Within a residence Lee sat in close conference with his
lieutenants, Stonewall Jackson and Longstreet. Now and then, they looked
at the reports of brigade commanders and sometimes they studied the maps
of Maryland and Virginia. Lee was calm and confident. The odds against
him--and he knew what they were--apparently mattered nothing.
He knew the strength and spirit of his army and to what a pitch it was
keyed by victory. Moreover, he knew McClellan, whom he had met at the
Seven Days, and he believed, in truth he felt positive that McClellan
would delay long enough for the remainder of Jackson's troops to come up.
Upon this belief he staked the future of the Confederacy in the battle to
be fought there between the Potomac and the Antietam. His troops were
worn by battles and tremendous marches. Jackson's men in three days had
marched sixty miles, and had fought a battle at Harper's Ferry within
that time, also, taking more than thirteen thousand prisoners. Never
before had the foot cavalry marched so hard.
The men in gray, ragged and many of them barefooted, slept in the woods
about Sharpsburg all through the hot hours of the day.
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