For political as well as military reasons, therefore, Lee started his army splashing across the Potomac fords thirty-five miles above Washington on September 4. Reinforced by three divisions called from Richmond, the army numbered some 55,000 men before it crossed the river. But from a variety of causes—exhaustion, hunger, sickness from subsisting on green corn, torn feet from marching barefoot on stony roads—stragglers fell out by the thousands during the next few days.
