An aggressive movement of all the forces of the South under Lee in the
East and Bragg and Johnston in the West was ordered.
In spite of the fact that Lee's army could not be properly shod--the
supply of army shoes being inadequate and the lack of shoe factories a
defect the Confederacy had yet been unable to remedy, the Southern
Commander threw his army of barefooted veterans across the Potomac and
boldly invaded Maryland on September the fifth.
The appearance of Stonewall Jackson on his entrance into Frederick City,
Maryland, was described by a Northern war correspondent in graphic
terms:
"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.
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