With newspaper reports and descriptions as my only source of information, I imagined what Warren had gone through in the days that followed. His orders were to follow Antietam Creek, and cross the Potomac. He must have pursued a course followed by the caravan of supply wagons that had ridden the train as far as they could and then covered the last of the overland terrain by foot. Ragged reinforcements created clouds of dust as they marched along rutted roads while orders were barked from the throats of fellow officers like wild shots fired into the air. Few recruits were available, especially from Maryland where the people had seen soldiers looking more like skeletons or scarecrows, than militia.
How could Warren have anticipated what the men’s’ needs would be? They couldn’t have known until the outcome of the battle what was genuinely needed: train loads of medicines, tourniquets, caskets and manpower to bury the dead for both sides. Frustration and horror were found in a stark statistic —more than 22,000 men died in a single day in the battle that the South called Sharpsburg and the North echoed, Antietam.