t hand to
hand. Cannons were lost and retaken by each side. Stuart, finding the
ground too rough for his cavalry, dismounted them and put them at
the guns. 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. He listened a while to the
growing thunder of the battle in the north--the Dunkard church, around
which Jackson and Hooker were fighting so desperately, was a mile
away--but he soon turned his attention to the blue masses across the
Antietam.

The Southern commander faced the Antietam with the hard-hitting
Longstreet on his right, his left being composed of the forces of
Jackson, already in furious conflict. Nothing escaped him. As he
listened to the thunder of the dreadful battle in the north, he never
ceased to watch the great army in front of him on the other side of the
little river.

While Hooker and his men were fighting with such desperate courage, why
did not McClellan and the main body of the Union army move forward to
the attack? Doubtless Lee asked himself this question, and doubtless
also he had gauged accurately the mind of the Union leader, who always
saw two or even three enemies where but one stood. Relying so strongly
upon his judgment he dared to strip himself yet further and send more
men to Jackson. A messenger brought him news that more of Jackson's men
had come to his aid and that he was now holding the whole line against
the attacks of Meade and Hooker and all th