ANTIETAM: THE FIGHT ON THE RIGHT
Hooker astir early--The field near the Dunker Church--Artillery
combat--Positions of Hooker's divisions--Rocky ledges in the
woods--Advance of Doubleday through Miller's orchard and
garden--Enemy's fire from West Wood--They rush for Gibbon's
battery--Repulse--Advance of Patrick's brigade--Fierce fighting
along the turnpike--Ricketts's division in the East Wood--Fresh
effort of Meade's division in the centre--A lull in the
battle--Mansfield's corps reaches the field--Conflicting opinions as
to the hour--Mansfield killed--Command devolves on Williams--Advance
through East Wood--Hooker wounded--Meade in command of the corps--It
withdraws--Greene's division reaches the Dunker Church--Crawford's
in the East Wood--Terrible effects on the Confederates--Sumner's
corps coming up--Its formation--It moves on the Dunker Church from
the east--Divergence of the divisions--Sedgwick's passes to right of
Greene--Attacked in flank and broken--Rallying at the Poffenberger
hill--Twelfth Corps hanging on near the church--Advance of French's
division--Richardson follows later--Bloody Lane reached--The Piper
house--Franklin's corps arrives--Charge of Irwin's brigade.
Before the break of day on Wednesday the 17th, it was discovered
that Doubleday's division of Hooker's corps lay exposed to artillery
fire from batteries of the enemy supposed to be in position on their
front and right. In rousing the men and changing their place, the
stillness of the night was so far broken that the Confederates
believed they were advancing to attack, and a lively cannonade and
picket firing anticipated the dawn. [Footnote: R. R. Dawes, Service
with the Sixth Wisconsin, p. 87.] The chance for getting their
breakfast was thus destroyed, and Hooker prepared his whole command
for action as soon as it should be light enough to move. Looking
south from the Poffenberger farm along the turnpike, he then saw a
gently rolling landscape of which the commanding point was the
Dunker Church, whose white brick walls appeared on the right of the
road, backed by the foliage of the West Wood, which came toward him
filling a hollow that ran parallel to the turnpike, with a single
row of fields between. On the east side of the turnpike was the
Miller house, with its barn and stack-yard across the road to the
right, and beyond these the ground dipped into a little depression.
Still further on was seen a large cornfield between the East Wood
and the turnpike, rising again to the higher level, and Hooker
noticed the glint from a long line of bayonets beyond the corn,
struck by the first rays of the rising sun. There was, however,
another little hollow at the further side of the cornfield, which
could not be seen from Hooker's position; and on the farthest ridge,
near the church and extending across the turnpike toward the East
Wood, were the Confederate lines, partly sheltered by piles of rails
taken from the fences. They looked to Hooker as if they were
deployed along the edge of the corn, but an open sloping field lay
between the corn and them, after passing the second hollow. It was
plain that the high ground about the little white church was the key
of the enemy's position, and if that could be carried, Hooker's task
would be well done.
The enemy's artillery had opened early from a high hill nearly east
of the Miller house in a position to strike our forces in flank and
rear as they should go forward, and Hooker placed batteries on the
equally commanding height above Poffenberger's and detached
Hofmann's brigade from Doubleday's division to support it and to
prevent the enemy from turning our extreme right. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 224.] This force maintained
its position during the day, and was the nucleus about which both
Hooker's and Sedgwick's men rallied after their fight. The enemy's
artillery referred to were several batteries under Stuart's command
supported by his cavalry and by Early's brigade of infantry which
Jackson detached for that purpose. [Footnote: Official Records vol.
xix. pt. i. p. 819.]
Doubleday's division (except Hofmann), was in two lines, Gibbon's
and Phelps's in front, supported by Patrick's. Of Meade's division
Seymour's brigade, which had sustained the combat of the evening
before, had continued to cover the front with skirmishers during the
night, and remained on the northeast side of the East Wood. The
other brigades (Anderson and Magilton) were placed in reserve behind
Doubleday. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 269.] The Tenth Regiment
Pennsylvania Reserves was sent from Anderson's to a strong position
west of the turnpike near the extremity of the strip of wood
northwest of the Miller house. It was among ledges of rock looking
into the ravine beyond which were Stuart and Early. The ravine was
the continuation northward to the Potomac of a little watercourse
which headed near the Dunker Church and along one side of which the
West Wood lay, the outcrop of rock making broken ledges along its
whole length. Indeed, all the pieces of wood in the neighborhood
seemed to be full of such rocks, and for that reason had been
allowed to remain in forest. The regiment was ordered to cover its
front with skirmishers and to hold its position at all hazards.
