PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT RUINS OF STONE BRIDGE OVER BULL RUN IN 1862
THE DEAD ALONG HAGERSTOWN ROAD AFTER BATTLE OF ANTIETAM
SIGNAL CORPS WATCHING BATTLE FROM HILLSIDE AT ANTIETAM
THRILLED with the victory at Manassas, the second Bull Run, the leader of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, ordered an immediate movement to the North with all the chances of glorious triumph in his favor. It was conceded even by the military tacticians of the Government that Lee could march to Washington with probabilities of entrance. He was aware that a direct attack was feasible, but he desired to cross the Potomac into Maryland and enter the National Capital from the north, thus giving him a free route to the great municipalities of the North. It is probable that he even had visions of the capture of New York. While developing this military stratagem he met the Federals in the open at Antietam. It was the seventeenth of September in 1862. General McClellan was in command and Lee's fondest dreams were blasted. The men of both armies fought as they never fought before. Brady's cameras were soon on the scene and secured many negatives of this bloody day. The one above reveals the west side of Hagerstown Road after the battle. The bodies of the dead are strewn thickly beside the fence, just as they fell. The guns succeeded in getting an excellent range of this road, and slaughtered the enemy like sheep. This view of some of the men just as they fell, is only a glimpse of many groups of dead in that terrible combat. Brady "caught" the Independent Pennsylvania Battery E, well known as Knapp's Battery, shortly after the battle.
