A short distance south and east of the Dunker church there was a slightly sunken road which crossed the Confederate line at one point and was parallel with it for a certain distance at other points. A strong Confederate force was posted in this sunken road, and when the National troops approached it there was destructive work on both sides; but the heaviest loss here fell upon the Confederates, because some batteries on the high ground east of the Antietam enfiladed portions of the road. This sunken road, which was henceforth called Bloody Lane, has made some confusion in many accounts of the battle, which is explained by the fact that it is not a straight road, but is made up of several parts running at different angles.

While this great struggle was in progress on McClellan's right, his centre and left, under Porter and Burnside, did not make any movement to assist. Porter's inaction is explained by the fact that his troops were kept as the reserves, which McClellan refused to send forward even when portions of his line were most urgently calling for assistance. He and Porter agreed in clinging to the idea that the reserves must under no circumstances be pushed forward to take part in the actual battle. This conduct was in marked contrast to that of the Confederate commander, who in this action had no reserves whatever.

THE CHARGE ACROSS THE BURNSIDE BRIDGE.

At noon Franklin arrived from Crampton's Gap, and was sent over to help Hooker and Sumner, being just in time to check a new advance by more troops brought over from the Confederate right.

At seven o'clock in the morning Burnside was ordered to have his corps in readiness for carrying the bridge in his front, crossing the stream, and attacking the Confederate right, which order he promptly obeyed. An hour later the order for this movement was issued by McClellan, but it did not reach Burnside till nine o'clock. The task before him was more difficult than his commander realized or than would be supposed from most descriptions of the action. The bridge is of stone, having three arches, with low stone parapets, and not very wide. On the eastern side of the stream, where Burnside's corps was, the land is comparatively low. The road that crosses the bridge, when it reaches the western bank has to turn immediately at a right angle and run nearly parallel with the stream, because the land there is high and overhangs it. As a matter of course, the bridge was commanded by Confederate guns advantageously placed on the heights. The problem before Burnside was therefore exceedingly difficult, and the achievement expected of him certain in any case to be costly. The task of first crossing the bridge fell upon Crook's brigade, which moved forward, mistook its way, and struck the stream some distance above the bridge, where it immediately found itself under a heavy fire. Then the Second Maryland and Sixth New Hampshire regiments were ordered to charge at the double quick and carry the bridge. But the fire that swept it was more than they could stand, and they were obliged to retire unsuccessful. Then another attempt was made by a new storming party, consisting of the Fifty-first New York and Fifty-first Pennsylvania regiments, led by Col. Robert B. Potter and Col. John F. Hartranft. By this time two heavy guns had been got into position where they could play upon the Confederates who defended the bridge, and with this protection and assistance the two regiments just named succeeded in crossing it and driving away the immediate opposing force, and were immediately followed by Sturgis's division and Crook's brigade. The fighting at the bridge cost Burnside about five hundred men. The Fifty-first New York lost eighty-seven, and the Fifty-first Pennsylvania one hundred and twenty. At the same time other troops crossed by a ford below the bridge, which had to be searched for, but was at length found. These operations occupied four hours, being completed about one o'clock P.M. Could they have been accomplished in an hour or two, the destruction or capture of Lee's army must have resulted. But by the time that Burnside had crossed the stream, captured a battery, and occupied the heights overlooking Sharpsburg, the fighting on McClellan's right was over. This left Lee at liberty to strengthen his imperilled right by bringing troops across the short interior line from his left, which he promptly did. At the same time the last division of his forces (A. P. Hill's), two thousand strong, arrived from Harper's Ferry; and these fresh men, together with those brought over from the left, assumed the offensive, drove Burnside from the crest, and retook the battery.

