adversary.  This is the main feature to be noticed in Lee’s handling of his troops at Sharpsburg.  An unwary or inactive commander would have there suffered decisive defeat, for the Confederate left wing numbered, throughout the early part of the battle, scarcely more than four thousand men, while the column directed against it amounted first to eighteen thousand, and in all to forty thousand men.  To meet the impact of this heavy mass, not only desperate fighting, but rapid and skilful manoeuvring, was necessary.  The record we have presented will enable the reader to form his own opinion whether Lee was equal to this emergency involving the fate of his army.

Military critics, examining this great battle with fair and candid eyes, will not fail, we think, to discern the truth.  That the Southern army, of less than forty thousand men, repulsed more than eighty thousand in the battle of Sharpsburg, was due to the hard fighting of the smaller force, and the skill with which its commander manoeuvred it.

VII.

LEE AND HIS MEN.

General Lee and his army passed the brilliant days of autumn in the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah.  This region is famous for its salubrity and the beauty of its scenery.  The mountain winds are pure and invigorating, and the forests, which in the season of autumn assume all the colors of the rainbow, inspire the mind with the most agreeable sensations.  The region, in fact, is known as the “Garden of Virginia,” and the benign influence of their surroundings was soon seen on the faces of the troops.

A Northern writer, who saw them at Sharpsburg, describes them as “ragged, hungry, and in all ways miserable;” but their forlorn condition, as to clothing and supplies of every description, made no perceptible difference in their demeanor now.  In their camps along the banks of the picturesque little stream called the Opequan, which, rising south of Winchester, wanders through beautiful fields and forests to empty into the Potomac, the troops laughed, jested, sang rude camp-ballads, and exhibited a joyous indifference to their privations and hardships, which said much for their courage and endurance.  Those who carefully considered the appearance and demeanor of the men at that time, saw that much could be effected with such tough material, and had another opportunity to witness, under circumstances calculated to test it, the careless indifference, to the past as well as the future, peculiar alike to soldiers and children.  These men, who had passed through a campaign of hard marches and nearly incessant battles, seemed to have forgotten all their troubles and sufferings.  The immense strain upon their energies had left them apparently as fresh and efficient as when the campaign begun.  There was no want of rebound; rather an excessive elasticity and readiness to undertake new movements.  They had plainly acquired confidence in themselves, rightly regarding the event of the battle of Sharpsburg, where they were so largely outnumbered, as highly honorable to them, and they had acquired still greater confidence in the officers who commanded them.