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Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati. Bragg with a large army had eluded Buell, and was marching northward toward Louisville in the hope that Kentucky would give her adhesion to the Confederacy. Cincinnati and Louisville were excited and alarmed. 36 Lee found out that he could not live upon the country and decided that he must open a line of communication through the Shenandoah valley if he would secure adequate supplies of flour. But Harpers Ferry, commanding the valley, was held by a Federal garrison although, according to the principles laid down in military books, it should have been abandoned when the Confederate army crossed the Potomac. Lee had expected and McClellan had advised its evacuation, but Halleck would not give it up. It was a lucky blunder, for Lee was forced on September 10 to divide his army, sending Jackson back into Virginia to capture Harpers Ferry, while he proceeded with Longstreet toward Hagerstown. 37 The state of feeling at the North now approached consternation. That Lee should threaten Washington and Baltimore, then Harrisburg and Philadelphia, while Bragg threatened Louisville and Cincinnati, was a piling up of menace that shook the nerves of the coolest men, and those who were in a position to receive the fullest information were more anxious than the general public, for it was the inner councils of the nation that were the most sorely perturbed. Although the number of the Confederates was exaggerated, their power as an invading army, by virtue of their mobility and the genius of their leaders, was rated none too high. Considering that 55,000 veteran soldiers led by Lee, Jackson and Longstreet marched out of Frederick with high spirits and confidence of victory, the alarm which spread over the North was no greater than a community

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