Antietam
Dead lie three deep for half a mile
5,000 soldiers slaughtered in Sunken Lane
The fighting shifts half a mile to the south at Sunken Road, a hard clay road that had beeen worn down through the years by rain and wagons. It was used primarily by farmers who wanted to bypass Sharpsburg.
By the end of the day it would have a new name: Bloody Lane.
From his headquarters over at the Pry house, Union General George B. McClellan doesn't realize until later that this road has six angles, and that it's all one road. He thinks it's several different roads, Bearss said.
That shows how detached McClellan was from the battlefield that day, Bearss said. Confederate General Robert E. Lee knew it was one road that zigzagged toward the Boonsboro Pike (Md. 34).
"Lee's command post is generally where the National Cemetery is today," said Edwin C. Bearss, the former chief historian for the National Park Service. "Lee circulated the battlefield. Lee kept his hand on the pulse of the battle."
Fighting at Sunken Road began shortly before 10 a.m.
That's when Union Major Gen. William H. French's division, which had been separated by accident from Sedgwick before the death march into the West Woods, arrives at the road.
Waiting for them are about 2,600 Confederate troops under the command of rebel Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill. They had strengthened their rifle trench for the oncoming battle by throwing up a breastwork of fence rails.
French, known as "Old Blink-Eye" for his nervous habit of batting his eyes when he talked, presses forward with 10 regiments of more than 5,000 men.
Soon, the troops, which includes the famous Irish Brigade, clash in a raging fight that lasts more than three hours.
French, supported by about 4,000 men from Union Maj. Gen. Israel B. Richardson's division, tries to drive the Southerners back.
Several volley and bayonet advances by the Union are repelled by the entrenched rebels with heavy casualties.
Finally, the outnumbered Confederates are worn down.
Some Union troops are able to flank the road in a deadly manuever known in military terms as an enfilade. The federals fire down on the Confederate entrenchment from a side angle. The dead quickly pile up in the trench, lying three deep for half a mile.
The surviving rebels flee as the Union soldiers surge forward, stepping over the dead Confederates along the way. They chase the rebels through Henry Piper's cornfield.
Determined to stop the advancing Union troop, Confederate Major Generals Hill and James Longstreet helped line up cannons along a ridge.
A successful thrust against the Confederte center could have split Lee's army in half and doomed it.
"Longstreet has a sore foot, wearing a bedroom slipper on one foot, a boot on the other," Bearss said. "(But) he helps man artillery. Hill helps man artillery. So with artillery they hold the breach."
The Confederates even try a counterattack, but it's halted. The fighting along Sunken Road finally ceases from confusion and exhaustion on both sides. Casualties totaled about 5,000.
Antietam
At the bridge, rebels take a stand
The fighting now moves further south to a 125-foot-long bridge spanning the Antietam Creek. It was called the Lower Bridge or Rohrback Bridge then, but after this day it will become known as Burnside Bridge.
Union General George B. McClellan would say later that he kept prodding Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside for most of the morning to storm the Lower Bridge and the heights beyond to inflict heavy damage to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's right flank and cut off his retreat to Virginia.
Burnside would claim, however, that the orders to march his 12,000 troops and 50 cannons were sent too late.
At 10 a.m., Burnside had split his troops. One division is sent downstream to cross a ford. The rest stay behind to storm the bridge.
Crossing the bridge proves to be a monumental task. On the other side are about 400 Georgian sharpshooters posted atop a steep, wooded bluff. They are backed up by a mere 2,000 rebels who distance themselves from the bridge.
Although Burnside's force outnumbers the Confederates more than 5-to-1, it takes three hours and two disastrous assaults to finally cross.
By 1 p.m., the federals finally gain a foothold on the western bank and the rebels retreat.
But Burnside has lost valuable time. Another two hours go by before his entire corps crosses the bridge and begins marching toward Sharpsburg.
"By this time the situation looks bleak for the Confederates," said Edwin C. Bearss, the former chief historian for the National Park Service.
Between 12:30 p.m. and 1 p.m., Confederate Major Gen. A.P. Hill, wearing the red flannel shirt he always wore into battle, arrives at Sharpsburg and reports to Lee that 3,000 of his men left Harpers Ferry at 7:30 that morning. They were crossing the Potomac River some three miles away.
By 2:30 p.m., Lee is nervous. He looks to the south and can see Burnside's men approaching out of the valley at Antietam Creek.
"Unless troops arrive, the Army of Northern Virginia is doomed," Bearss said.
"He suddenly looks out to the south and west and he can see troops coming."
"He calls to one of his officers and he asked him to train his glasses on them," Bearss said. "He trains his glasses on the flags and reports they are Confederate flags, not United States flags. Lee knows Hill is at hand."
Hill, who covered the 17 miles from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg in seven hours, slams into the Union's left flank.
The federals suffer casualties of about 20 percent, but there are still more than 8,500 troops -- about twice the number of Confederates.
Yet, Burnisde scrambles back to the heights above the bridge, saving Lee from disaster.
The Union still has one more chance to crush the rebels, but blows it, Bearss said.
Late in the day, a Union officer suggests to McClellan that they stage a head-on attack at Lee's center in the vicinity of Sunken Raod, the weakest part of the Confederate's battle line.
Union Major Gen. James Longstreet, who helped lead the Confederate forces at Sunken Road, later wrote that one last attack by the Union with 10,000 or more men could have crushed Lee's army.
The Union still had 20,000 soliers in reserve, soldiers who had seen little or no action all day.
McClellan, who by this time is stunned by the magnitude of the losses, still seems somewhat interested in one last strike.
McClellan turns to Major Gen. Fitz John Porter for advice. Porter, not anxious to mix it up with the rebels, says: "Remember General, I command the last reserve of the last Army of the Republic."
McClellan, who always thought he was outnumbered, scraps the attack. He worries a Union loss at Sharpsburg could enable the Confederates to march unmolested to Washington, D.C., or Baltimore.
"That was rather dramatic because the Army of the Potomac is not the last Army of the Republic," Bearss said. "And of course you can imagine a man of McClellan's temperament when he hears something like that from the general that he has the most confidence in. There will be no attack."
By 5:30 p.m., nearly all of the fighting has ended.
The sounds of rifle and cannonfire now give way to the cries and moans of thousands of dead and wounded soldiers scattered over the 12-square-mile battlefield.
The next day, both sides call a truce to take care of their dead and wounded.
McClellan makes preparations to attack on the morning of Sept. 19. But as soon as night falls on the evening of the 18th, Lee's battered army slips across the Potomac River at Pack Horse Ford near Shepherdstown, W.Va.
The Confederate's first invasion of the North has ended in retreat.
It is the first of a series of rebel losses over the next three weeks.
Historians say the South's biggest threat against the North crested with Antietam.
"The tide rolls on westward as the Confederates pull back," Bearss said. "Never again will the Confederate Army throughout the 1,000-mile front be so poised, so close to victory as they were on that 17th day of September 1862."