Down where Lee stood watching, the battle blazed up with extraordinary rapidity. The men who had been held in leash so long by McClellan were anxious to get at the foe. Burnside's brigades charged directly for one of the stone bridges, and Lee, watching from his bowlder, hurried the Southern troops forward to meet them. Again the Northern artillery proved its worth. The great batteries sent a hurricane of death over the heads of the men in blue and toward the town of Sharpsburg. Despite all the valor of the Southern veterans, the heavy masses of the Union men forced their way across the bridge to the peninsula. Lee's batteries and infantry regiments could not hold them. It seemed now that Lee's own force was to be destroyed and that victory was won, but fortune had in store yet another of those dazzling recoveries for the South. At the very moment when Lee seemed overwhelmed, A. P. Hill, as valiant and vigorous as the other Hill, arrived with the last of the Harper's Ferry veterans, having marched seventeen miles, almost on a dead run. They crossed the Potomac at a ford below the mouth of the Antietam, then crossed the Antietam on the lowest bridge back into the peninsula, and without waiting for orders rushed upon the Northern flank. The attack was so sudden and fierce that Burnside's entire division reeled back. Here, as in the north, the face of the battle had been changed in an instant. Not only could Colonel Winchester mourn over those lost two days, but he could mourn over every lost half hour in them. Had Hill come a half hour later Lee's whole center would have been swept away. Lee and his great lieutenants, Jackson and Longstreet, were still confident. Despite the disparity in numbers they had beaten back every attack. A. P. Hill was a man who corresponded in fire and impetuosity to Hooker. The number of his veterans was not so great, but their rush was so fierce, and they struck at such a critical time that the Northern brigades were unable to hold the ground they had gained. More troops from the dying battle on the north came to Lee's aid, and every attempt of McClellan to take Sharpsburg failed. Dick, fighting with his comrades on the north, knew little of what was passing on the peninsula in the south, but he became conscious after a while that the appalling fury of the battle around him was diminishing. He had not seen such a desperate hand-to-hand battle at either Shiloh or the Second Manassas, and they were terrible enough. But he felt as the Confederates themselves had felt, that the Southern army was fighting for existence. But as the day waned, Dick believed that they would never be able to crush Jackson. The Union troops always returned to the attack, but the men in gray never failed to meet it, and actual physical exhaustion overwhelmed the combatants. Pennington went down, and Dick dragged him to his feet, fearing that he was wounded mortally, but found that his comrade had merely dropped through weakness.