Cutts's and Jones's battalions of the reserve artillery
were ordered to report to Hill for the protection of the left of the
Confederate line, and gave him in all the sixty or seventy guns
which he speaks of in his report, and which have puzzled several
writers who have described the battle. Whenever our troops showed
themselves as they marched into position, they were saluted from
shotted cannon, and the numerous batteries that were developed on
the long line of hills before us no doubt did much to impress
McClellan with the belief that he had the great bulk of Lee's army
before him.
The value of time was one of the things McClellan never understood.
He should have been among the first in the saddle at every step in
the campaign after he was in possession of Lee's order of the 9th,
and should have infused energy into every unit in his army. Instead
of making his reconnoissance at three in the afternoon of Monday, it
might have been made at ten in the morning, and the battle could
have been fought before night, if, indeed, Lee had not promptly
retreated when support from Jackson would thus have become
impossible. Or if McClellan had pushed boldly for the bridge at the
mouth of the Antietam, nothing but a precipitate retreat by Lee
could have prevented the interposition of the whole National army
between the separated wings of the Confederates.
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