Lee gathered his two wings together on the outskirts of Sharpsburg, along Antietam Creek. There he determined to fight it out, depending on McClellan’s inherent timidity to compensate for the nearly 2-to-1 advantage the Union commander had in troops. The Battle of Antietam had opened at dawn on the 17th.

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At 10 a.m., Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, commanding McClellan’s left wing, received the order to assault Lee’s right. The movement would necessitate taking the 125-foot-long Rohrbach Bridge, a triple-arched stone span crossing Antietam Creek between two steep banks. Within an hour, 350 Georgians, under the command of Colonel Henry L. “Old Rock” Benning, repelled two assaults by Brig. Gen. James Nagle’s brigade to storm the bridge.

While Nagle made his second futile charge against the entrenched Confederates on the west bank of the creek, Sturgis placed Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero’s brigade along the creek bank south of the bridge. Three times, Sturgis ordered the former New York City dance instructor to take the bridge along Nagle’s line of approach.

Ferrero formed his brigade in a cornfield near a bend in the creek, immediately west of the Lower Bridge Road. The 51st Pennsylvania was in front, followed by the 51st New York, 21st Massachusetts and the untried 35th Massachusetts. “It is General Burnside’s special request that the two Fifty-firsts take the bridge,” Ferrerro shouted. “Will you do it?”

Corporal Lewis Patterson of Company 1, 51st Pennsylvania, a known teetotaler, shattered the ensuing silence with, “Will you give us our whiskey, Colonel, if we take it?” (The Pennsylvanians had had their liquor ration cut for misconduct on the march.)

“Yes, by God!” cried Ferrero. “You shall have as much as you want, if you take the bridge.” He added that he would see to it if he had to send back to New York to get the whiskey and pay for it out of his own pocket.

Tension rippled through the line as the brigade moved out. The 51st Pennsylvania, following the diagonal approach used by Nagle’s men earlier, passed northeast behind the 9th New Hampshire toward the right rear of the twin knolls overlooking the creek and bridge. The 51st New York stayed in place while the smaller 21st Massachusetts filed right into the plowed field the New Hampshire men had formerly occupied.

The Massachusetts regiment behaved poorly while moving out. Singly and in small groups, rattled soldiers rose up sporadically from their line and shot wildly through the brush toward the opposite creek bank. Lieutenant John W. Hudson, one of Ferrero’s aides, later observed wryly that the men were firing “by guess,” and that some had gotten back “a good rifle ball to pay for their wisdom.”

Ferrero posted the 51st New York at right angles to the 21st Massachusetts in the field facing the bridge, then he and his staff moved behind the first knoll to direct the assault of the 51st Pennsylvania. Only the 35th Massachusetts remained undeployed, standing in the middle of the road at the creek bend.

Ferrero ordered Hudson to send for the regiment. While the green troops of the 35th Massachusetts double-quicked obliquely to the northeast, the 51st Pennsylvania made its move toward Rohrbach Bridge.

Hudson, who had been watching the 21st Massachusetts waste a good quantity of ammunition on the brush-covered western bank, turned his head to the right as a half-hearted cheer reverberated from the crest of the knolls. The already exhausted Pennsylvanians walked and staggered by platoons toward the creek. Tired or not, however, the hard-drinking bunch dove for cover behind the bridge abutments and the stone wall that paralleled the creek north of the bridge.

Simultaneously, the 48th Pennsylvania made for the bridge with a small part of the 6th New Hampshire, both units from Nagle’s brigade. All four regiments started to pour a terrific fire into the opposite bank. They could see the Rebels, in pairs and threes, dodging about through the smoke to escape their bullets.

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