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.
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