“Make it only ten days. McClellan will need me by that time.”
But it seemed to Dick that McClellan would need him and every other man at once. Lee was marching. Passing by the capital he had advanced into Maryland, a Southern state, but one that had never seceded. The Southerners expected to find many reinforcements here among their kindred. The regiments in gray, flushed with victory, advanced singing:
“The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland, my Maryland!”
Dick knew that the South expected much of Maryland. Her people were Southerners. Their valor in the Revolution was unsurpassed. People still talked of the Maryland line and its great deeds. Many of the Marylanders had already come to Lee and Jackson, and now that the Southern army, led by its famous leaders and crowned with victories, was on their soil, it was expected that they would pour forward in thousands, relieved from the fear of Northern armies.
Alarm, deep and intense, spread all through the North. McClellan, as usual, doubled Lee's numbers but he organized with all speed to meet him. Dick heard that Lee was already at Frederick, giving his troops a few days' repose before meeting any enemy who might come. The utmost confidence reigned in the South.
McClellan marched, but he advanced slowly. The old mystery and uncertainty about the Southern army returned. It suddenly disappeared from Frederick, and McClellan became extremely cautious. He had nearly a hundred thousand men, veterans now, but he believed that Lee had two hundred thousand.
Colonel Winchester again complained bitterly to Dick, who was a comrade as well as an aide.
“What we need,” he said, “is a general who doesn't see double, and we haven't got him yet. We must spend less time counting the rebels and more hammering them.”
“A civilian in Washington told me that,” said Dick. “I believed then that he was right, and I believe it yet. If General Grant were here he'd attack instead of waiting to be attacked.”
But the Army of the Potomac continued to march forward in a slow and hesitating fashion. Dick, despite his impatience, appreciated the position of General McClellan. No one in the Union army or in the North knew the plans of Lee and Jackson. Lee had not even consulted the President of the Confederacy but had merely notified him that he was going into Maryland.