turns its white furrow after a snowstorm. Its speed gradually diminished, and a soldier was about to catch it, as if he were at a game of baseball, but a united yell of “Look out!” “Don’t!” “Take care!” “Hold on !”caused him to desist. Had he attempted it, he would have been knocked over instantly.
Turning from the conflict on the right, I rode down the line, toward the center, forded the Antietam and ascended the hill east of it to the large square mansion of Mr. Pry, where General McClellan had established his headquarters. The general was sitting in an arm-chair in front of the house. His staff were about him; their horses, saddled and bridled, were hitched to the trees and fences. Stakes had been driven in the earth in front of the house, to which were strapped the headquarters telescopes, through which a view of the operations and movements of the two armies could be obtained. . . .
The Fifth Corps, under Fitz-John Porter, was behind the ridge extending south toward the bridge, where the artillery of the Ninth Corps was thundering. Porter, I remember, was with McClellan, watching the movements of the troops across the Antietam — French’s and Bichard-son’s divisions, which were forming in the fields' east of Boulette’s and Mumma’s houses. What a splendid sight it was! How beautifully the lines deployed! The clouds which had hung low all the morning had lifted, and the sun was shining through the rifts, its bright beams falling on the flags and glinting from gun-barrel and bayonet. Upon the crest of the hill south of the Dunker Church, I could see Confederates on horseback, galloping, evidently with orders; for, a few moments later, there was another gleam in the sunshine from the bayonets of their troops, who were apparently getting into position to resist the threatened movement of French and Richardson.
Memory recalls the advance of the line of men in blue across the meadow east of Roulette’s. They reach the spacious barn, which divides the line of men as a rock parts the current of a river, flowing around it, but uniting beyond. The orchard around the house screens the movement in part. I see the blue uniforms beneath the apple-trees. The line halts for alignment. The skirmishers are in advance. There are isolated puffs of smoke, and then the Confederate skirmishers scamper up the hill and disappear. Up the slope moves the line to the top of a knoll. Ah! what a crash! A white cloud, gleams of lightning, a yell, a hurrah, and then up in the corn-field a great commotion, men firing into each other’s faces, the Confederate line breaking, the ground strewn with prostrate forms. The Confederate line in “ Bloody Lane ”has been annihilated, the center pierced. . . .
BETWEEN THE LINES DURING A TRUCE.
strife. All was quiet in the woods along the turnpike, and in the corn-field beyond D. R. Miller’s house,—so quiet that 1 thought I would ride on to the front line, not knowing that the brigade lying upon the ground near the cannon was the advanced line of the army. I rode through Poffenberger’s door-yard, and noticed that a Confederate cannon-shot had ripped through the building; another had upset a hive of bees, and the angry insects had taken their revenge on the soldiers. I walked my horse down the pike past the toll-gate.
“ Hold on! ” It was the peremptory hail of a Union soldier crouching under the fence by the roadside. “Where are you going?”
“ I thought I would go out to the front! ”
“The front! you have passed it. This is the picket line. If you know what is good for yourself, you ’ll skedaddle mighty quick. The Rebs are in the corn right out there.”
I acted upon the timely advice and retreated to a more respectful distance; and none too soon, for a moment later the uproar began again — solid shot tearing through the woods and crashing among the trees, and shells exploding in unexpected places. I recall a round shot that came ricochet-ting over the ground, cutting little furrows, tossing the earth into the air, as the plow of the locomotive
Richmond,” said the second. No doubt I acted wisely in leaving the turnpike and riding to gain the right flank of the Union line. . . . Ammunition trains were winding up the hill from the road leading to Keedysville.
Striking across the fields, I soon came upon the grounds on Hoffman’s farm selected for the field-hospitals. Even at that hour of the morning it was an appalling sight. The wounded were lying in rows awaiting their turn at the surgeon’s tables. The hospital stewards had a corps of men distributing straw over the field for their comfort.
Turning from the scenes of the hospital, I ascended the hill and came upon the men who had been the first to sweep across the Hagerstown pike, past the toll-gate, and into the Dunker Church woods, only to be hurled back by Jackson, who had established his line in a strong position behind outcropping limestone ledges.
“There are not many of us left,” was the mournful remark of an officer.
I learned the story of the morning’s engagement, and then rode to the line of batteries on the ridge by the house of J. Poffenberger; if my memory serves me there were thirty guns in position there, pointing south-west. There was a lull in the
ANTIETAM SCENES.
BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.
(Army Correspondent.)
THE cannon were thundering when at early morn, September 17th, 1862, I mounted my horse at Hagerstown, where I had arrived the preceding day, as an army correspondent, upon its evacuation by the Confederates. The people of the town, aroused by the cannonade, were at the windows of the houses or in the streets, standing in groups, listening to the reverberations rolling along the valley. The wind was south-west, the clouds hanging low and sweeping the tree-tops on South Mountain.
The cannonade, reverberating from cloud to mountain and from mountain to cloud, became a continuous roar, like the unbroken rolling of a thunder-storm. The breeze, being in our direction, made the battle seem much nearer than it was. I was fully seven miles from Hooker’s battle-field.
I turned down the Hagerstown and Sharpsburg turnpike at a brisk gallop, although I knew that Lee’s army w״as in possession of the thoroughfare by the toll-gate which then stood about two miles north of Sharpsburg. A citizen who had left his home, to be beyond harm during the battle, had given me the information. The thought uppermost in my mind was to gain the left flank of the Confederate army, mingle with the citizens, and so witness the battle from the Confederate side. It would be a grand accomplishment if successful. It would give me a splendid opportunity to see the make-up of the Confederate army. It would be like going behind the scenes of a theater. I was in citizens’ dress, splashed with mud, and wore a dilapidated hat.
While wondering what would be the outcome of the venture, I came upon a group of farmers, who were listening with dazed countenances to the uproar momentarily increasing in volume. It was no longer alone the boom of the batteries, but a rattle of musketry—at first like pattering drops upon a roof; then a roll, crash, roar, and rush, like a mighty ocean billow upon the shore chafing the pebbles, wave on wave,—with deep and heavy explosions of the batteries, like the crashing of thunderbolts. I think the currents of air must have had something to do with the effect of sound. The farmers were walking about nervously undecided, evidently, whether to flee or to remain.
“I would n’t go down the pike if I were you,” said one, addressing me. “You will ride right into the Rebs.”
“ That is just where I would like to go.”
“You can’t pass yourself off for a Reb; they ’ll see, the instant they set eyes on you, that you are a Yank. They ’ll gobble you up and take you to