other of those
dazzling recoveries for the South. At the very moment when Lee seemed
overwhelmed, A. P. Hill, as valiant and vigorous as the other Hill,
arrived with the last of the Harper's Ferry veterans, having marched
seventeen miles, almost on a dead run. They crossed the Potomac at a
ford below the mouth of the Antietam, then crossed the Antietam on the
lowest bridge back into the peninsula, and without waiting for orders
rushed upon the Northern flank.

The attack was so sudden and fierce that Burnside's entire division
reeled back. Here, as in the north, the face of the battle had been
changed in an instant. Not only could Colonel Winchester mourn over
those lost two days, but he could mourn over every lost half hour in
them. Had Hill come a half hour later Lee's whole center would have been
swept away.

Lee and his great lieutenants, Jackson and Longstreet, were still
confident. Despite the disparity in numbers they had beaten back every
attack.

A. P. Hill was a man who corresponded in fire and impetuosity to Hooker.
The number of his veterans was not so great, but their rush was so
fierce, and they struck at such a critical time that the Northern
brigades were unable to hold the ground they had gained. More troops
from the dying battle on the north came to Lee's aid, and every attempt
of McClellan to take Sharpsburg failed.

Dick, fighting with his comrades on the north, knew little of what was
passing on the peninsula in the south, but he became conscious after a
while that the appalling fury of the battle around him was diminishing.
He had not seen such a desperate hand-to-hand battle at either Shiloh or
the Second Manassas, and they were terrible enough. But he felt as the
Confederates themselves had felt, that the Southern army was fighting
for existence.

But as the day waned, Dick believed that they would never be able to
crush Jackson. The Union troops always returned to the attack, but the
men in gray never failed to meet it, and actual physical exhaustion
overwhelmed the combatants. Pennington went down, and Dick dragged him
to his feet, fearing that he was wounded mortally, but found that his
comrade had merely dropped through weakness.

The long day of heat and strife neared its close. Neither Northern
tenacity nor Southern fire could win, and the sun began to droop over
the field piled so thickly with bodies. As the twilight crept up the
battle sank in all parts of the peninsula. McClellan