If Lee had at any time the design of recrossing into Maryland, he abandoned it.  General McClellan attributed that design to him.  “I have since been confirmed in the belief,” he wrote, “that if I had crossed the Potomac below Harper’s Ferry in the early part of October, General Lee would have recrossed into Maryland.”  Of Lee’s ability to thus reenter Maryland there can be no doubt.  His army was rested, provisioned, and in high spirits; the “stragglers” had rejoined their commands, and it is certain that the order for a new advance would have been hailed by the mercurial troops with enthusiasm.  No such order was, however, issued, and soon the approach of winter rendered the movement impossible.

More than a month thus passed, the two armies remaining in face of each other.  No engagement of any importance occurred during this period of inactivity, but once or twice the Federal commander sent heavy reconnoitring forces across the Potomac; and Stuart, now mounting to the zenith of his reputation as a cavalry-officer, repeated his famous “ride around McClellan,” on the Chickahominy.

The object of General Lee in directing this movement of the cavalry was the ordinary one, on such occasions, of obtaining information and inflicting injury upon the enemy.  Stuart responded with ardor to the order.  He had conceived a warm affection for General Lee, mingled with a respect for his military genius nearly unbounded, and at this time, as always afterward, received the orders of his commander for active operations with enthusiasm.  With about eighteen hundred troopers and four pieces of horse-artillery, Stuart crossed the Potomac above Williamsport, marched rapidly to Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, where he destroyed the machine-shops, and other buildings containing a large number of arms and military stores; and continued his way thence toward Frederick City, with the bold design of completely passing around the Federal army, and recrossing the river east of the Blue Ridge.  In this he succeeded, thanks to his skill and audacity, in spite of every effort of the enemy to cut off and destroy him.  Reaching White’s Ford, on the Potomac, north of Leesburg, he disposed his horse-artillery so as to cover this movement, cut his way through the Federal cavalry disputing his passage, and recrossed into Virginia with a large number of captured horses, and without losing a man.

This expedition excited astonishment, and a prominent officer of the Federal army declared that he would not have believed that “horse-flesh could stand it,” as the distance passed over in about forty-eight hours, during which considerable delay had occurred at Chambersburg, was nearly or quite one hundred miles.  General McClellan complained that his orders had not been obeyed, and said that after these orders he “did not think it possible for Stuart to recross,” and believed “the destruction or capture of his entire force perfectly certain.”