arrived from Harper's Ferry; and these fresh men, together with those brought over from the left, assumed the offensive, drove Burnside from the crest, and retook the battery. * * * * * Here ended the battle; not because the day was closed or any apparent victory had been achieved, but because both sides had been so severely punished that neither was inclined to resume the fight. Every man of Lee's force had been actively engaged, but not more than two-thirds of McClellan's. The reason why the Confederate army was not annihilated or captured must be plain to any intelligent reader. It was not because Lee, with his army divided for three days in presence of his enemy, had not invited destruction; nor because the seventy thousand, acting in concert, could not have overwhelmed the forty thousand even when they were united. It was not for any lack of courage, or men, or arms, or opportunity, or daylight. It was simply because the attack was made in driblets, instead of by heavy masses on both wings simultaneously; so that at any point of actual contact Lee was almost always able to present as strong a force as that which assailed him. In a letter written to General Franklin the evening before the battle of South Mountain, General McClellan, having then received the lost despatch that revealed Lee's plans and situation, set forth with much particularity his {180} purposes for the next few days, and summed up by saying: "My general idea is to cut the enemy in two and beat him in detail." No plan could have been better or more scientific; but curiously enough, when it came to actual battle General McClellan's conduct was the exact opposite of this. By unnecessary and unaccountable delays he first gave the enemy time to concentrate his forces, and then made his attacks piecemeal, so that the enemy could fight _him_ in detail.