Ricketts's division had bivouacked in a wood east of Doubleday's.
Its three brigades (Duryea's, Hartsuff's, and Christian's) were
deployed on the left of Doubleday, and were to march toward the
Dunker Church through the East Wood, passing the line of Seymour's
brigade, which was then to become its support.
The Confederates opened a rapid artillery fire from the open ground
in front of the Dunker Church as well as from Stuart's position, and
Hooker answered the challenge by an immediate order for his line to
advance. Doubleday directed Gibbon, who was on the right, to guide
upon the turnpike. Patrick remained for a time in the wood north of
the Miller house, till he should be needed at the front. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 224.] Doubleday and his
brigade commanders seem to have supposed that Meade's men occupied
part at least of the West Wood, and that they would cover Gibbon's
flank as he advanced. This belief was based on the stationing of the
Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves; but that regiment was fifteen or twenty
rods north of the northern end of the West Wood, and Gibbon's right
flank, as he advanced, was soon exposed to attack from Ewell's
division (Lawton in command), which held the wood, hidden from view
and perfectly protected by the slope of the ground and the forest,
as they looked over the rim into the undulating open fields in
front. Part of Battery B, Fourth United States Artillery (Gibbon's
own battery), was run forward to Miller's barn and stack-yard on the
right of the road, and fired over the heads of the advancing
regiments. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 229, 248.] Other batteries were
similarly placed, more to the left, and our cannon roared from all
the hill crests encircling the field. The line moved swiftly forward
through Miller's orchard and kitchen garden, breaking through a
stout picket fence on the near side, down into the moist ground of
the hollow, and up through the corn which was higher than their
heads and shut out everything from view. [Footnote: Dawes, Sixth
Wisconsin, p. 88.] At the southern side of the field they came to a
low fence, beyond which was the open field already mentioned, and
the enemy's line at the further side of it. But the cornfield only
covered part of the line, and Gibbon's right had outmarched the
left, which had been exposed to a terrible fire. The direction taken
had been a little oblique, so that the right wing of the Sixth
Wisconsin (the flanking regiment) had crossed the turnpike and was
suddenly assailed by a sharp fire from the West Wood on its flank.
They swung back into the road, lying down along the high, stout
post-and-rail fence, keeping up their fire by shooting between the
rails. [Footnote: Dawes, Sixth Wisconsin, p. 89.]
Leaving this little band to protect their right, the main line,
which had come up on the left, leaped the fence at the south edge of
the cornfield, and charged up hill across the open at the enemy in
front. But the concentrated fire of artillery and musketry was more
than they could bear. Men fell by scores and hundreds, and the
thinned lines gave way and ran for the shelter of the corn. They
were rallied in the hollow on the north side of the field. The enemy
had rapidly extended his left under cover of the West Wood, and now
made a dash at the right flank and at Gibbon's exposed guns. His men
on the right faced by that flank and followed him bravely, though
with little order, in a dash at the Confederates who were swarming
out of the wood. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 91.] The gunners
double-charged the cannon with canister, and under a terrible fire
of artillery and rifles Lawton's division broke and sought shelter.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 248.]
Patrick's brigade had now come up in support of Gibbon, and was sent
across the turnpike into the West Wood to cover that flank, two
regiments of Gibbon's going with him. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 243.] His
men pushed forward, the enemy retiring, until they were in advance
of the principal line in the cornfield upon which the Confederates
of Jackson's division were now marching to attack. Patrick faced his
brigade to the left, parallel to the edge of the wood and to the
turnpike, and poured his fire into the flank of the enemy, following
it by a charge through the field and up to the fence along the road.
Again the Confederates were driven back, but their left came forward
in the wood again, attacking Patrick's right, forcing him to resume
his original direction of front and to retire to the cover of a
rocky ledge in the open at right angles to the turnpike not far from
the northern end of the timber. Phelps's brigade had gone forward
with Gibbon's, pushing nearly to the Confederate lines, and being
driven back with great loss when they charged over open ground
against the enemy.
