"Oh,
how sleepy I was, but there is no help at such times.
Up I got and in a few moments the head of my division
was moving along an unknown road. We passed a stone
bridge over the Antietam and then branched off into
the fields. Gen. Mansfield and his escort led the
way, but it was so dark and the forests and woods so
deep that I could not follow and was obliged to send
ahead to stop our leaders repeatedly.
After
a weary march we halted in some ploughed ground and I
was told to put my division in column in mass. It
took a long time as I had five new regiments who knew
absolutely nothing of maneuvering. At length about
two o'clock in the morning I got under the corner of
a rail fence, but the pickets in front of us kept
firing and as often as I got asleep Gen. Mansfield
would come along and wake me with some new
directions. At length I got fairly asleep and for two
hours was dead to all sounds or sensations. I shall
not, however, soon forget that night; so dark, so
obscure, so mysterious, so uncertain; with the
occasional rapid volleys of pickets and outposts, the
low, solemn sound of the command as troops came into
position, and withal so sleepy that there was a
half-dreamy sensation about it all; but with a
certain impression that the morrow was to be great
with the future fate of our country. So much
responsibility, so much intense, future anxiety! and
yet I slept as soundly as though nothing was before
me.
At
the first dawn of day the cannon began work. Gen.
Hooker's command was about a mile in front of us and
it was his corps upon which the attack began. By a
common impulse our men stood to arms. They had slept
in ranks and the matter of toilet was not tedious,
nor did we have time to linger over the breakfast
table. My division being in advance, I was ordered to
move up in close column of companies Ñ that is a
company front to each regiment and the other
companies closed up to within six paces. When so
formed a regiment looks like a solid mass. We had not
moved a dozen rods before the shells and round shot
came thick over us and around us. If these had struck
our massed regiments dozens of men would have been
killed by a single shot.
I
had five new regiments without drill or discipline.
Gen. Mansfield was greatly excited. Though an officer
of acknowledged gallantry, he had a very nervous
temperament and a very impatient manner. Feeling that
our heavy masses of raw troops were sadly exposed, I
begged him to let me deploy them in line of battle,
in which the men present but two ranks or rows
instead of twenty, as we were marching, but I could
not move him. He was positive that all the new
regiments would run away. So on we went over ploughed
ground, through cornfields and woods, till the line
of infantry fight began to appear.
It
was evident that Hooker's troops were giving way. His
general officers were hurrying toward us begging for
support in every direction. First one would come from
the right; then over from the center, and then one
urging support for a battery on the left. I had
ridden some what in advance to get some idea of the
field and was standing in the center of a ploughed
field, taking directions from Gen. Hooker and amidst
a very unpleasant shower of bullets, when up rode a
general officer begging for immediate assistance to
protect a battery. He was very earnest and absorbed
in the subject, as you may well suppose, and began to
plead energetically, when he suddenly stopped,
extended his hand, and very calmly said, "How
are you?" It was Gen. Meade. He darted away, and
I saw him no more that day. Hooker's troops were soon
withdrawn and I think were not again brought into the
field. Was it not a strange encounter?
I
had parted with Gen. Mansfield but a moment before
this and in five minutes afterward his staff officer
reported to me that he was mortally wounded and the
command of the corps devolved on me. I began at once
to deploy the new regiments. The old ones had already
gotten themselves into line. Taking hold of one, I
directed Gens. Crawford and Gordon to direct the
others. I got mine in line pretty well by having a
fence to align it on and having got it in this way I
ordered the colonel to go forward and open fire the
moment he saw the Rebels. Poor fellow! He was killed
within ten minutes. His regiment, advancing in line,
was split in two by coming in contact with a barn.
One part did very well in the woods but the trouble
with this regiment and the others was that in
attempting to move them forward or back or to make
any maneuver they fell into inextricable confusion
and fell to the rear, where they were easily rallied.
The men were of an excellent stamp, ready and
willing, but neither officers nor men knew anything,
and there was an absence of the mutual confidence
which drill begets. Standing still, they fought
bravely.
When
we engaged the enemy he was in a strip of woods, long
but narrow. We drove him from this, across a ploughed
field and through a cornfield into another woods,
which was full of ravines. There the enemy held us in
check till 9 1/2 o'clock, when there was a general
cessation of musketry. All over the ground we had
advanced on, the Rebel dead and wounded lay thick,
much more numerous than ours, but ours were painfully
mingled in. Our wounded were rapidly carried off and
some of the Rebels'. Those we were obliged to leave
begged so piteously to be carried away. Hundreds
appealed to me and I confess that the rage of battle
had not hardened my heart so that I did not feel a
pity for them. Our men gave them water and as far as
I saw always treated them kindly.
