The opportunity had come, but the
means of seizing it were feeble. Lee himself was buoyed up by no
certain expectation of great results. In advocating invasion he
confessed to the President that his troops were hardly fit for
service beyond the frontier. "The army," he wrote, "is not properly
equipped for an invasion of the enemy's territory. It lacks much of
the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being
much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothes. And in
thousands of instances are destitute of shoes...What concerns me most
is the fear of getting out of ammunition."* (* O.R. volume 19 part 2
pages 590, 591.)
This description was by no means over-coloured. As a record of
military activity the campaign of the spring and summer of 1862 has
few parallels. Jackson's division, since the evacuation of Winchester
at the end of February, that is, in six months, had taken part in no
less than eight battles and innumerable minor engagements; it had
marched nearly a thousand miles, and it had long ago discarded tents.
The remainder of the army had been hardly less severely tasked. The
demands of the outpost service in front of Richmond had been almost
as trying as the forced marches in the Valley, and the climate of the
Peninsula had told heavily on the troops.
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