Ricketts's division advanced from the wood in which it had spent the
night, passed through Seymour's skirmishers and entered the East
Wood, swinging his left forward as he went. This grove was open, but
the rocks made perfect cover for Jackson's men, and every stone and
tree blazed with deadly fire. Hartsuff endeavored to reconnoitre the
ground, but was wounded and disabled immediately. Ricketts pushed
on, suffering fearfully from an enemy which in open order could fall
back from rock to rock and from tree to tree with little comparative
loss. He succeeded at last in reaching the west edge of this wood,
forming along the road and fences that were just within its margin.
Here he kept up a rapid fire till his ammunition was exhausted.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 258.]
When Doubleday's men had been finally repulsed, our line on the
right curved from the ledge where Patrick took refuge, forward in
front of Miller's orchard and garden, part of Gibbon's men lying
down along the turnpike fence facing to the west. Meade's two
brigades in reserve were sent forward, but when they reached Gibbon
and Phelps, Ricketts was calling for assistance in the East Wood and
Magilton's brigade was sent to him, leaving a gap on the left of
Anderson. Another gallant effort was now made, Seymour's depleted
brigade striving to cover the opening, but the enemy dashed at it as
Anderson came up the slope, and the left being taken in flank, the
whole broke again to the rear. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 269, 270.]
Ricketts's right was also imperilled, and he withdrew his exhausted
lines to reorganize and to fill their empty cartridge-boxes. There
was a lull in the battle, and the combatants on both sides were
making desperate efforts to reform their broken regiments.
Mansfield had called the Twelfth Corps to arms at the first sound of
Hooker's battle and marched to his aid. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xix. pt. i. p. 475.] It consisted of two divisions, Williams's
and Greene's, the first of two and the other of three brigades.
There were a number of new and undrilled regiments in the command,
and in hastening to the front in columns of battalions in mass,
proper intervals for deployment had not been preserved, and time was
necessarily lost before the troops could be put in line. Indeed,
some of them were not regularly deployed at all. They had left their
bivouac at sunrise which, as it was about the equinox, was not far
from six o'clock. They had marched across the country without
reference to roads, always a very slow mode of advancing, and doubly
so with undrilled men. The untrained regiments must, in the nature
of things, have been very much like a mob when their so-called
columns-in-mass approached the field of battle. It is impossible to
reconcile the statements of the reports as to the time they became
engaged. General Williams says they were engaged before seven
o'clock. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 476.] General Meade says they relieved
his men not earlier than ten or eleven. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 270.]
It seems to be guesswork in both cases, and we are forced to judge
from circumstantial evidence. Ricketts thinks he had been fighting
four hours when he retired for lack of ammunition, and the Twelfth
Corps men had not yet reached him. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 259.]
Patrick, on the extreme right, says that his men had made their
coffee in the lull after his retreat to the sheltering ledge of
rocks, and had completed their breakfast before the first of
Mansfield's men joined him there. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 244.] The
circumstantial details given by several officers make the interval
between the attack by the Twelfth Corps and the arrival of Sumner a
very short one. It may be regarded as probable, therefore, that
Hooker's battle covered the larger part of the time between six
o'clock and the arrival of Sumner at about ten.
On reaching the field, Mansfield had a brief consultation with
Hooker, resulting in his ordering Williams to form his division
nearly as Doubleday's had been, and to advance with his right upon
the turnpike. He himself led forward the left of Crawford's brigade,
which was the first to arrive, and pushed toward the East Wood. The
regiments were still in columns of companies, and though Williams
had ordered them deployed, the corps commander himself, as Crawford
says, countermanded this order and led them under fire in column.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 484.] He evidently
believed Ricketts's men to be still holding the East Wood, and tried
to keep his own from opening fire upon the troops that were seen
there. At this moment he was mortally wounded, before the deployment
was made.
General Alpheus S. Williams, on whom the command devolved, was a
cool and experienced officer. He hastened the deployment of
Crawford's and Gordon's brigades of his own division, sending one of
the new and large regiments to assist the Pennsylvania regiment in
holding the important position covering the right beyond the
turnpike. As Greene's division came up, he ordered him to form
beyond Gordon's left, and when deployed to move on the Dunker Church
through the East Wood, guiding his left by the cloud of smoke from
the Mumma house, which had been set on fire by D. H. Hill's men.
