The fire became so tremendous that the men could no longer hear orders. Here was a field of ripe corn, the stems and blades higher than a man’s head, forty acres or so, nearly a quarter of a mile each way, but the corn soon ceased to hide the combatants from one another. The fire from the cannon and rifles came in such close sheets that scarcely a stalk stood upright in that whole field.
Long this mighty conflict swayed back and forth. Dick had seen nothing like it before, not even at the Second Manassas. It was almost hand to hand. Cannons were lost and retaken by each side. Stuart, finding the ground too rough for his cavalry, dismounted them and put them at the guns. Jackson, with an eye that missed nothing, called up Early’s brigade and hurled it into the battle. The North replied with fresh troops, and the combat was as much in doubt as ever. Every brigade commander on the Southern side had been killed or wounded. Nearly all the colonels had fallen, but Jackson’s men still fought with a fire and spirit that only such a leader as he could inspire.
It seemed to Dick that the whole world was on fire with the flash of cannon and rifles. The roar and crash came from not only in front and around him, but far down the side, where the main army of McClellan was advancing directly upon the Antietam, and the stone bridges which the Confederates had not found time to tear down.
There stood Lee, supremely confident that if his lieutenant, Jackson, could not hold the Northern opening into the peninsula nobody could. His men, who knew the desperate nature of the crisis, said that they had never seen him more confident than he was that day.
On the ridge just south of the village was a huge limestone bowlder, and Lee, field glasses in hand, stood on it. He listened a while to the growing thunder of the battle in the north-the Dunkard church, around which Jackson and Hooker were fighting so desperately, was a mile away- but he soon turned his attention to the blue masses across the Antietam.
The Southern commander faced the Antietam with the hard-hitting Longstreet on his right, his left being composed of the forces of Jackson, already in furious conflict. Nothing escaped him. As he listened to the thunder of the dreadful battle in the north, he never ceased to watch the great army in front of him on the other side of the little river.
While Hooker and his men were fighting with such desperate courage, why did not McClellan and the main body of the Union army move forward to the attack? Doubtless Lee asked himself this question, and doubtless also he had gauged accurately the mind of the Union leader, who always saw two or even three enemies where but one stood. Relying so strongly upon his judgment he dared to strip himself yet further and send more men to Jackson. A messenger brought him news that more of Jackson’s men had come to his aid and that he was now holding the whole line against the attacks of Meade and Hooker and all the rest.
Lee nodded and turned his glasses again toward the long blue line across the Antietam. McClellan himself was there, standing on a hill and also watching. Around him was a great division under the command of Burnside, and his time to win victory had come. He sent the order to Burnside to move forward and force the Antietam. It is said that at this moment Lee had only five thousand men with him, all the rest having been sent to Jackson, and, if so, time itself fought against the Union, as it was a full two hours before Burnside carried out his order and moved forward on the Antietam.
But Dick, on the north, did not know that it was as yet only cannon fire, and not the charge of troops to the south and west. In truth, he knew little of his own part of the battle. Once he was knocked down, but it was only the wind from a cannon ball, and when he sprang to his feet and drew a few long breaths he was as well as ever.