The Union scouts could quickly find him and the ninety
thousand veterans of the Army of the Potomac could crush him to powder
in a day. What a chance! No, it was not a chance. It was a miracle.
The key had been put in McClellan's hand and it would take but one turn
of his wrist to unlock the door upon dazzling success.
Dick saw the war finished in a month. Lee could not have more than
twenty or twenty-five thousand men with him, and Jackson was three or
four days' march away. He clutched the order in his hand and ran toward
Colonel Winchester.
"Here, take it, sir! Take it!" he exclaimed.
"Take what?"
"Look! Look! See what it is!"
Colonel Winchester took one glance at it, and then he, too, became
excited. He hurried with it to General McClellan, and that day the
commander-in-chief telegraphed to the anxious President at Washington:
"I have all the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in my own trap,
if my men are equal to the emergency."
The shrewd Lincoln took notice of the qualifying clause, "if my men are
equal to the emergency," and sighed a little.
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