The invasion of the North was ended. Neither Washington nor Baltimore had fallen into the hands of the Rebels. Lee had not dictated terms of peace in Independence Square. Maryland had not responded to the call to join the Confederacy. The dreams indulged at the South of an uprising of the people of the State had proved delusive. Lee had captured Harper's Ferry through the incompetency of the commander of the place. That was the only material advantage gained. He had won a victory at Groveton, through the treasonable failure of General Porter to join General Pope, and the tardiness of General McClellan's withdrawal from the Peninsula, but had been defeated at South Mountain and Antietam. General Lee retreated to Martinsburg and Winchester to rest his exhausted troops. General McClellan marched to Harper's Ferry and Berlin, on the Potomac, and went into camp. Lee could not take the offensive. His troops were worn and disheartened. They had marched with great rapidity; fought at Groveton; had moved on to Maryland; fought, some of them at South Mountain, others at Harper's Ferry; had lived on short rations, making up the lack of food with green corn. They were barefoot and ragged. They slept without tents or blankets. They were exposed to all the storms. The men of Georgia and Alabama and Texas shivered with the ague in the keen air of the mountains through the October nights. Some of them, for the first time in their lives, beheld the beautiful spangles of the hoar-frosts. At Winchester, in the heart of one of the loveliest and most fertile valleys in America, they were in want of food. Lee seized all the forage and provisions he could find among the farmers. He was obliged to wagon his supplies from Culpepper, eighty miles distant, over roads which became muddy after a half-hour's rain. General McClellan, on the other hand, received his supplies by rail within a mile or two of his camp. He thought that the army was not in condition to undertake another campaign; nor to bring on another battle, unless it had great advantages over the enemy. "My present purpose," he wrote to General Halleck on the 27th, "is to hold the army about as it is now, rendering Harper's Ferry secure, and watching the river closely, intending to attack the enemy should he attempt to cross." President Lincoln visited the army, and urged General McClellan to attack Lee. There was a favorable opportunity. Large reinforcements had been received, and the troops were in good spirits; the weather was favorable. Lee was far from his supplies; his army was smaller than McClellan's. But General McClellan was not disposed to move. On the 6th of October, he received orders from General Halleck to cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy, or drive him south. "You must move while the roads are good," was the telegram. Some of the troops needed clothing, and were in want of shoes. The cavalry were deficient of horses. Complaint was made that supplies were withheld.