When the first
roar of McClellan's artillery opened fire in the grey dawn, they hurled
their shells against less than thirty-seven thousand men in the
Confederate lines. The Union commander had massed eighty-seven thousand
tried veterans behind his guns.
The President received the first news of the battle with a thrill of
exultation. That Lee's ragged, footsore army hemmed in thus with
Antietam Creek on one side and the broad, sweeping Potomac on the other
would be crushed and destroyed he could not doubt for a moment.
As the sun rose above the eastern hills a gleaming dull-red ball of
blood, the Federal infantry under Hooker swept into action and drove
the Confederates from the open field into a dense woods, where they
rallied, stood and mowed his men down with deadly aim. Hooker called for
aid and General Mansfield rushed his corps into action, falling dead at
the head of his men as they deployed in line of battle.
For two hours the sullen conflict raged, blue and grey lines surging in
death-locked embrace until the field was strewn with the dead, the dying
and the wounded.
Hooker was wounded. Sedgwick's corps swept into the field under a sharp
artillery fire and reached the shelter of the woods only to find
themselves caught in a trap between two Confederate brigades massed at
this point.
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