Many of the regiments on either side had lost more than half their number and would lose more.

They were human beings, and even the unwounded began to collapse from mere physical exhaustion.

Some dropped to the ground from sheer inability to stand, and as they lay there, they heard to the south and west the rolling thunder that told of Burnside's belated advance upon the Antietam.
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.