The
necessities of the case were so great that I was
obliged to put my whole corps into action at once.
The roar of the infantry was beyond anything
conceivable to the uninitiated. Imagine from 8,000 to
10,000 men on one side, with probably a larger number
on the other, all at once discharging their muskets.
If all the stone and brick houses of Broadway should
tumble at once the roar and rattle could hardly be
greater, and amidst this, hundreds of pieces of
artillery, right and left, were thundering as a sort
of bass to the infernal music.
At
9 1/2 o'clock Gen. Sumner was announced as near at
hand with his corps. As soon as his columns began to
arrive I withdrew mine by degrees to the shelter of
the woods for the purpose of rest, to collect
stragglers, and to renew the ammunition. Several of
the old regiments had fired nearly forty rounds each
man. They had stood up splendidly and had forced back
the enemy nearly a mile. The new regiments were badly
broken up, but I collected about one-half of them and
placed them in support of batteries. The regiments
had up to this time suffered comparatively little.
The 3rd Wisconsin and [the] 27th Indiana had lost a
good many men, but few officers. I began to hope that
we should get off, when Sumner attacked, with but
little loss. I rode along where our advanced lines
had been. Not an enemy appeared. The woods in front
were as quiet as any sylvan shade could be. Presently
a single report came and a ball whizzed close to my
horse. Two or three others followed all in
disagreeable closeness to my person. I did not like
to hurry, but I lost as little time as possible in
getting out of the range of sharpshooters.
I
should have mentioned that soon after I met Gen.
Hooker he rode toward the left. In a few minutes I
heard he was wounded. While we were talking the dust
of the ploughed ground was knocked up in little
spurts all around us, marking the spot where musket
balls struck. I had to ride repeatedly over this
field and every time it seemed that my horse could
not possibly escape. It was in the center of the line
of fire, slightly elevated, but along which my troops
were extended. The peculiar singing sound of the
bullet becomes a regular whistle and it seems strange
that everybody is not hit.
While
the battle was raging fiercest with that division the
2nd Division came up and I was requested to support
our right with one brigade. I started one over to
report to Gen. Doubleday and soon followed to see
what became of them. As I entered the narrow lane
running to the right and front a battery opened a
cross-fire and Pittman and myself had the excitement
of riding a mile or so out and back under its
severest salutations. We found Gen. Doubleday
sheltered in a ravine and apparently in bland
ignorance of what was doing on his front or what need
he had of my troops, except to relieve his own, but I
left the brigade and came back. Finding a battery, I
put it in position to meet the flank fire of the
Rebel battery and some one else had the good sense to
establish another farther in the rear. The two soon
silenced this disagreeable customer.
It
was soon after my return to the center that Sumner's
columns began to arrive. They were received with
cheers and went fiercely toward the wood with too
much haste, I thought, and too little reconnoitering
of the ground and positions held by us. They had not
reached the road before a furious fire was opened on
them and we had the infernal din over again. The
Rebels had been strongly reinforced, and Sumner's
troops, being formed in three lines in close
proximity, after his favorite idea, we lost a good
deal of our fire without any corresponding benefit or
advantage. For instance, the second line, within
forty paces of the front, suffered almost as much as
the front line and yet could not fire without hitting
our own men. The colonel of a regiment in the second
line told me he lost sixty men and came off without
firing a gun.
Sumner's
force in the center was soon used up, and I was
called upon to bring up my wearied and hungry men.
They advanced to the front and opened fire, but the
force opposed was enormously superior. Still they
held on, under heavy losses, till one o'clock. Some
of the old regiments were fairly broken up in this
fight and what was left were consolidated and mixed
up afterward with the new regiments. The 46th
Pennsylvania, Col. Knipe, and the 28th New York,
Capt. Mapes, commanding, were especially broken. Col.
Knipe has just returned to duty from his wounds. He
had but one captain (Brooks) in his regiment present
and he was killed early. The 2nd Massachusetts, which
had done excellent service in the first engagement,
was badly cut up and its Lieut. Col. (Dwight),
mortally wounded. At 1 1/2 o'clock I ordered them
back, as reinforcements were last hand.
