When they returned to a position behind the guns they heard others coming in with equally terrible tales. A sunken lane that ran between the hostile lines was filled to the brim with dead. Boys, yet in their teens, with nerves completely shattered for the time, chattered hysterically of what they had seen. The Antietam was still running red. Both Lee and Stonewall Jackson had been killed and the whole Confederate army would be taken in the morning. Some said, on the other hand, that the Southerners still had a hundred thousand men, and that McClellan would certainly be beaten the next day, if he did not retreat in time.
None of the talk, either of victory or defeat, made any impression upon Dick. His senses were too much dulled by all through which he had gone. Words no longer meant anything. Although the night was warm he began to shiver, as if he were seized with a chill.
“Lie down, Dick,” said Colonel Winchester, who noticed him. “I don’t think you can stand it any longer. Here, under this tree will do.”
Dick threw himself down and Colonel Winchester, finding a blanket, spread it over him. Then the boy closed his eyes, and, for a while, phase after phase of the terrible conflict passed before him. He could see the white wall of the Dunkard church, the Bloody Lane, and most ghastly of all, those dead men in rows lying on their arms, like regiments asleep, but his nerves grew quiet at last, and after midnight he slept.
Dawn came and found the two armies ready. Dick and the sad remnant of the Winchester regiment rose to their feet. Although food had been prepared for them very few in all these brigades had touched a bite the night before, sinking into sleep or stupor before it could be brought to them. But now they ate hungrily while they watched for their foes, the skirmishers of either army already being massed in front to be ready for any movement by the other.
As on the morning before, a mist arose from the Potomac and the Antietam. The sun, bright and hot, soon dispersed it. But there was no movement by either army. Dick did not hear the sound of a single shot. Warner and Pennington, recovered from their stupor, stood beside him gazing southward toward the rocks and ridges, where the Confederate army lay.
“I’m thinking,” said Warner, “that they’re just as much exhausted as we are. We’re waiting for an attack, and they’re waiting for the same. The odds are at least ninety per cent in favor of my theory. Their losses are something awful, and I don’t think they can do anything against us. Look how our batteries are massed for them.”
Dick was watching through his glasses, and even with their aid he could see no movement within the Southern lines. Hours passed and still neither army stirred. McClellan counted his tremendous losses, and he, too, preferred to await attack rather than offer it. His old obsession that his enemy was double his real strength seized him, and he was not willing to risk his army in a second rush upon Lee.
While Dick and his comrades were waiting through the long morning hours, Lee and Jackson and his other lieutenants were deciding whether or not they should make an attack of their own. But when they studied with their glasses the Northern lines and the great batteries, they decided that it would be better not to try it.
When noon came and still no shot had been fired, Colonel Winchester shook his head.
“We might yet destroy the Southern army,” he said to Dick, “but I’m convinced that General McClellan will not move it.”
The hot afternoon passed, and then the night came with the sound of rumbling wheels and marching men. Dick surmised that Lee was leaving the peninsula, and, crossing the Potomac in to Virginia, and that therefore tactical victory would rest with the Northern side. The noises continued all night long, but McClellan made no advance, nor did he do so the next day, while the whole Confederate army was crossing the Potomac, until nearly night.