The two doctors were talking together. "Only a few ounces left. Better use it here?"
"Yes, yes!—One minute longer, colonel. We've got a little chloroform."
The bottle was brought. Cary eyed it. "Is that all you've got?"
"Yes. We took a fair quantity at Manassas, but God only knows the amount we could use! Now."
The man stretched on the boards motioned with the hand that had not been torn by the exploding shell. "No, no! I don't want it. Keep it for some one with a leg to cut off!" He smiled, a charming, twisted smile, shading into a grimace of pain. "No chloroform at Yorktown! I'll be as much of a man as was my great-uncle Edward! Yes, yes, I'm in earnest, doctor. Put it by for the next. All right; I'm ready."
On the knoll by Sharpsburg Lee and Jackson stood and looked toward the right. McClellan had apparently chosen to launch three battles in one day; in the early morning against the Confederate left, at midday against its centre, now against its right. A message came from Longstreet. "Burnside is in motion. I've got D. R. Jones and twenty-five hundred men."
It was evident that Burnside was in motion. With fourteen thousand men he came over the stone bridge across the Antietam. They were fresh troops; their flags were flying, their drums were beating, their bugles braying. The line moved with huzzahs toward the ridge held by Longstreet. From the left came tearing past the knoll the Confederate batteries. Lee was massing them in the centre, training them against the eastern foot of the ridge. There had been a lull in the storm, now Pelham opened with loud thunders. Other guns followed. The Federal batteries began to blaze; there broke out a madness of sound. In the midst of it D. R. Jones with his twenty-five hundred men clashed with Burnside's leading brigades.
Stonewall Jackson pulled the forage cap lower, jerked his hand into the air. "Good! good! I will go, sir, and send in my freshest troops."
"Look," said Lee. "Look, general! On the Harper's Ferry road."
All upon the knoll turned and gazed. Air and light played with the battle smoke, drove it somewhat to one side and showed for a few seconds a long and sunlit road, the road from Harper's Ferry. One of the staff began a low uncontrollable laughter. "By God! I see his red battle shirt! By God! I see his red battle shirt!"