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Chapter 15: the Maryland campaign.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat.
As our columns approached
Leesburg, “
Maryland, my
Maryland” was in the air, and on the lips of every man from
General Lee down to the youngest drummer.
Our chief could have safely ordered the ranks to break in
Virginia and assemble in
Fredericktown.
All that they would ask was a thirty minutes plunge in the
Potomac to remove some of the surplus dust, before they encountered the smiles of tie winsome lasses of
Maryland.
Yet he expressed doubt of trusting so far from home solely to untried and unknown resources for food-supplies.
Receiving his anxious expressions really as appeals for reinforcement of his unexpressed wish, but warm to brave the venture, I related my Mexican War experiences with
Worth's division, marching around the city of
Monterey on two days rations of roasting-ears and green oranges, and said that it seemed to me that we could trust the fields of
Maryland, laden with ripening corn and fruit, to do as much as those of
Mexico; that we could in fact
