one o'clock
French and Richardson charged the Confederate position with reckless valor . A sunken road lay across the field over which they rushed . For four terrible hours the men in grey held this sunken road until it was piled with their bodies , and when the last charge of the resistless blue lines took it , they found but three hundred living men who had been holding it against the assaults of five thousand -- and `` Bloody Lane '' became immortal in American history . It was now one o'clock and the men had fought almost continuously since the sun rose . The infantry fire slowly slackened and ceased in the Union right and centre . Burnside , who held the Union left , was ordered to advance by the capture of the stone bridge over the Antietam . But a single brigade under General Toombs guarding this bridge held an army at bay and it was one o'clock before the bridge was captured .