SHARPSBURG BRIDGE OVER THE ANTIETAM.
my immediate front, and, from tie sun’s rays falling on tlieir bayonets projecting above the corn, could see that the field was filled with the enemy, with arms in their hands, standing apparently at ‘ support arms.’ Instructions were immediately given for the assemblage of all of my spare batteries near at hand, of which I think there were five or six, to spring into battery on the right of this field, and to open with canister at once. In the time I am writ ing every stalk of com in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before.
“ It was never ray fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battle-field. Those that escaped fled in the opposite direction from our advance, and sought refuge behind the trees, fences, and stone ledges nearly on a line with the Dunker Church, etc., as there was no resisting this torrent of death-dealing missives. . . . The whole morning had been one of unusual anima tion to me, and fraught with the grandest events. The conduct of my troops was sublime, and the occasion almost lifted me to the skies, and its memories will ever remain near me. My command followed the fugitives closely until we had passed the corn-field a quarter of a mile or more, when I was removed from my saddle in the act of falling out of it from loss of blood, having previously been struck without my knowledge.”
after dusk they sent out detachments to collect arms and bring in prisoners. When they came to our hollow all the umvounded and slightly wounded there were marched to the real•■■— prisoners of the 15th Georgia. .	.	.
Tho next morning we were marched — about six hundred of us, fragments of a dozen different commands — to the Potomac, passing through Sharpsburg. We crossed the Potomac by the Shep-herdstown ford, and bivouacked in the yard of a house near the river, remaining there all day. The next morning (the 19th) shells began to come from over the river, and we were started on the road to Richmond with a mixed guard of cavalry and infantry. When we reached Winchester we were quartered for a night in the court-house yard, where we were beset by a motley crew who were eager to exchange the produce of the region for greenbacks. . . .
From Winchester we were marched to Staunton, where we were put on board cattle-ears and forwarded at night, by way of Gordonsville, to Richmond, where we entered Libby Prison. WTe were not treated with special severity, for Libby was not at that time the hissing it afterward became. . . .
HOOKER’S BATTLE AT THE CORN-FIELD.
Of the early morning fight for the control of the corn-field, General Hooker says in his report :
“ We had not proceeded far before I discovered that a heavy force of the enemy had taken possession of a cornfield (I have since learned about a thirty-acre field) in
SCENE AT THE RUINS OF MUMMA’S HOUSE AND BARNS.
and called me to unroll it and help to carry from the field one of our wounded lieutenants.
When I returned from obeying this summons the regiment (?) was not to be seen. It had gone in on the run,—what there was left of it,—and had disappeared in the corn-field about the battery. There was nothing to do bnt lie there and await developments. Nearly all the men in the hollow were wounded, one man — a recruit named Devlin, I think—frightfully so, his arm being cut short oft. He lived a few minutes only. All were calling for water, of course, but none was to be had. We lay there till dusk —■ perhaps an hour, when the fighting ceased. During that hour, while the bullets snipped the leaves from a young locust-tree growing at the edge of the hollow and powdered ns with the fragments, we had time to speculate on many things — among others, on the impatience with which men clamor, in dull times, to be led into a fight. We heard all through the war that the army “waseager to be led against the enemy.” It must have been so, for truthful correspondents said so, and editors confirmed it. But when you came to hunt for this particular itch, it was always the next regiment that had it. The truth is, when bullets are whacking against tree-trunks, and solid shot are cracking skulls like egg-shells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man is to get out of the way. Between the physical fear of going forward and the moral fear of turning back, there is a predicament of exceptional awkwardness from which a hidden hole in the ground would be a wonderfully welcome outlet.
Night fell, preventing further struggle. Of COO men of the regiment who crossed the creek, at 3 o’clock that afternoon, 45 were killed and 176 wounded. The Confederates had possession of that part of the field over which we had moved, and just
officer riding diagonally across the field — a most inviting target — instinctively bending his head down over his horse’s neck, as though he were riding through driving rain. While my eye ■was on him I saw, between me and him, a rolled overcoat with its straps on bound into the air and fall among the furrows. One of the enemy’s grape-shot had plowed a groove in the skull of a young fellow and had cut his overcoat from his shoulders. He never stirred from his position, but lay there face downward—a dreadful spectacle. A moment after, I heard a man cursing a comrade for lying on him heavily. He was cursing a dying man. As the range grew better, the firing became more rapid, the situation desperate and exasperating to the last degree. Human nature was on the rack, and there burst forth from it the most vehement, terrible swearing I have ever heard. Certainly the joy of conflict was not ours that day. The suspense was only for a moment, however, for the order to charge came just after. Whether the regiment was thrown into disorder or not, I never knew. 1 only remember that as we rose and started all the fire that had been held back so long was loosed. In a second the air was full of the hiss of bullets and the hurtle of grape-shot. The mental strain was so great that I saw at that moment the singular effect mentioned, I think, in the life of Goethe on a similar occasion —the whole landscape for an instant turned slightly red. I see again, as I saw it then in a flash, a man just in front of me drop his musket and throw up his hands, stung into vigorous swearing by a bullet behind the ear. Many men fell going up the hill, but it seemed to be all over in a moment, and I found myself passing a hollow where a dozen wounded men lay—among them our sergeant-major, who was calling me to come down. He had caught sight of the blanket rolled across my back,