While
this last attack was going on, Gen. Greene, 2nd
Division, took possession and held for an hour or
more the easterly end of the woods struggled for so
fiercely where it abuts on the road to Sharpsburg. A
small brick school house [actually the Dunker church]
stands by the road, which I noticed the next day was
riddled by our shot and shell. Greene held on till
Sumner's men gave way towards the left, when he was
drawn out by a rush and his men came scampering to
the rear in great confusion. The Rebels followed with
a yell but three or four of our batteries being in
position they were received with a tornado of
canister which made them vanish before the smoke
cloud cleared away. I was near one of our brass
twelve pound Napoleon gun batteries and seeing the
Rebel colors appearing over the rolling ground I
directed the two left pieces charged with canister to
be turned on the point. In the moment the Rebel line
appeared and both guns were discharged at short
range. Each canister contains several hundred balls.
They fell in the very front of the line and all along
it apparently, stirring up a dust like a thick cloud.
When the dust blew away no regiment and not a living
man was to be seen.
Just
then Gen. Smith (Baldy Smith) who was at Detroit on
the light-house duty, came up with a division. They
fairly rushed toward the left and front. I hastily
called his attention to the woods full of Rebels on
his right as he was advancing. He dispatched that way
one regiment and the rest advanced to an elevation
which overlooked the valley on our left, where the
left wing had been fighting for several hours. The
regiment sent toward the woods got a tremendous
volley and saved itself by rushing over the hillside
for shelter. The rest of the brigade got an
enfilading fire on a Rebel line and it broke and ran
to the rear. One regiment only charged the front, as
if on parade, but a second battery sent it
scampering.
On
this ground the contest was kept up for a long time.
The multitude of dead Rebels (I saw them) was proof
enough how hotly they contested the ground. It was
getting toward night. The artillery took up the
fight. We had driven them at all points, save the one
woods. It was thought advisable not to attack
further. We held the main battlefield and all our
wounded, except a few in the woods. My troops slept
on their arms well to the front. All the other corps
of the center seemed to have vanished, but I found
Sumner's the next morning and moved up to it and set
to work gathering up our stragglers. The day was
passed in comparative quietness on both sides. Our
burial parties would exchange the dead and wounded
with the Rebels in the woods.
It
was understood that we were to attack again at
daylight on the 19th, but as our troops moved up it
was found the Rebels had departed. Some of the troops
followed, but we lay under arms all day, waiting
orders. I took the delay to ride over the field of
battle. The Rebel dead, even in the woods last
occupied by them, was very great. In one place, in
front of the position of my corps, apparently a whole
regiment had been cut down in line. They lay in two
ranks, as straightly aligned as on a dress parade.
There must have been a brigade, as part of the line
on the left had been buried. I counted what appeared
to be a single regiment and found 149 dead in the
line and about 70 in front and rear, making over 200
dead in one Rebel regiment. In riding over the field
I think I must have seen at least 3,000. In one place
for nearly a mile they lay as thick as autumn leaves
along a narrow lane cut below the natural surface,
into which they seemed to have tumbled. Eighty had
been buried in one pit, and yet no impression had
apparently been made on the unburied host. The
cornfield beyond was dotted all over with those
killed in retreat.
The
wounded Rebels had been carried away in great numbers
and yet every farmyard and haystack seemed a large
hospital. The number of dead horses was high. They
lay, like the men, in all attitudes. One beautiful
milk-white animal had died in so graceful a position
that I wished for its photograph. Its legs were
doubled under and its arched neck gracefully turned
to one side, as if looking back to the ball-hole in
its side. Until you got to it, it was hard to believe
the horse was dead. Another feature of the field was
the mass of army accouterments, clothing, etc.
scattered everywhere or lying in heaps where the
contest had been severest. I lost but two field
officers killed, Col. Croasdale, 128th Pennsylvania
and Col. Dwight, 2nd Massachusetts, several men
wounded. Gen. Crawford of the 1st Brigade was
wounded, not severely. I marvel, not only at my own
escape, as I was particularly exposed, on account of
raw troops to be handled, but at the escape of any
mounted officer.
The
newspapers will give you further particulars, but as
far as I have seen them, nothing reliable.... The
"big staff generals" get the first ear and
nobody is heard of and no corps mentioned till their
voracious maws are filled with puffing. I see it
stated that Sumner's corps relieved Hooker's. So far
is this from true that my corps was engaged from
sunrise till 9 1/2 o'clock before Sumner came up,
though he was to be on the ground at daylight. Other
statements picked up by reporters from the principal
headquarters are equally false and absurd. To me they
are laughably canard."
