division made its attack. We saw
them distinctly on the hither side of the farm buildings, upon the
open ground, considerably nearer to us than the Dunker Church or the
East Wood. In number we took them to be a corps. The place, the
circumstances, all fix it beyond controversy that they were French's
men or French's and Richardson's. No others fought on that part of
the field until Franklin went to their assistance at noon or later.
The incident of their advance and the explosion of the caisson was
illustrated by the pencil of Mr. Forbes on the spot, and was placed
by him at the time Franklin's head of column was approaching from
the direction of Rohrersville, which was about ten o'clock.
[Footnote: Forbes's sketch is reproduced in "Battles and Leaders of
the Civil War," vol. ii. p. 647, and is of historical importance in
connection with the facts stated above.]

It seems now very clear that about ten o'clock in the morning was
the great crisis in this battle. The sudden and complete rout of
Sedgwick's division was not easily accounted for, and, with
McClellan's theory of the enormous superiority of Lee's numbers, it
looked as if the Confederate general had massed overwhelming forces
on our right. Sumner's notion that Hooker's corps was utterly
dispersed was naturally accepted, and McClellan limited his hopes to
holding on at the East Wood and the Poffenberger hill, where
Hooker's batteries were massed and supported by the troops that had
been rallied there. Franklin's corps, as it came on the field, was
detained to support the threatened right centre, and McClellan
determined to help it further by a demonstration upon the extreme
left by the Ninth Corps. At this time, therefore, he gave his order
to Burnside to cross the Antietam and attack the enemy, thus
creating a diversion in favor of our hard-pressed right. His
preliminary report of the battle (dated October 16, 1862) explicitly
states that the order to Burnside to attack was "communicated to him
at ten o'clock A.M." This exactly agrees with the time stated by
Burnside in his official report, and would ordinarily be quite
conclusive. [Footnote: See note, p. 334, _ante_. C. W., pt. i. p.
41; Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 31, 416.]

In the book published in 1864 as his official report of his whole
military career, McClellan says he ordered Burnside to make this
attack at eight o'clock. The circumstances under which his final
published statements were mad