The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis

Dick, who had slept soundly through the night, was up like all the others at dawn and he beheld the Southern army before them, yet not moving, as if uncertain what to do. He felt again that thrill of courage and resolution, and, born of it, was the belief that despite the first day’s defeat the chances were yet even. These western youths were of a tough and enduring stock, as he had seen at Shiloh and Perryville, and the battle was not always to him who won the first day. A long time passed and there was no firing.

“Not so eager to rush us as they were,” said Warner. “It’s a mathematical certainty that an army that’s not running away is not whipped, and that certainty is patent to our Southern friends also. But to descend from mathematics to poetry, a great poet says that he who runs away will live to fight another day. I will transpose and otherwise change that, making it to read: He who does not run away may make the other fellow unable to fight another day.”

“You talk too much like a schoolmaster, George,” said Pennington.

“The most important business of a school teacher is to teach the young idea how to shoot, and lately I’ve had ample chances to give such instruction.”

It was not that they were frivolous, but like most other lads in the army, they had grown into the habit of teasing one another, which was often a relief to teaser as well as teased.

“I think, sir,” said Dick to Colonel Winchester, “that some of our troops are moving.”

He was looking through his glasses toward the left, where he saw a strong Union force, with banners waving, advancing toward Bragg’s right.

“Ah, that is well done!” exclaimed Colonel Winchester. “If our men break through there we’ll cut Bragg off from Murfreesborough and his ammunition and supplies.”

They did not break through, but they maintained a long and vigorous battle, while the centers and other wings of the two armies did not stir. But it became evident to Dick later in the afternoon that a mighty movement was about to begin. His glasses told him so, and the thrill of expectation confirmed it.

Bragg was preparing to hurl his full strength upon Rosecrans. Breckinridge, who would have been the President of the United States, had not the Democrats divided, was to lead it. This division of five brigades had formed under cover of a wood. On its flank was a battery of ten guns and two thousand of the fierce riders of the South under Wharton and Pegram. Dick felt instinctively that Colonel Kenton with his regiment was there in the very thick of it.

Dick’s regiment with Negley’s strong Kentucky brigade, which had stopped the panic and rout the day before, had now recrossed Stone River and were posted strongly behind it. Ahead of them were two small brigades with some cannon, and Rosecrans himself was with this force just as Breckinridge’s powerful division emerged into the open and began its advance upon the Union lines.

“Now, lads, stand firm!” exclaimed Colonel Winchester. “This is the crisis.”

The colonel had measured the situation with a cool eye and brain. He knew that the regiments on the other side of the river were worn down by the day’s fighting and would not stand long. But he believed that the Kentuckians around him, and the men from beyond the Ohio would not yield an inch. They were largely Kentuckians also coming against them.

The rolling fire burst from the Southern front, and the cannon on their flanks crashed heavily. Then their infantry came forward fast, and with a wild shout and rush the two thousand cavalry on their flanks charged. As Colonel Winchester had expected, the two weak brigades, although Rosecrans in person was among them, gave way, retreated rapidly to the little river and crossed it.

The Confederates came on in swift pursuit, but Negley’s Kentuckians and the other Union men, standing fast, received them with a tremendous volley. It was at short range, and their bullets crashed through the crowded Southern ranks. The Winchesters were on the flank of the defenders, where they could get a better view, and although they also were firing as fast as they could reload and pull the trigger, they saw the great column pause and then reel.

Rosecrans, who had fallen back with the retreating brigades, instantly noted the opportunity. Here, a general who received too little reward from the nation, and to whom popular esteem did not pay enough tribute, rushed two brigades across Stone River and hurled them with all their weight upon the Southern flank. Sixty cannon posted on the hillocks just behind the river poured an awful fire upon the Southern column. The fire from front and flank was so tremendous that the Southerners, veterans as they were, gave way. The men who had held victory in their hands felt it slipping from their grasp.

“They waver! They retreat!” shouted Colonel Winchester. “Up, boys, and at ‘em!”

The whole Union force, led by its heroic generals, rushed forward, crossed the river and joined in the charge. The two thousand Southern cavalry were driven off by a fire that no horsemen could withstand. The division of Breckinridge, although fighting with furious courage, was gradually driven back, and the day closed with the Union army in possession of most of the territory it had lost the day before.

As they lay that night in the damp woods, Dick and his comrades, all of whom had been fortunate enough to escape this time without injury, discussed the battle. For a while they claimed that it was a victory, but they finally agreed that it was a draw. The losses were enormous. Each side had lost about one third of its force.

Rosecrans, raging like a wounded lion, talked of attacking again, but the rains had been so heavy, the roads were so soft and deep in mud that the cannon and the wagons could not be pushed forward.

Bragg retreated four days later from Murfreesborough, and Dick and his comrades therefore claimed a victory, but as the winter was now shutting down cold and hard, Rosecrans remained on the line of Murfreesborough and Nashville.

The Winchester regiment was sent back to Nashville to recuperate and seek recruits for its ranks. Dick and Warner and Pennington felt that their army had done well in the west, but their hopes for the Union were clouded by the news from the east. Lee and Jackson had triumphed again. Burnside, in midwinter, had hurled the gallant Army of the Potomac in vain against the heights of Fredericksburg, and twelve thousand men had fallen for nothing.

“We need a man, a man in the east, even more than in the west,” said Warner.

“He’ll come. I’m sure he’ll come,” said Dick.