Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 12.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

General Lee reports his loss at one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven killed, and eight thousand seven hundred and twenty-four wounded and missing at the battles of Crampton's Gap, South Mountain, Boonsboroa, Sharpsburg, and Shepherdstown, from September 14th to 20th; total, ten thousand two hundred and ninety one.

We have no data to fix the loss at Sharpsburg, but it was probably for the Confederates the bloodiest battle of the war.

Thus ended the First Maryland campaign. It was undertaken by Lee with the certainty of thereby relieving Virginia for a time from the pressure of war, with the hope of transferring the scene of operations to the North, and with the possibility of the capture of Baltimore and Washington, the recognition of the Confederacy by the powers, of independence and of peace. It accomplished the first and secured great spoils of prisoners and arms, and of supplies. It failed in the last, first by the blunder of Halleck in retaining possession of Harpers Ferry, when he ought to have evacuated it, secondly and principally by the negligence which lost Lee's Special Order No. 191, and thus furnished McClellan with precise official information of the dispositions of Lee's troops and of his future intentions. It was a failure in so far as he did not accomplish what he hoped would be possible, but it was a success in the results achieved, and in the loss of time, men and material it inflicted on the Federal side.

The First Maryland Campaign, when we consider the number employed, the distances marched, the results achieved, the disparity of forces fought, was an episode unsurpassed in brilliancy of achievement, in self-sacrifice of soldiers, officers, and men, in heroic endeavors and chivalric gallantry, by any chapter in the history of war. Considering Lee's audacity in dividing his small force in the presence of three times his numbers, in an unknown and unfriendly country, his fortitude and tenacity in holding on until the object for which he had detached them was accomplished, and they could rejoin him, his genius in selecting his position, and his skill in handling his troops on the field of battle, and the manner in which he was supported by his Lieutenants, their subordinates and their men, we have a lesson inspiring, instructive and impressive. The causes of the civil war are sinking out of memory, the passions aroused by it on both sides have died out, but the record of the valor, the patriotism and the endurance developed by it, will be perpetuated for generations.