The incident of their advance and the explosion of the caisson was
illustrated by the pencil of Mr. Forbes on the spot, and was placed
by him at the time Franklin's head of column was approaching from
the direction of Rohrersville, which was about ten o'clock.
[Footnote: Forbes's sketch is reproduced in "Battles and Leaders of
the Civil War," vol. ii. p. 647, and is of historical importance in
connection with the facts stated above.]
It seems now very clear that about ten o'clock in the morning was
the great crisis in this battle. The sudden and complete rout of
Sedgwick's division was not easily accounted for, and, with
McClellan's theory of the enormous superiority of Lee's numbers, it
looked as if the Confederate general had massed overwhelming forces
on our right. Sumner's notion that Hooker's corps was utterly
dispersed was naturally accepted, and McClellan limited his hopes to
holding on at the East Wood and the Poffenberger hill, where
Hooker's batteries were massed and supported by the troops that had
been rallied there. Franklin's corps, as it came on the field, was
detained to support the threatened right centre, and McClellan
determined to help it further by a demonstration upon the extreme
left by the Ninth Corps.
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