rey 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