He knew the strength and spirit of his army and to what a pitch it was keyed by victory. Moreover, he knew McClellan, whom he had met at the Seven Days, and he believed, in truth he felt positive that McClellan would delay long enough for the remainder of Jackson’s troops to come up. Upon this belief he staked the future of the Confederacy in the battle to be fought there between the Potomac and the Antietam. His troops were worn by battles and tremendous marches. Jackson’s men in three days had marched sixty miles, and had fought a battle at Harper’s Ferry within that time, also, taking more than thirteen thousand prisoners. Never before had the foot cavalry marched so hard.
The men in gray, ragged and many of them barefooted, slept in the woods about Sharpsburg all through the hot hours of the day. Their officers had told them that the drums and bugles would call them when needed, and they sank quietly into the deepest of slumbers. From where they lay Red Hill, a spur of a mountain, separated them from the Union army. It was only those like Dick and his comrades who mounted elevations and who had powerful field glasses who could see into Sharpsburg. The main Union force saw only the top of a church spire or two in the village. But each felt fully the presence of the other and knew that the battle could not be delayed long.
Dick, in his anxiety and excitement, fell asleep. The heat and the waiting seemed to overpower him. He did not know how long he had slept, but he was awakened by the sharp call of a trumpet, and when he sprang to his feet Warner told him it was about four o’clock.
“What’s up?” he cried, as he wiped the haze of heat and dust from his eyes.
“We’re about to march,” replied Warner, “but as it’s so late in the day I don’t think it can be a general attack. Still, I know that our division is going to cross the Antietam. Up here the stream is narrower than it is down below, and the banks are not so high. Look, the colonel is beckoning to us! Here we go!”
They sprang upon their horses, and a great corps advanced toward the Antietam, far above the town of Sharpsburg. The sun had declined in the West, and a breeze, bringing a little coolness, had begun to blow. They did not see much preparation for defense beyond the river, but as they advanced some cannon in the woods opened there. The Union cannon replied, and then the brigades in blue moved forward swiftly.
The officers and the cavalry galloped their horses into the little river and Dick felt a fierce joy as the water was dashed into his face. This was action, movement, the attack that had been delayed so long but which was not yet too late. He thought nothing of the shells hissing and shrieking over his head, and he shouted with the others in exultation as they passed the fords of the Antietam and set foot on the peninsula. The cannon dashed after them through the stream and up the bank.
A heavy rifle fire from the woods met them, but the triumphant division pressed on. They were held back at the edge of the woods by cannon aiding the rifles, and for some time a battle swayed back and forth, but the Confederate resistance ceased suddenly. Infantry and batteries disappeared in woods or beyond a ridge, and then Dick noticed that night was coming. The sun was already hidden by the lofty slopes of the western mountains, and there would be no battle that day. In another half hour full darkness would be upon them.
But Dick felt that something had been achieved. A powerful Union force was now beyond the Antietam, with its feet rooted firmly in the soil of the peninsula. It looked directly south at the Confederate army and there was no barrier between. Lee would have to face at once, Hooker on the north and McClellan on the east across the Antietam. The Union army had been numerous enough to outflank him.