John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History

[316] hands. Because of its smaller total numbers, the Confederate army was disproportionately weakened by the losses in battle. The Potomac River was almost immediately behind it, and had McClellan renewed his attack on the morning of the eighteenth, as several of his best officers advised, a decisive victory was yet within his grasp. But with his usual hesitation, notwithstanding the arrival of two divisions of reinforcements, he waited all day to make up his mind. He indeed gave orders to renew, the attack at daylight on the nineteenth, but before that time the enemy had retreated across the Potomac, and McClellan telegraphed, apparently with great satisfaction, that Maryland was free and Pennsylvania safe.

The President watched the progress of this campaign with an eagerness born of the lively hope that it might end the war. lie sent several telegrams to the startled Pennsylvania authorities to assure them that Philadelphia and Harrisburg were in no danger. He ordered a reinforcement of twenty-one thousand to join McClellan. H-e sent a prompting telegram to that general: “Please do not let him [the enemy] get off without being hurt.” He recognized the battle of Antietam as a substantial, if not a complete victory, and seized the opportunity it afforded him to issue his preliminary proclamation of emancipation on September 22.

For two weeks after the battle of Antietam, General McClellan kept his army camped on various parts of the field, and so far from exhibiting any disposition of advancing against the enemy in the Shenandoah valley, showed constant apprehension lest the enemy might come and attack him. On October I, the President and several friends made a visit to Antietam, and during the three succeeding days reviewed the troops