General Jackson fell upon Manassas Junction and took three hundred prisoners and many car-loads of food and clothes. After the men had eaten what food they wanted, they burned the rest and moved away.
Jackson found a good position from which to fight, and when Pope’s men came up was ready for them. They fought all day, and when the powder and shot gave out the Southern men fought with stones.
All this time Lee, with most of the men, was coming round to help Jackson. How eagerly Jackson looked for help! He had only twenty thousand men against three times that many. At last Lee came up, and the battle was won (August 30th). Many brave men were killed on both sides, but Lee was the victor. In three months’ time he had driven the foe from Richmond, and was now in front of Washington with his army.
He now sent General Jackson to Harper’s Ferry, where he took as prisoners twelve thousand men of the North, September 15th. Jackson then hurried back to Lee, who had crossed the Potomac and gone over into Maryland, on September 5, 1862.
At Sharpsburg sometimes called Antietam (Ante’tam), he again met the fresh army of McClellan and fought one of the most bloody battles of the war. Lee had only half as many men as McClellan, but when, after the battle, Lee thought it best to return to Virginia, McClellan did not follow him. Lee led his army back to Virginia without the loss of a gun or a wagon, and they rested near Winchester, Virginia.
LAST MEETING OF LEE AND JACKSON.
General Lee, in his tent near Winchester, heard of the death of his daughter Annie. She had been his dearest child, and his grief at her death was great; but he wrote thus to Mrs. Lee:
“But God in this, as in all things, has mingled mercy with the blow by selecting the one best prepared to go. May you join me in saying ‘His will be done!’”
It was now McClellan’s turn to attack Lee, but he was slow to move—so slow that Mr. Lincoln sent him word “to cross the Potomac and give battle to the foe, and drive him south.” But still he did not move, and Lee, who was also wanting to move, sent Jeb Stuart over into Maryland to find out what McClellan was doing. That gallant man again went around the whole Northern army, and came back safe to Lee, having found out what Lee wished to know.