The Day After the Battle.
That was the spirit of the whole army. It was universally expected that McClellan would renew the attack at daylight the next morning; but, though he had many thousand fresh men, and defeat could only be repulse to him, while to the enemy, with the river in his rear, it would be ruin, his constitutional timidity prevented. It was the costliest of mistakes.
Thursday proved a day of rest—such rest as can be found with three miles of dead men to bury, and thousands of wounded to bring from the field. It was a day of standing on the line where the battle closed—of intermittent sharp-shooting and discharges of artillery, but no general skirmishing, or attempt to advance on either side.
Riding out to the front of General Couch's line, I found the Rebels and our own soldiers mingling freely on the disputed ground, bearing away the wounded. I was scanning a Rebel battery with my field-glass, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, when one of our pickets exclaimed:
"Put up your glass, sir! The Johnnies will shoot in a minute, if they see you using it."
In front of Hancock's lines, a flag of truce was raised. Hancock—erect and soldierly, with smooth face, light eyes, and brown hair, the finest-looking general in our service—accompanied by Meagher, rode forward into a corn-field, and met the young fire-eating brigadier of the Rebels, Roger A. Pryor. Pryor insisted that he had seen a white flag on our front, and asked if we desired permission to remove our dead and wounded. Hancock indignantly denied that we had asked for a truce, as we claimed the ground, stating that, through the whole day, we had been removing and ministering to both Union and Rebel wounded. He suggested a cessation of sharp-shooting until this work could be completed. Pryor declined this, and in ten minutes the firing reopened.
"A great victory," said Wellington, "is the most awful thing in the world, except a great defeat." Antietam, though not an entire victory, had all its terrific features. Our casualties footed up to twelve thousand three hundred and fifty-two, of whom about two thousand were killed on the field.
Down Among the Dead Men.
Between the fences of a road immediately beyond the corn-field, in a space one hundred yards long, I counted more than two hundred Rebel dead, lying where they fell. Elsewhere, over many acres, they were strewn singly, in groups, and occasionally in masses, piled up almost like cord-wood. They were lying—some with the human form undistinguishable, others with no outward indication of wounds—in all the strange positions of violent death. All had blackened faces. There were forms with every rigid muscle strained in fierce agony, and those with hands folded peacefully upon the bosom; some still clutching their guns, others with arm upraised, and one with a single open finger pointing to heaven. Several remained hanging over a fence which they were climbing when the fatal shot struck them.
It was several days before all the wounded were removed from the field. Many were shockingly mutilated; but the most revolting spectacle I saw was that of a soldier, with three fingers cut off by a bullet, leaving ragged, bloody shreds of flesh.