larger issue of the Confederate strategy shift as Davis had desired. Lee's proclamation announced to the people of Maryland that his army had come "with the deepest sympathy [for] the wrongs that have been inflicted upon the citizens of the commonwealth allied to the States of the South by the strongest social, political, and commercial ties ... to aid you in throwing off this foreign yoke, to enable you again to enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen." Dividing Lee's army Lee divided his army into four parts as it moved into Maryland. After receiving intelligence of militia activity in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Lee sent Maj. Gen. James Longstreet to Boonsboro and then to Hagerstown. (The intelligence overstated the threat since only 20 militiamen were in Chambersburg at the time.) Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson was ordered to seize the Union arsenal at Harpers Ferry with three separate columns. This left only the thinly spread cavalry of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and the division of Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill to guard the army's rear at South Mountain. The specific reason Lee chose this risky strategy of splitting his army to capture Harpers Ferry is not known. One possibility is that he knew it commanded his supply lines through the Shenandoah Valley. Before he entered Maryland he had assumed that the Federal garrisons at Winchester, Martinsburg, and Harpers Ferry would be cut off and abandoned without firing a shot (and, in fact, both Winchester and Martinsburg were evacuated). Another possibility is that it was simply a tempting target with many vital supplies but virtually indefensible. McClellan requested permission from Washington to evacuate Harpers Ferry and attach its garrison to his army, but his request was refused. Reactions to invasion Lee's invasion was fraught with difficulties from the beginning. The Confederate Army's numerical strength suffered in the wake of straggling and desertion. Although he started from Chantilly with 55,000 men, within 10 days this number had diminished to 45,000. Some troops refused to cross the Potomac River because an invasion of Union territory violated their beliefs that they were fighting only to defend their states from Northern aggression. Countless others became ill with diarrhea after eating unripe "green corn" from the Maryland fields or fell out because their shoeless feet were bloodied on hard-surfaced Northern roads. Lee ordered his commanders to deal harshly with stragglers, whom he considered cowards "who desert their comrades