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.
Lee had lost two thousand killed and six thousand wounded. McClellan had
lost more than twelve thousand. His army was so terribly shattered by
the bloody work, he did not renew the struggle on the following day. Lee
waited until night for his assault and learning that reenforcements were
on the way to join McClellan's command withdrew across the Potomac.
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