"Old Stonewall was the observed of all observers. He was dressed in the coarsest kind of homespun, seedy, and dirty at that. He wore an old hat which any Northern beggar would consider an insult to have offered him. In his general appearance he was in no respect to be distinguished from the mongrel barefoot crew who followed his fortunes. I had heard much of the decayed appearance of rebel soldiers,--but such a looking crowd! Ireland in her worst straits could present no parallel, and yet they glory in their shame!" Lee's army was now fifty miles north of Washington, within striking distance of Baltimore. His strategy had completely puzzled the War Department of the Federal Government. McClellan was equally puzzled. Lincoln and his Cabinet believed Lee's movement into Maryland a feint to draw the army from the defense of the Capital, and, when this was accomplished, by a sudden swoop the Southern Commander would turn and capture the city. While McClellan was thus halting in tragic indecision one of the unforeseen accidents of war occurred which put him in possession of Lee's plan of campaign and should have led to the annihilation of the Southern army. A copy of the order directing the movement of the Confederates from Frederick, Maryland, was thrown to the ground by a petulant officer to whom it was directed. It fell into the hands of a Federal soldier who hurried to McClellan's headquarters with the fateful document. Jackson's corps had been sent on one of his famous "foot cavalry" expeditions to sweep the Federal garrison from Martinsburg, surround and capture Harper's Ferry. McClellan at once moved a division of his army to crush the small command Lee had stationed at South Mountain to guard Jackson's movement. McClellan threw his men against this little division of the Confederates and attempted to force his way to the relief of Harper's Ferry. The battle raged with fury until nine o'clock at night. Their purpose accomplished Lee withdrew them to his new position at Sharpsburg to await the advent of Jackson. The "foot cavalry" had surrounded Harper's Ferry, assaulted it at dawn and in two hours the garrison surrendered. Thirteen thousand prisoners with their rifles and seventy-three pieces of artillery fell into Jackson's hands. Leaving General A. P. Hill to receive the final surrender of the troops Jackson set out at once for Sharpsburg to join his army with Lee's. The Southern Commander had but forty thousand men with which to meet McClellan's ninety thousand, but at sunrise on September seventeenth, his batteries opened fire and the bloodiest struggle of the Civil War began. Through the long hours of this eventful day the lines of blue and gray charged and counter-charged across the scarlet field. When darkness fell neither side had yielded. The dead lay in ghastly heaps and the long pitiful wail of the wounded rose to Heaven.