[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 475, 1033.] At Doubleday's request, he
detached Goodrich's brigade from Greene, and sent it to Patrick on
the right with orders to advance into the West Wood from its
northern extremity. Patrick says the regiments came separately and
at considerable intervals, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix.
pt. i. p. 244.] and it is not unlikely that the older regiments were
sent in to relieve Hooker's men as fast as they were ready, and the
more disorganized ones were obliged to delay till they could be got
into some sort of shape. Williams made his first disposition of his
troops according to Hooker's suggestion, but the latter received a
serious wound in the foot, as it would seem, before the attack by
the Twelfth Corps had begun. Hooker turned over the command to
Meade, and a formal order confirming this was issued from
McClellan's head-quarters later in the day. [Footnote: _Id_., pt.
ii. p. 315.]
So many of the regiments were carried under fire while still in
column that not only was the formation of the line an irregular one,
but the deployment when made was more diagonal to the turnpike than
Hooker's had been, and the whole line faced more to the westward.
But they advanced with a courage equal to the heroism already shown
on that field. The Confederates who now held the open space at the
Dunker Church were Hood's two brigades, and the rest of Jackson's
corps extended into the West Wood. Stuart had found his artillery
position on the hill too far from Jackson's line, and the fighting
was so near the church that he could not fire upon our men without
hurting his own. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 820.] He therefore
moved further to the south and west, and Early carried his brigade
(except the Thirteenth Virginia) back toward Ewell's division, which
now came under his command by the disabling of General Lawton in the
fight. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 968, 969.]
Williams's first line was a good deal shortened, and the divisions,
guiding as well as they could upon Greene, crowded so far to the
south that even Crawford's brigade, which was on the right of all,
went partly through the East Wood advancing on a line nearly at
right angles to the turnpike. The enemy had followed Ricketts's
retiring battalions and were again in occupation of the East Wood.
His work was to be done over again, though the stubborn courage of
Hood's depleted brigades could not make up for the numbers which the
National officers now led against him. But the rocks, the ledges,
and the trees still gave him such cover that it was at a fearful
cost that the Twelfth Corps men pushed him steadily back and then by
a final rush drove him from the roads which skirted the grove on
west and south. What was left of Jackson's corps except Early's
brigade had come out of the West Wood to meet Crawford's division,
and the stout high fences along the turnpike were the scene of
frightful slaughter. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i.
pp. 485, 487.] The Confederates tried to climb them, but the level
fire of our troops swept over the field so that the top of the fence
seemed in the most deadly line of the leaden storm, and the men in
gray fell in windrows along its panels. Our own men were checked by
the same obstacle, and lay along the ground shooting between the
rails and over the fallen bodies of the Confederate soldiers which
made a sort of rampart.
In obedience to his original orders, Greene took ground a little
more to his left, occupying a line along a fence from the burning
Mumma house to the road leading from the East Wood directly to the
Dunker Church. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 505.] The two brigades with
thinned ranks barely filled this space, and Crawford's division
connected with them as well as it could. Batteries came forward on
Greene's left and right, and helped to sweep the grove around the
church. Hill attempted to hold him back, and a bold dash was made at
Greene, probably by Hill's left brigades which were ordered forward
to support Hood. Greene's men lay on the ground just under the ridge
above the burning house till the enemy were within a few rods of
them, then rose and delivered a volley which an eyewitness (Major
Crane, Seventh Ohio) says cut them down "like grass before the
mower." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 506.] Those
who escaped sought refuge in the wood behind the church, where the
crowning ridge is some distance back from the road. Greene now
dashed forward and gained the grove immediately about the church,
where he held on for an hour or two. Crawford's division, after
several ebbs and flows in the tide of battle, was holding the
western skirt of the East wood with one or two of its regiments
still close to the turnpike fence on his right.
Meanwhile Goodrich had been trying to advance from the north end of
the West Wood to attack the flank of the enemy there; but Early with
his own brigade held the ledges along the ravine so stubbornly that
he was making little progress.
Greene was calling for support about the Dunker Church, for he was
close under the ridge on which Hill and Jackson were forming such
line as they could, and he was considerably in advance of our other
troops. Williams withdrew one regiment from Goodrich's brigade and
sent it to Greene, and directed Crawford to send also to him the
Thirteenth New Jersey, a new and strong regiment which had been left
in reserve, as we have seen, in a bit of wood northeast of the field
of battle. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 476, 505.] Gordon's brigade was
withdrawn by Crawford to enable it to reorganize in rear of the East
Wood, and Crawford's own brigade held the further margin of it. It
will thus be seen that the Twelfth Corps was now divided into three
portions,--Greene's division at the church, Crawford's in the East
Wood, and Goodrich's brigade near the north end of the West Wood.