Here ended the battle; not because the day was closed or any apparent victory had been achieved, but because both sides had been so severely punished that neither was inclined to resume the fight. Every man of Lee's force had been actively engaged, but not more than two-thirds of McClellan's. The reason why the Confederate army was not annihilated or captured must be plain to any intelligent reader. It was not because Lee, with his army divided for three days in presence of his enemy, had not invited destruction; nor because the seventy thousand, acting in concert, could not have overwhelmed the forty thousand even when they were united. It was not for any lack of courage, or men, or arms, or opportunity, or daylight. It was simply because the attack was made in driblets, instead of by heavy masses on both wings simultaneously; so that at any point of actual contact Lee was almost always able to present as strong a force as that which assailed him. In a letter written to General Franklin the evening before the battle of South Mountain, General McClellan, having then received the lost despatch that revealed Lee's plans and situation, set forth with much particularity his purposes for the next few days, and summed up by saying: "My general idea is to cut the enemy in two and beat him in detail." No plan could have been better or more scientific; but curiously enough, when it came to actual battle General McClellan's conduct was the exact opposite of this. By unnecessary and unaccountable delays he first gave the enemy time to concentrate his forces, and then made his attacks piecemeal, so that the enemy could fight him in detail.

Whatever had been the straggling on the march, none of the commanders complained of any flinching after the fight began. They saw veterans taking, relinquishing, and retaking ground that was soaked with blood and covered with dead; and they saw green regiments "go to their graves like beds." There had been a call for more troops by the National Administration after the battles on the peninsula, which was responded to with the greatest alacrity, men of all classes rushing to the recruiting-offices to enroll themselves. It was a common thing for a regiment of a thousand men to be raised, equipped, and sent to the front in two or three weeks. Some of those new regiments were suddenly introduced to the realities of war at Antietam, and suffered frightfully. For example, the Sixteenth Connecticut, which there fired its muskets for the first time, went in with 940 men, and lost 432. On the other side, Lawton's Confederate brigade went in with 1,150 men, and lost 554, including five out of its six regimental commanders, while Hays's lost 323 out of 550, including every regimental commander and all the staff officers. An officer of the Fiftieth Georgia Regiment said in a published letter: "The Fiftieth were posted in a narrow path, washed out into a regular gully, and were fired into by the enemy from the front, rear, and left flank. The men stood their ground nobly, returning their fire until nearly two-thirds of their number lay dead or wounded in that lane. Out of 210 carried into the fight, over 125 were killed and wounded in less than twenty minutes. The slaughter was horrible! When ordered to retreat, I could hardly extricate myself from the dead and wounded around me. A man could have walked from the head of our line to the foot on their bodies. The survivors of the regiment retreated very orderly back to where General Anderson's brigade rested. The brigade suffered terribly. James's South Carolina battalion was nearly annihilated. The Fiftieth Georgia lost nearly all their commissioned officers." The First South Carolina Regiment, which went into the fight with 106 men, had but fifteen men and one officer when it was over. A Confederate battery, being largely disabled by the work of sharp-shooters, was worked for a time, at the crisis of the fight, by General Longstreet and members of his staff acting as gunners. Three generals on each side were killed. Those on the National side were Generals Joseph K. Mansfield, Israel B. Richardson, and Isaac P. Rodman; those on the Confederate side were Generals George B. Anderson, L. O'B. Branch, and William E. Starke. The wounded generals included on the one side Hooker, Sedgwick, Dana, Crawford, and Meagher; on the other side, R. H. Anderson, Wright, Lawton, Armistead, Ripley, Ransom, Rhodes, Gregg, and Toombs.

General McClellan reported his entire loss at 12,469, of whom 2,010 were killed. General Lee reported his total loss in the Maryland battles as 1,567 killed and 8,724 wounded, saying nothing of the missing; but the figures given by his division commanders foot up 1,842 killed, 9,399 wounded, and 2,292 missing—total, 13,533. If McClellan's report is correct, even this statement falls short of the truth. He says: "About 2,700 of the enemy's dead were counted and buried upon the battlefield of Antietam. A portion of their dead had been previously buried by the enemy." If the wounded were in the usual proportion, this would indicate Confederate casualties to the extent of at least 15,000 on that field alone. But whatever the exact number may have been, the battle was bloody enough to produce mourning and lamentation from Maine to Louisiana. It was the bloodiest day's work of the whole war. The battles of Shiloh, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Wilderness, and Spottsylvania were each more costly, but none of them was fought in a single day.