Dick did not see how men could live under such a horrible fire, but there
were the gray lines replying, and wherever they yielded, yielding but
little.
Noon came and then one o'clock. They had been fighting since dawn,
and a combat so impetuous and terrible could not be maintained forever,
particularly when the awful demon of war was eating up men so fast.
Many of the regiments on either side had lost more than half their number
and would lose more. They were human beings, and even the unwounded
began to collapse from mere physical exhaustion. Some dropped to the
ground from sheer inability to stand, and as they lay there, they heard
to the south and west the rolling thunder that told of Burnside's belated
advance upon the Antietam.
Down where Lee stood watching, the battle blazed up with extraordinary
rapidity. The men who had been held in leash so long by McClellan were
anxious to get at the foe. Burnside's brigades charged directly for one
of the stone bridges, and Lee, watching from his bowlder, hurried the
Southern troops forward to meet them. Again the Northern artillery
proved its worth.
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