Meade had withdrawn the First Corps to the ridge at Poffenberger's,
where it had bivouacked the night before, except that Patrick's
brigade remained in support of Goodrich. The corps had suffered
severely, having lost 2470 in killed and wounded, but it was still
further depleted by straggling, so that Meade reported less than
7000 men with the colors that evening. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 349.] Its organization had been preserved,
however, and the story that it was utterly dispersed was a mistake.
The Twelfth Corps also had its large list of casualties, increased a
little later by its efforts to support Sumner, and aggregating,
before the day was over, 1746.
But the fighting of Hooker's and Mansfield's men, though lacking
unity of force and of purpose, had also cost the enemy dear. J. R.
Jones, who commanded Jackson's division, had been wounded; Starke,
who succeeded Jones, was killed; Lawton, who commanded Ewell's
division, was wounded. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 956.] Lawton's
and Trimble's brigades had been fearfully crippled in the first
fight against Hooker on the plateau between the Dunker Church and
the East Wood, and Hood was sent back to relieve them. [Footnote:
_Id_., p. 923.] He, in turn, had been reinforced by the brigades of
Ripley, Colquitt, and McRae (Garland's) from D. H. Hill's division.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 1022.] When Greene reached the Dunker Church,
therefore, the Confederates on that wing were more nearly
disorganized than our own troops. Nearly half their numbers were
killed and wounded, and Jackson's famous "Stonewall" division was so
completely broken up that only a handful of men under Colonels
Grigsby and Stafford remained, and attached themselves to Early's
command. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 969.] Of the division now under Early,
his own brigade was all that retained much strength, and this,
posted among the rocks in the West Wood and vigorously supported by
Stuart and the artillery on that flank, was all that covered the
left of Lee's army. Could Hooker and Mansfield have attacked
together, or, still better, could Sumner's Second Corps have marched
before day and united with the first onset, Lee's left must
inevitably have been crushed long before the Confederate divisions
of McLaws, Walker, and A. P. Hill could have reached the field. It
is this failure to carry out any intelligible plan which the
historian must regard as the unpardonable military fault on the
National side. To account for the hours between daybreak and eight
o'clock on that morning, is the most serious responsibility of the
National commander. [Footnote: A distinguished officer (understood
to be Gen. R. R. Dawes) who visited the field in 1866 has published
the statement that at the Pry house, where McClellan had his
headquarters, he was informed that on the morning of the 17th the
general rose at about seven o'clock and breakfasted leisurely after
that hour. (Marietta, Ohio, Sentinel.)]
Sumner's Second Corps was now approaching the scene of action, or
rather two divisions of it, Sedgwick's and French's, for
Richardson's was still delayed till his place could be filled by
Porter's troops. Although ordered to be ready to move at daybreak,
Sumner emphasizes in his report the fact that whilst his command was
prepared to move at the time ordered, he "did not receive from
headquarters the order to march till 7.20 A. M." [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 275.] By the time he could reach the
field, Hooker had fought his battle and had been repulsed. The same
strange tardiness in sending orders is noticeable in regard to every
part of the army, and Richardson was not relieved so that he could
follow French till an hour or two later. [Footnote: _Ibid_.]
Sumner advanced, after crossing the Antietam, in a triple column,
Sedgwick's division in front, the three brigades marching by the
right flank and parallel to each other. French followed in the same
formation. They crossed the Antietam by Hooker's route, but did not
march so far to the northwest as Hooker had done. On the way Sumner
met Hooker, who was being carried from the field, and the few words
he could exchange with the wounded general were enough to make him
feel the need of haste, but not enough to give him any clear idea of
the situation. When the centre of the corps was opposite the Dunker
Church, and nearly east of it, the change of direction was given;
the troops faced to their proper front, and advanced in line of
battle in three lines, fully deployed and sixty or seventy yards
apart, Sumner himself being in rear of Sedgwick's first line and
near its left. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p.
305.] As they approached the position held by Greene's division at
the church, French kept on so as to form on Greene's left,
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 323.] but Sedgwick, under Sumner's immediate
leading, diverged somewhat to the right, passing through the East
Wood, crossing the turnpike on the right of Greene and of the Dunker
Church, and plunged into the West Wood. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 305.]
