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 in the campaign was due to circumstances over which he had no control.  His plan, as was always the case with him, was deep-laid, and every contingency had been provided for.  He was disappointed in his aim by three causes which he could not foresee.  One was the great diminution of his force, owing to the rapidity of his march, and the incessant fighting; another, the failure in obtaining recruits in Maryland; and a third, the discovery by General McClellan of the “lost dispatch,” as it is called, which revealed Lee’s whole plan to his adversary.  In consequence of the “finding” of the order of march, McClellan advanced with such rapidity that the laggards of the Southern army on the hills north of Leesburg had no opportunity of joining the main body.  The gaps in the ranks of the army thus made were not filled up by Maryland recruits; Lee fell back, and his adversary followed, no longer fearful of advancing too quickly; Jackson had no time after reducing Harper’s Ferry to rejoin Lee at Hagerstown; thus concentration of his troops, and a battle somewhere near Sharpsburg, were rendered a necessity with General Lee.