The great batteries sent a hurricane of death over the
heads of the men in blue and toward the town of Sharpsburg. Despite all
the valor of the Southern veterans, the heavy masses of the Union men
forced their way across the bridge to the peninsula. Lee's batteries and
infantry regiments could not hold them.
It seemed now that Lee's own force was to be destroyed and that victory
was won, but fortune had in store yet another of those dazzling
recoveries for the South. At the very moment when Lee seemed overwhelmed,
A. P. Hill, as valiant and vigorous as the other Hill, arrived with the
last of the Harper's Ferry veterans, having marched seventeen miles,
almost on a dead run. They crossed the Potomac at a ford below the mouth
of the Antietam, then crossed the Antietam on the lowest bridge back into
the peninsula, and without waiting for orders rushed upon the Northern
flank.
The attack was so sudden and fierce that Burnside's entire division
reeled back. Here, as in the north, the face of the battle had been
changed in an instant. Not only could Colonel Winchester mourn over
those lost two days, but he could mourn over every lost half hour in
them.
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