“Why doesn’t the fool use a ford!” McClellan protested.

But no one was certain where the ford was and the general’s map was no help. McClellan, in desperation, turned on Thorne. “Go, show them! Hurry, man!” That, at least, got rid of Thorne, whose baleful gaze had unsettled the general all morning. “Tell them to hurry!” he shouted after the colonel, then he looked back to the open fields across the creek where the battle had become so inexplicably fierce. A message had arrived telling of a trench-like lane that was holding up the advance, but McClellan was not at all sure why his army was even attacking the hidden obstacle. He had not ordered any such assault. He had intended for his attacks to hit hard in the north and, once that enemy flank was turned, to harry the rebels from the south before advancing to glorious victory in the center, but somehow the Northern army had become embroiled in the center long before the enemy’s flanks had collapsed. Not only embroiled, but, judging from the white smoke that boiled up from the fields, the center was fighting as hard as men had ever fought.

It was hard because the rebels were in the sunken road, and from its lip they were turning the fields of newly sown winter wheat into croplands of the dead. Thousands of men, bereft of orders when they crossed the creek, marched toward that battle and one by one the brigades went forward until the rebel fire ripped their ranks apart. One Northern battalion was defeated before it even came within sight of the rebels, let alone within reach of their rifles, for, as it was marching past a spread of farm buildings, a rebel shell tore into a line of beehives and the enraged insects turned on the nearest targets. Men scattered in frantic disarray while more shells plunged blindly into their panicked ranks. Northern guns were taking up the fight, dropping shells over the heads of their infantry at the rebels in the road, while from beyond the creek the heavy Parrott guns fired at the rebel rear to smash the wagons trying to bring ammunition to the road’s defenders.

It was nearing lunchtime. In the kitchen of the Pry farm the cooks readied a cold collation for the general as telegraphers sent a message to Washington. “We are in the midst of the most terrible battle of the war,” McClellan reported, “perhaps of history. Thus far it looks well, but I have great odds against me. Hurry up all the troops possible.” The twenty thousand men of his reserve, who could have given him victory if he had hurried them across the creek and sent them to the Dunker church, played horseshoes in the meadows. Some wrote letters, some slept. Theirs was a lazy day in hot sunlight, far from the blood and sweat and stink of the men who fought and died across the creek.

While to the south, still far to the south, the rebel Light Division marched toward the guns.