The sun came up, dim behind the mist. The mist rose, the morning advanced. The September sunshine lay like vital warmth upon the height and vale, upon the Dunkard church and the wood about it, upon the cornfields, and Burnside's bridge and the Bloody Lane, and upon all the dead men in the cornfields, in the woods, upon the heights, beside the stream, in the lane. The sunshine lay upon the dead, as the prophet upon the Shunamite's child, but it could not reanimate. Grey and blue, the living armies gazed at each other across the Antietam. Both were exhausted, both shattered, the blue yet double in numbers. The grey waited for McClellan's attack. It did not come. The ranks, lying down, began to talk. "He ain't going to attack! He's cautious."—"He's had enough."—"So've I. O God!"—"Never saw such a fight. Wish those buzzards would go away from that wood over there! They're so dismal."—"No, McClellan ain't going to attack!"—"Then why don't we attack?"—"Go away, Johnny! We're mighty few and powerfully tired."—"Well, I think so, too. We might just as well attack. Great big counter stroke! Crumple up Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts over there! Turn their right!"—"'T ain't impossible! Marse Robert and Old Jack could manage it."—"No, they couldn't!"—"Yes, they could!"—"You're a fool! Look at that position, stronger 'n Thunder Run Mountain, and Hooker's got troops he didn't have in yesterday! 'N those things like beehives in a row are Parrotts 'n Whitworths' 'n Blakeley's. 'N then look at us. Oh, yes! we've got spirit, but spirit's got to have a body to rush those guns."—"Thar ain't anything Old Jack couldn't do if he tried!"—"Yes, there is!" "Thar ain't! How dast you say that?"—"There is! He couldn't be a fool if he tried—and he ain't a-going to try!"
The artillerist, Stephen D. Lee, came to headquarters on the knoll by Sharpsburg. "General Lee sent for me. Tell him, please, I am here." Lee appeared. "Good-morning, Colonel Lee. You are to go at once to General Jackson. Tell him that I sent you to report to him." The officer found Stonewall Jackson at the Dunkard church. "General, General Lee sent me to report to you."
"Good, good! Colonel, I wish you to take a ride with me. We will go to the top of the hill yonder."
They went up to the top of the hill, past dead men and horses, and much wreckage of caissons and gun wheels. "There are probably sharpshooters in that wood across the stream," said Jackson. "Do not expose yourself unnecessarily, colonel." Arrived at the level atop they took post in a little copse, wildly torn and blackened, a wood in Artillery Hell. "Take your glasses, colonel, and examine the enemy's line of battle."
The other lifted the field-glass and with it swept the Antietam, and the fields and ridges beyond it. He looked at the Federal left, and he looked at the Federal centre, and he looked along the Federal right, which was opposite, then he lowered the glasses. "General, they have a very strong position, and they are in great force."
"Good! I wish you to take fifty pieces of artillery and crush that force."
Stephen D. Lee was a brave man. He said nothing now, but he stood a moment in silence, and then he took his field-glass and looked again. He looked now at the many and formidable Federal batteries clustered like dark fruit above the Antietam, and now at the masses of blue infantry, and now at the positions, under artillery and musketry fire, which the Confederate batteries must take. He put the glass down again. "Yes, general. Where shall I get the fifty guns?"
"How many have you?"
"I had thirty. Some were lost, a number disabled. I have twelve."
"Just so. Well, colonel, I could give you a few, and General Lee tells me he can furnish some."