the turnpike. This was the extreme left of the enemy's line. Hooker crossed the turnpike a few rods north of Poffenberg's, marched through the fields to the ridge by the cornfield. Having obtained possession of the ridge east of Poffenberg's, he planted his batteries and opened a fierce cannonade upon the Rebels.

The ground in front of Hooker was the scene of repeated struggles. In the afternoon the Rebels made a desperate attempt to regain what they had lost. They came down through the cornfield, west of the turnpike, under cover of their batteries. Hooker, Dana, Sedgwick, Hartsuff, Richardson, and Mansfield, all general officers, had been carried from the field wounded. General Howard was in command of the right wing. I was talking with him, when an officer dashed up and said, "General, the Rebels are coming down on us."

We were in the open field, a few rods southeast of Poffenberg's barn. General Howard rode forward a few steps, looked through the leafy branches of the oaks along the turnpike. We could see the dark lines of the enemy moving through the cornfield. "Tell the batteries to give them the heaviest fire possible," he said. It was spoken as deliberately as if he had said to his servant, "Bring me a glass of water." How those thirty pieces of artillery opened! Crack! crack! crack! and then a volley by artillery! How those gray lines wavered, swayed to and fro, and melted away!

In Poffenberg's door-yard, along the turnpike, were two noble horses, both killed by the same cannon-shot, smashing the head of one and tearing the neck of the other. The dead of the Pennsylvania Reserves laid under the palings of the garden fence. The gable of the house was torn to pieces by a shell. In the field in front dead men in blue and dead men in gray were thickly strown; and still farther out, along the narrow lane which runs southwest from the house, they were as thick as the withered leaves in autumn. How the battle-storm howled through those woods, fiercer than the blasts of November! It was a tornado which wrenched off the trunks of oaks large enough for a ship's keelson,―riving them, splintering them with the force of a thunderbolt.

If the blow which Hooker gave had been a little more power

ful, if Mansfield had been ordered in at the same instant with Hooker, if Sumner had fallen upon the Rebel centre at the same time, there can be but little doubt as to what would have been the result. But the battle of Antietam was fought by piecemeal. Hooker exhausted his strength before Mansfield came up; Mansfield was repulsed before Sumner came in; while Burnside, who had the most difficult task of all, was censured by McClellan for not carrying the bridge early in the morning. Yet Franklin, who arrived at noon, was only partially engaged, while Porter was ordered to stand a silent spectator through the day. The several corps of the Union army were like untrained teams of horses,—each pulled with all its strength, but no two succeeded in pulling together.

It was not far from twelve o'clock when the arrangements were completed for Sumner's movement. The artillery prepared the way for advance, by pouring in a heavy fire from all directions. The configuration of the ground admitted of this. The cornfield sloped toward the Antietam, and by careful scrutiny the Rebels could be seen lying down to avoid the shot and shells. It was a moment of anxious expectation to us who beheld the movement.

The divisions moved past the cemetery, past Roulet's house, the left of French's and the right of Richardson's, joining in the ravine. A few rods beyond the house the Rebel skirmishers opened a galling fire. Our own advanced rapidly, drove them in through the nearest cornfield. They fled to the road, and the field beyond.

The road is narrow, and by long usage and heavy rains, has become a trench, a natural rifle-pit about two and a half feet deep. The Rebels had thrown off the top rails of the fence in front, and strengthened the position by making them into abatti, — imitating the example set by General Stark on the northeastern slope of Bunker Hill, in 1775.

The roadway was their first line; their second was in the corn, five or six rods farther west.

The Union troops advanced in front of the road, when up rose the first Rebel line. The fence became a line of flame and smoke. The cornfield beyond, on higher ground, was a sheet of fire. With a rush and cheer, the men in blue moved up

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to the fence, ploughed through and through by the batteries above, cut and gashed by the leaden hail, thrust the muzzles of their guns into the faces of the Rebels and fired.

The first Rebel line was nearly annihilated, and the dead lying beneath the tasselled corn were almost as many as the golden ears upon the stalks. Visiting the spot when the contest was over, I judged from a little counting that a thousand of the enemy's dead were in the road and the adjoining field. A shell had thrown seven into one heap, some on their faces, some on their backs,-fallen as a handful of straws would fall when dropped upon the ground. But not they alone suffered. The bloody tide which had surged through all the morning between the ridges above, along the right, had flowed over the hill at this noontide hour. The yellow soil became crimson; the russet corn-leaves turned to red, as if autumn had put on in a moment her richest glory. How costly! Five thousand men, -I think I do not exaggerate, wounded and dead, lay along that pathway and in the adjoining field! * To Burnside was assigned the duty of carrying the stone bridge, two miles below the turnpike, and taking the batteries which were in position south of Sharpsburg. It was a difficult task. A high-banked stream, bordered by willows; a narrow bridge; a steep hill; cleared lands, with no shelter from the batteries in front and on both his flanks, after he should have succeeded in crossing the stream.

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Burnside planted his cannon on the high hills or ridges east of the river, and kept them in play a long time before any attempt was made on the bridge by infantry. The Rebel batteries replied, and there was an incessant storm of shot and shell.

The road on the eastern side winds down a ravine to the river, which is an hundred feet below the summit of the hills where his artillery was posted. It is a narrow path, with a natural enibankment on the right hand, covered with oaks.

*The accompanying illustration is an accurate representation drawn by Mr. Waud, who witnessed the battle. The battery in the foreground is north of the house of Mr. Roulet, near the centre of Sumner's line. French's and Richardson's divisions are seen in the middle of the picture, and the Rebels under D. H. Hill and Longstreet beyond.