from Frederick to Hagerstown and the next week was taken up in operations which culminated in the battle of Sharpsburg on September 17th. McClellan moved from Washington on the 6th, his columns covering the whole country between Lee's army and southern Maryland, where the chief strength of the Confederates lay. So Lee was only stationary four days, and at no time was the country open for Confederate sympathizers to join him. He issued this proclamation:
To the People of Maryland:
It is right that you should know the purpose that has brought the army under my command within the limits of your State, so far as that purpose concerns yourselves.
The people of the Confederate States have long watched with the deepest sympathy the wrongs and outrages that have been inflicted upon the citizens of a commonwealth, allied to the States of the South by the strongest social, political and commercial ties. They have seen with profound indignation their sister State deprived of every right, and reduced to the position of a conquered province. Under the pretense of supporting the Constitution, but in violation of its most valuable provisions, your citizens have been arrested and imprisoned upon no charge and contrary to all forms of law. The faithful and manly protest against this outrage made by the venerable and illustrious Marylander, to whom in better days no citizen appealed for right in vain, was treated with scorn and contempt. The government of your chief city has been usurped by armed strangers: your legislature has been dissolved by the unlawful arrest of its members: freedom of the press and of speech has been suppressed: words have been declared offenses by an arbitrary decree of the Federal executive, and citizens ordered to be tried by a military commission for what they may dare to speak.
Believing that the people of Maryland possessed a spirit too lofty to submit to such a government, the people of the South have long wished to aid you in throwing off the foreign yoke, to enable you again to enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen and restore independence and sovereignty to your State.
