Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/542

 582 Southern Historical Society Papers.

centre. It was now past three o'clock. The battle was over on the left and in the centre. The Confederates held the ground they had occupied in the morning north of the Dunkard church. The Fede rals held the ground they had wrested from Hill, McLaws and An- derson, in front of Sharpsburg.

The Confederates were used up. Of Jackson's and Ewell's divis- ions, Early, alone, with the fragments under Stafford and Grigsby, were left. Of D. Hill, McLaws and R. H. Anderson's, only scattered squads, were held by their officers in a thin formation in front of Sharpsburg. The Federal reserve in the centre, under Fitz John Porter, threatened to march straight through Lee's army. Its ar- tillery had crossed the Keedysville Bridge, with Syke's division of regulars, and closed up on Richardson's left.

Toombs held the Burnside Bridge with D. R. Jones in support. But a determined attack by the Ninth corps must, of necessity, have carried the bridge, marched into Sharpsburg and attacked the Con- federate left and centre, in rear. Franklin was fresh. Porter was fresh, Burnside was fresh. They were not three miles apart. They were visible to each other and communicating by signals. There was no help for Lee unless A. P. Hill got up in time, and A. P. Hill had been obliged to remain at Harpers Ferry to parole the prisoners and secure the guns and stores taken there. Why Burnside delayed, no man can tell. He stood the whole day looking at the battle.

He saw every battery, every line, every attack, every repulse. He saw his own friends march forward with bands playing and colors flying and lines dressed.

Burnside could not help seeing this, and that the lines went forw^ard, moved slower, stopped, began firing, and then melted away before his eyes. His hesitation therefore is incomprehensible. McClellan urged him by order, by orderly, by signal and by staff-officer, to go in. At last the Ninth corps was put in motion. Toombs made a gallant defence, but he was brushed away like chaff. He lost half his men, though he was obliged to leave the bridge and upper ford undefended, and confined his efforts to the lower ford.

The brigades of Kemper and Drayton were driven back through Sharpsburgh. The Fifteenth South Carolina, Colonel De Saussure, clung to some strong stone houses on the edge of the town, where he held back Wilcox's advance. Jenkins followed Drayton, and Pickett and Evans were then ordered back by Jones.

The battle was lost, for Burnside was within two hundred yards of