, consisting of A.P. Hill's forces from Harper's Ferry. These
attacked the enemy, drove him from the hill across the Antietam again;
and so threatening did the situation at that moment appear to General
McClellan, that he is said to have sent General Burnside the message:
"Hold your ground! If you cannot, then the bridge, to the last man.
Always the bridge! If the bridge is lost, all is lost!"

The urgency of this order sufficiently indicates that the Federal
commander was not without solicitude for the safety of his own left
wing. Ignorant, doubtless, of the extremely small force which had thus
repulsed General Burnside, in all four thousand five hundred men, he
feared that General Lee would cross the bridge, assail his left, and
that the hard-fought day might end in disaster to his own army. That
General Lee contemplated this movement, in spite of the disproportion
of numbers, is intimated in his official report. "It was nearly dark,"
he says, "and the Federal artillery was massed to defend the bridge,
with General Porter's corps, consisting of fresh troops, behind it.
Under these circumstances," he adds, "it was deemed injudicious to
push our advantage further in the face of fresh troops of the enemy
much exceeding our own."

The idea of an advance against the Federal left was accordingly
abandoned, and a movement of Jackson's command, which Lee directed,
with the view of turning the Federal right, was discontinued from the
same considerations. Night had come, both sides were worn out, neither
of the two great adversaries cared to risk another struggle, and the
bitterly-contested battle of Sharpsburg was over.

The two armies remained facing each other throughout the following
day. During the night of this day, Lee crossed with his army back into
Virginia. He states his reasons for this: "As we could not look for a
material increase of strength," he says, "and the enemy's force could
be largely and rapidly augmented, it was not thought prudent to wait
until he should be ready again to offer battle."

General McClellan does not seem to have been able to renew the
struggle at that time. "The next morning," he says, referring to the
day succeeding the battle, "I found that our loss had been so great,
and there was so much disorganization in some of the commands, that I
did not consider it proper to renew the attack that day."

This decision of General McClellan's subjected him subsequently to
very harsh criticism f