The September day wore on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive save that they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon, information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouring through the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be at McClellan's service. Couch's division was at hand—there were troops assembling on the Pennsylvania border. At dark Lee issued his orders. During the night of the eighteenth the Army of Northern Virginia left the banks of the Antietam, wound silently down to the Potomac, and crossed to the Virginia shore.
All night there fell a cold, fine, chilling rain. Through it the wagon trains crossed, the artillery with a sombre noise, the wounded who must be carried, the long column of infantry, the advance, the main, the rear. The corps of Stonewall Jackson was the last to ford the river. He sat on Little Sorrel, midway of the stream, and watched his troops go onward in the steady, chilling rain. Daybreak found him there, motionless as a figure in bronze, needing not to care for wind or sun or rain.
The Army of Northern Virginia encamped on the road to Martinsburg. Thirty guns on the heights above Boteler's Ford guarded its rear, and Jeb Stuart and his cavalry watched from the northern bank at Williamsport. McClellan pushed out from Sharpsburg a heavy reconnoissance, and on his side of the river planted guns. Fitz John Porter, in command, crossed during the night a considerable body of troops. These advanced against Pendelton's guns, took four of them, and drove the others back on the Martinsburg road. Pendleton reported to General Lee; Lee sent an order to Stonewall Jackson. The courier found him upon the bank of the Potomac, gazing at the northern shore. "Good!" he said. "I have ordered up the Light Division." Seventy guns thundered from across the water. A. P. Hill in his red battle shirt advancing in that iron rain, took, front and flank, the Federal infantry. He drove them down from the bluff, he pushed them into the river; they showed black on the current. Those who got across, under the shelter of the guns, did not try again that passage. McClellan looked toward Virginia, but made no further effort, this September, to invade her. The Army of Northern Virginia waited another day above Boteler's Ford, then withdrew a few miles to the banks of the Opequon.
The Opequon, a clear and pleasing stream, meandered through the lower reaches of the great Valley, through a fertile, lovely country, as yet not greatly scored and blackened by war's torch and harrow. An easy ride to the westward and you arrived in Winchester, beloved of Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson and the 2d Army Corps. As the autumn advanced, the banks of the Opequon, the yet thick forests that stretched toward the Potomac, the great maples, and oaks and gums and hickories that rose, singly or in clusters, from the rolling farm lands, put on a most gorgeous colouring. The air was mellow and sunny. From the camp-fires, far and near, there came always a faint pungent smell of wood smoke. Curls of blue vapour rose from every glade. The land seemed bathed in Indian summer.
Through it in the mellow sunlight, beneath the crimson of the gums, the lighter red of the maples, the yellow of the hickories, the 2d Army Corps found itself for weeks back on the drill ground. The old Army of the Valley crowed and clapped on the back the Light Division and D. H. Hill's troops. "Old times come again! Jest like we used to do at Winchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. Old Jack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be seven hours a day!"
Not only did the 2d Corps drill, it refitted. Mysteriously there came from Winchester a really fair amount of shoes and clothing. Only the fewest were now actually barefoot. In every regiment there went on, too, a careful cobbling. If by any means a shoe could be made to do, it was put in that position. Uniforms were patched and cleaned, and every day was washing day. All the hillsides were spread with soldiers' shirts. The red leaves drifting down on them looked like blood-stains, but the leaves could be brushed away. The men, standing in the Opequon, whistled as they rubbed and wrung. Every day the recovered from hospitals, and the footsore stragglers, and the men detached or furloughed, came home to camp. There came in recruits, too—men who last year were too old, boys who last year were not old enough. "Look here, boys! Thar goes Father Time!—No, it's Rip Van Winkle!"—"No, it's Santa Claus!—Anyhow, he's going to fight!" "Look here, boys! here comes another cradle. Good Lord, he's just a toddler! He don't see a razor in his dreams yet! Quartermaster's out of nursing-bottles!" "Shet up! the way those children fight's a caution!"
October drifted on, smooth as the Opequon. Red and yellow leaves drifted down, wood smoke arose, sound was wrapped as in fine wool, dulled everywhere to sweetness. Whirring insects, rippling water, the wood-chopper's axe, the whistling soldiers, the drum-beat, the bugle-call, all were swept into a smooth current, steady, almost droning, somewhat dream-like. The 2d Corps would have said that it was a long time on the Opequon, but that on the whole it found the place a pleasing land of drowsy-head.
Visitors came to the Opequon; parties from Winchester, officers from the 1st Corps commanded by Longstreet and encamped a few miles to the eastward, officers from the headquarters of the commander-in-chief. General Lee came himself on Traveller, and with Stonewall Jackson rode along the Opequon, under the scarlet maples. One day there appeared a cluster of Englishmen, Colonel the Honourable Garnet Wolseley; the Special Correspondent of the Times, the Honourable Francis Lawley, and the Special Correspondent of the Illustrated London News, Mr. Frank Vizetelly. General Lee had sent them over under the convoy of an officer, with a note to Stonewall Jackson.
My dear General,—These gentlemen very especially wish to make your acquaintance. Yours,
R. E. LEE.