CHAPTER XI

Sharpsburg or Antietam—­Return to Virginia.

When Lee crossed the Potomac the Department at Washington, as well as the whole North, was thrown into consternation, and the wildest excitement prevailed, especially in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  “Where was Lee?” “Where was he going?” were some of the questions that flitted over the wires to McClellan from Washington, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.  But the personage about whose movements and whereabouts seemed to excite more anxiety and superstitious dread than any or all of Lee’s Lieutenants was Jackson.  The North regarded him as some mythical monster, acting in reality the parts assigned to fiction.  But after it was learned that Lee had turned the head of his columns to the westward, their fears were somewhat allayed.  Governor Curtis, of Pennsylvania, almost took spasms at the thought of the dreaded rebels invading his domain, and called upon the militia “to turn out and resist the invader.”  In less than three weeks after the battle of Manassas, the North, or more correctly, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, had out 250,000 State troops behind the Susquehanna River.

The great horde of negro cooks and servants that usually followed the army were allowed to roam at will over the surrounding country, just the same as down in Virginia.  The negroes foraged for their masters wherever they went, and in times of short rations they were quite an adjunct to the Commissary Department, gathering chickens, butter, flour, etc.  Even now, when so near the Free States, with nothing to prevent them from making their escape, the negroes showed no disposition to take advantage of their situation and conditions, their owners giving themselves no concern whatever for their safety.  On more occasions than one their masters told them to go whenever they wished, that they would exercise no authority over them whatever, but I do not believe a single negro left of his own accord.  Some few were lost, of course, but they were lost like many of the soldiers—­captured by foraging parties or left broken down along the roadside.  It is a fact, though, that during the whole war the negroes were as much afraid of the “Yankee” as the white soldier, and dreaded capture more.

It might be supposed that we fared sumptuously, being in an enemy’s country at fruit and harvest time, with great waving fields of corn, trees bending under loads of choice ripe fruits, but such was far from being the case.  Not an apple, peach, or plum was allowed to be taken without payment, or at the owner’s consent.  Fields, orchards, and farmhouses were strictly guarded against depredations.  The citizens as a whole looked at us askance, rather passive than demonstrative.  The young did not flock to our standards as was expected, and the old men looked on more in wonder than in pleasure, and opened their granaries with willingness, but not with cheerfulness.