A glance southward showed that there was no reason for despair.  Over all the field lay the heavy smoke of a great artillery battle.  From near the Dunkard Church to the bluff overhanging the Antietam, a distance of two miles, battery on battery was in line.  Here were Longstreet’s artillery under Stephen Lee, together with the six-and-twenty guns of Cutts’ reserve battalion, forty-eight guns in all; the divisional batteries of D.H.  Hill, and the Washington artillery of New Orleans,* (* Both D.H.  Hill and the Washington artillery had sixteen guns each.) and in addition to these eighty guns others were in action above the Burnside Bridge.  An array even more formidable crowned the opposite crest; but although the Confederate batteries, opposed by larger numbers and heavier metal, had suffered terribly, both in men and in materiel, yet the infantry, the main strength of the defence, was still intact.* (* “Our artillery,” says General D.H.  Hill, “could not cope with the superior weight, calibre, range, and number of the Yankee guns; hence it ought only to have been used against masses of infantry.  On the contrary, our guns were made to reply to the Yankee guns, and were smashed up or withdrawn before they could be effectually turned against massive columns of attack.”  After Sharpsburg Lee gave orders that there were to be no more ‘artillery duels’ so long as the Confederates fought defensive battles.) The cliffs of the Red Hill, replying to the rolling thunder of near 800 guns, gave back no echo to the sharper crack of musketry.  Save a few skirmishers, who had crossed the Sharpsburg Bridge, not one company of McClellan’s infantry had been sent into action south of the Dunkard Church.  Beyond the Antietam, covering the whole space between the river and the hills, the blue masses were plainly to be seen through the drifting smoke; some so far in the distance that only the flash of steel in the bright sunshine distinguished them from the surrounding woods; others moving in dense columns towards the battle: 

Standards on standards, men on men;
In slow succession still.

But neither by the Sharpsburg nor yet by the Burnside Bridge had a single Federal regiment crossed the stream; Lee’s centre and right were not even threatened, and it was evident his reserves might be concentrated without risk at whatever point he pleased.

Walker’s division was therefore withdrawn from the right, and McLaws, who had reached Sharpsburg shortly after sunrise, was ordered to the front.  G. T. Anderson’s brigade was detached from D.H.  Hill; and the whole force was placed at Jackson’s disposal.  These fresh troops, together with Early’s regiments, not yet engaged, gave 10,000 muskets for the counterstroke, and had Hooker and Mansfield been alone upon the field the Federal right wing would have been annihilated.  But as the Confederate reserves approached the Dunkard Church, Sumner, whom McClellan had ordered to cross Pry’s Bridge with