am ford, half a mile
below the Burnside bridge. Sturgis's division was placed on the
sides of the road leading to the stone bridge just mentioned.
Willcox's was put in reserve in rear of Sturgis. My own was divided,
Scammon's brigade going with Rodman, and Crook's going with Sturgis.
Crook was ordered to take the advance in crossing the bridge in case
we should be ordered to attack. This selection was made by Burnside
himself as a compliment to the division for the vigor of its assault
at South Mountain. While we were moving we heard Hooker's guns far
off on the right and front, and the cannonade continued an hour or
more after it became dark.

What, then, was the plan of battle of which the first step was this
movement of Hooker's? McClellan's dispositions on the 15th were made
whilst Franklin's corps was still absent, and, under the orders he
received, was likely to be so for a day at least. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 29.] Sumner's two corps had
been treated as the centre of the army in hand, Burnside's had been
divided by putting Hooker on the extreme right and the Ninth Corps
on the extreme left, and Porter's corps was in reserve. This looked
as if a general attack in front with this organization of the army
were intended. But the more McClellan examined the enemy's position
the less inclined he was to attack the centre. He could cross the
bridge there and on the right, and deploy; but the gentle slopes
rising toward Sharpsburg were swept by formidable batteries and
offered no cover to advancing troops. The enemy's infantry was
behind stone fences and in sunken roads, whilst ours must advance
over the open. Lee's right rested upon the wooded bluffs above the
Burnside bridge, where it could only be approached by a small head
of column charging along the narrow roadway under a concentrated
fire of cannon and small arms. No point of attack on the whole field
was so unpromising as this. Then, as Jackson was still at Harper's
Ferry, there was the contingency of an attack in rear if anything
less than the mass of our army were pushed beyond Lee's right.

On our right, in front of Hooker, it was easy to turn the
Confederate line. The road from Keedysville through Smoketown to the
Hagerstown turnpike crossed the Antietam in a hollow, out of the
line of fire, and a march around Lee's left flank could be made
almost wholly under cover. The topography of the field therefore
suggested a flank attack fro