Chapter X. Antietam

Dick arose at the first flash of dawn. All the men of the Winchester regiment were on their feet. The officers had sent their horses to the rear, knowing that they would be worse than useless among the rocks and in the forest in front of them.

A mist arising from the two rivers floated over everything, but Dick knew that the battle was at hand. The Northern trumpets were calling, and in the haze in front of them the Southern trumpets were calling, too.

The fog lifted, and then Dick saw the Confederate lines stretched through forest, rock and ploughed ground. Near the front was a rail fence with lines of skirmishers crouching behind it. As the last bit of mist rolled away the fence became a twisted line of flame. The fire of the Southern skirmishers crashed in the Union ranks, and the Northern skirmishers, pressing in on the right replied with a fire equally swift and deadly. Then came the roar of the Southern cannon, well aimed and tearing gaps in the Union lines.

"Its time to charge!" exclaimed Pennington. "It scares me, standing still under the enemy's fire, but I forget about it when I'm rushing forward."

The Winchester regiment did not move for the present, although the battle thickened and deepened about it. The fire of the Confederate cannon was heavy and terrible, yet the Union masses on either wing had begun to press forward. Hooker hurled in two divisions, one under Meade, and one under Doubleday, and another came up behind to support them. The western men were here and remembering how they had been decimated at Manassas, they fought for revenge as well as patriotism.

At last the Winchester regiment in the center moved forward also. They struck heavy ploughed land, and as they struggled through it they met a devastating fire. It seemed to Dick that the last of the little regiment was about to be blown away, but as he looked through the fire and smoke he saw Warner and Pennington still by his side, and the colonel a little ahead, waving his sword and shouting orders that could not be heard.

Dick saw shining far before him the white walls of the Dunkard church, and he was seized with a frantic desire to reach it. It seemed to him if they could get there that the victory would be won. Yet they made little progress. The cannon facing them fairly spouted fire, and thousands of expert riflemen in front of them lying behind ridges and among rocks and bushes sent shower after shower of leaden balls that swept away the front ranks of the charging Union lines. The shell and the shrapnel and the grape and the round shot made a great noise, but the little bullets coming in swarms like bees were the true messengers of death.

Jackson and four thousand of his veterans formed the thin line between the Dunkard church and the Antietam. They were ragged and worn by war, but they were the children of victory, led by a man of genius, and they felt equal to any