This was at the beginning of September, just three months after Lee had taken personal command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Within that brief time he had done things, the simplest statement of which reads like a wonder-story. At the beginning of June a Federal army of 120,000 men lay almost within cannon-shot of the Confederate capital, while another Federal force about one-third as large was marching unopposed to form a junction with it, and still other Federal armies occupied the valley and sent raiders at will throughout Northern Virginia. At the beginning of September there remained no Federal army at all in Virginia to oppose Lee's will, whatever it might chance to be. McClellan with his grand army had been beaten in battle, and driven into a retreat which ended in his complete withdrawal, after a disastrous campaign, which at its beginning had seemed certain of success. Jackson had cleared the valley of armies superior to his own in numbers. Pope had been outwitted in strategy, beaten in battle, and driven to cover at Washington. That was the story that Agatha related to Baillie early in September, when he was fit to hear it. It stirred his blood with enthusiasm, and bred in him an eagerness almost dangerous, to be at the head of his battery again, and a sharer in this splendid work of war. "Your story is not ended yet," he said, when Agatha had finished. "It is 'to be continued,'--be very sure of that. Lee will not rest content with what he has done, marvellous as it is. He took the offensive as soon as he had disposed of McClellan. He will surely not now assume the defensive again, as our army did a year ago after the battle of Manassas. He is obviously made of quite other stuff than that of his predecessors in command. And here am I losing my share in it all,--a convalescent in charge of a nurse, and in hiding in the enemy's country. I tell you, Agatha, I must break out of this. As soon as I have strength enough to ride a horse, I must find a way of getting back to Virginia. And with the stimulus of strong desire, I shall not be long now in regaining that much of strength. In the meanwhile, I must think out a plan by which I can pass the Potomac without falling into the enemy's hands." "I have already thought of all that," returned his companion, "and I have had others thinking of it, too,--all the friends in Maryland with whom I am in correspondence. After studying the conditions minutely we are agreed in the positive conviction that it will be impossible for you to get through the Federal lines, which are more rigidly drawn and more vigilantly guarded now than ever before. You cannot even start on such a journey without being arrested and imprisoned, and that would completely defeat your purpose." "I must take the chances, then. For I simply will not sit idly here after I get well enough to sit in a saddle."