Other men died on the lower creek, where every effort to take the Rohrbach Bridge had failed. The corpses lay like a barrier on the east bank and the very sight of so many dead served as a deterrent to the waiting Yankee battalions, who knew their turn must come to assault the deadly passage. Thorne came there too, and came with the authority of his enemy McClellan. He found General Burnside on the hill overlooking the bridge. “Where the hell are the guns?” Thorne snarled.

General Burnside, astonished at being addressed in such a peremptory fashion, sounded defensive. “Waiting to cross,” he explained, gesturing toward a lane behind the hill where the guns were sheltering.

“You need them up here,” Thorne insisted.

“But there are no roads,” an aide protested.

“Then make a road!” Thorne shouted. “Get a thousand men if you have to, but drag the damn things up here. Now! Two guns, twelve-pounders, canister and case shot only. And for Christ’s sake, hurry!”

South of the Potomac, marching in swirls of dust under the merciless sun, the Light Division was also being chivvied and harried to keep moving, to keep moving, always to keep moving toward the sound of the killing.

While on the Pry house lawn General McClellan enjoyed his lunch.

TWO NAPOLEONS WERE FETCHED TO THE SUMMIT OF the hill above the Rohrbach Bridge and their presence turned the battle for the crossing. The very first blast of canister whipped a half-dozen sharpshooters out of their hiding places in the tops of the trees on the western bank, and left others dangling lifelessly from the ropes that had held them safe to the branches. The second and third discharges of canister decimated the rebel defenders in their rifle pits.

A Pennsylvania battalion, promised a keg of whiskey if they took the bridge, charged forward. There were still enough rebels to kill the leading ranks, but the men behind leaped over their dead and stormed onto the stone roadway that arched across the creek. More Yankees followed, jostling between the balustrades as they hurried to carry their revenge to the rebels, who scrambled hurriedly out of their pits and up over the hill.

Downstream, at Snaveley’s Ford, another brigade at last made the crossing to the western bank and the Yankees were finally loose in Lee’s rear, but it was one thing to be across the creek and quite another to form the battalions and brigades into their columns. Guns had to be fetched over the creek, disarray had to be straightened, and the ground had to be reconnoitered. Thorne cursed McClellan for keeping the army’s cavalry at headquarters where it served no purpose. If the cavalry could have been unleashed here, behind the rebel army, he could have struck panic into Lee’s men, but the Northern cavalry was two miles away and General Burnside would not advance his infantry until all was ready. A handful of rebel skirmishers harried the Northerners as they laboriously marched unit after unit across the river. Thorne raged at Burnside for speed, but Burnside would not be hurried. “The day’s young yet,” he said, indicating the brevity of the shadows, “and there’s no need for impetuosity. We shall do it properly. Besides,” Burnside went on as though his next point was irrefutable, “we can’t attack till the infantry is resupplied with ammunition. Their pouches are empty, Thorne, empty. Men can’t fight with empty pouches.”