OUR ANCESTORS in their desire for relief from somber emotions
liked to see a farce comedy follow a tragedy; thus, in those days,
a performance of Hamlet concluded with Box and Cox. In the
same way the great tragedy of Sharpsburg (Antietam) was fol-
lowed by the comedy of the unseating of Mcclellan after a curi-
ous series of maneuvers.

The last shots along the Antietam had hardly died out before
a storm of criticism broke over Mcclellan's devoted head. There
was immense relief in Washington when the news came that Lee
was back across the Potomac, but the relief was immediately
followed by chagrin that Mcclellan had not destroyed the South-
erner and his leonine army. As we have noted, Mcclellan was
not a little responsible for this criticism by announcing a "com-
plete victory," when, as a matter of fact, he had fought for life
and had not known the outcome of the battle on the morning
of September 18. It was not until Lee retreated across the river
that the realization swept over him that he had won a victory.
Lee had appeared extremely formidable to the authorities in
those first two weeks of September, 1862; but Lee, on Virginia
soil again with a shattered army, seemed to be easy pickings to
the armchair strategists in the War Department.

How near the Union had been to complete demoralization is
evident from many things, among them the panic of the authori-
ties in Pennsylvania. On September 19, Brigadier General John
F. Reynolds reported to Halleck from Hagerstown that he had
expected to bring into the field 14,000 men but that, to his sur-

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