I found that our loss had been so great, and there was so much disorganization in some of the commands, that I did not consider it proper to renew the attack that day.”

This decision of General McClellan’s subjected him subsequently to very harsh criticism from the Federal authorities, the theory having obtained at Washington that he had had it in his power, by renewing the battle, to cut Lee to pieces.  Of the probability of such a result the reader will form his own judgment.  The ground for such a conclusion seems slight.  The loss and disorganization were, it would seem, even greater on the Federal than on the Confederate side, and Lee would have probably been better able to sustain an attack than General McClellan to make it.  It will be seen that General Meade afterward, under circumstances more favorable still, declined to attack Lee at Williamsport.  If one of the two commanders be greatly censured, the other must be also, and the world will be always apt to conclude that they knew what could be effected better than the civilians.

But General McClellan did make an attempt to “crush Lee,” such as the authorities at Washington desired, and its result may possibly throw light on the point in discussion.

On the night of the 19th, Lee having crossed the Potomac on the night of the 18th, General McClellan sent a considerable force across the river near Shepherdstown, which drove off the Confederate artillery there, and at daylight formed line of battle on the south bank, protected by their cannon north of the river.  Of the brief but bloody engagement which followed—­an incident of the war little dwelt upon in the histories—­General A.P.  Hill, who was sent by Lee to repulse the enemy, gives an animated account.  “The Federal artillery, to the number of seventy pieces,” he says, “lined the opposite heights, and their infantry was strongly posted on the crest of the Virginia hills.  When he advanced with his division, he was met by the most tremendous fire of artillery he ever saw,” but the men continued to move on without wavering, and the attack resulted in the complete rout of the enemy, who were “driven pell-mell into the river,” the current of which was “blue with floating bodies.”  General Hill chronicles this incident in terms of unwonted eloquence, and declares that, by the account of the enemy themselves, they lost “three thousand men killed and drowned from one brigade,” which appears to be an exaggeration.  His own loss was, in killed and wounded, two hundred and sixty-one.

This repulse was decisive, and General McClellan made no further attempt to pursue the adversary, who, standing at bay on the soil of Virginia, was still more formidable than he had been on the soil 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.