Washington. For General Halleck had not fully recovered his nerve, and
was still much disquieted, especially concerning the capital. Thus the
armies drew slowly near each other, McClellan creeping forward, as he
had been bidden, while Lee, with his usual energy, seemed able to do
with a thousand men more than any Northern general could do with thrice
as many, and ran with exasperating impunity those audacious risks which,
where they cannot be attributed to ignorance on the part of a commander,
indicate contempt for his opponent. This feeling, if he had it, must
have received agreeable corroboration from the clumsy way in which the
Federals just at this time lost Harper's Ferry, with General Miles's
garrison. The Southern troops, who had been detailed against it, rapidly
rejoined General Lee's army; and again the people saw that the South
had outmarched and outgeneraled the North.

With all his troops together, Lee was now ready to fight at the
convenience or the pleasure of McClellan, who seemed chivalrously to
have deferred his attack until his opponent should be prepared for it!
The armies were in presence of each other near where the Antietam
empties into the Potomac, and here, September 17, the bloody conflict
took place.

The battle of Antietam has usually been called a Northern victory. Both
the right and the left wings of the Northern army succeeded in seizing
advanced positions and in holding them at the end of the fight; and Lee
retreated to the southward, though it is true that before doing so he
lingered a day and gave to his enemy a chance, which was not used, to
renew the battle. His position was obviously untenable in the face of an
outnumbering host. But though upon the strength of these facts a victory
could be claimed with logical propriety, yet the President and the
country were, and had a right to be, indignant at the very