The fences there had been destroyed by the Confederates before the
battle began, for the purpose of making room for their own
manoeuvres as well as to make barricades in front of the cornfield.
Sedgwick's right did not extend far enough north to be obstructed by
the fences where the Twelfth Corps men had lain along them in
repulsing Jackson. When he entered the wood, there were absolutely
no Confederate troops in front of him. The remnants of Jackson's
men, except Early's brigade, were clustered at the top of the ridge
immediately in front of Greene, and Early was further to the right,
opposing Goodrich and Patrick; Early, however, made haste under
cover of the woods to pass around Sedgwick's right and to get in
front of him to oppose his progress. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 970.] This
led to a lively skirmishing fight in which Early was making as great
a demonstration as possible, but with no chance of solid success.
Sedgwick pushed him back, and his left was coming obliquely into the
open at the bottom of the hollow beyond the wood, when, at the very
moment, McLaws's and Walker's Confederate divisions came upon the
field. The former had only just arrived by rapid marching from
Shepherdstown beyond the Potomac; the latter had been hastily called
away by Lee from his position on the lower Antietam opposite the
left wing of Burnside's Ninth Corps. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 857, 914.]
Walker charged headlong upon the left flank of Sedgwick's lines, and
McLaws, passing by Walker's left, also threw his division diagonally
upon the already broken and retreating brigades. Taken at such a
disadvantage, these had never a chance; and in spite of the heroic
bravery of Sumner and Sedgwick with most of their officers (Sedgwick
being severely wounded), the division was driven off to the north
with terrible losses, carrying along in their rout Goodrich's
brigade of the Twelfth Corps which had been holding Early at bay.
Goodrich was killed, and his brigade suffered hardly less than the
others. Patrick's brigade of Hooker's corps was in good order at the
rocky ledges north of the West Wood which are at right angles to the
turnpike, and he held on stubbornly till the disorganized troops
drifted past his left, and then made an orderly retreat in line
toward the Poffenberger hill. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 245.] Meade was
already there with the remnants of Hooker's men. Here some thirty
cannon of both corps were quickly concentrated, and, supported by
everything which retained organization, easily checked the pursuers
and repulsed all efforts of Jackson and Stuart to resume the
offensive or to pass between them and the Potomac. [Footnote: _Id_.,
p. 306.]
Sumner did not accompany the routed troops to this position, but as
soon as it was plain that the division could not be rallied, he
galloped off to put himself in communication with French and with
headquarters of the army and to try to retrieve the situation. From
the flag station east of the East Wood he signalled to McClellan,
"Reinforcements are badly wanted; our troops are giving way."
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 134.] Williams was in that part of the field,
and Sumner sent a staff officer to him ordering that he should push
forward to Sedgwick's support anything he could. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 477.] Williams in person ordered
Gordon's brigade to advance, for this, as we have seen, had been
reorganized behind the East Wood. He sent the same order to Crawford
for the rest of that division. Crawford had withdrawn his men in the
East Wood to let Sedgwick pass diagonally along his front, and now
advanced again to the west margin of the grove. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
485.] Gordon was ahead of him in time and further to the right, and
again charged up to the turnpike fences. But the routed troops were
already swarming from the wood across his front, and their pursuers
were charging after them. Again the turnpike was made the scene of a
bloody conflict, and the bodies of many more of the slain of both
armies were added to those which already lined those fences.
Gordon's men were overpowered and fell back in the direction they
had come. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 495.] The enemy's attack spread out
toward Greene and toward Crawford, who was now at the edge of the
East Wood again; but both of these held firm, and a couple of
batteries on the rise of ground in front poured canister into the
enemy till he took refuge again in the wood beyond the church. It
was between nine and ten o'clock, probably about ten, [Footnote: The
reports on the Confederate side fix ten o'clock as the time McLaws
and Walker reached the field, and corroborate the conclusion I draw
from all other available evidence.] when Sumner entered the West
Wood, and in fifteen minutes or a little more the one-sided combat
was over.
Sumner's principal attack was made, as I have already indicated, at
right angles to that of Hooker. He had thus crossed the line of
Hooker's movement in both the advance and the retreat of the latter.
This led to some misconceptions on Sumner's part. Crawford's
division had retired to the right and rear to make way for Sedgwick
as he came up. It thus happened that Greene's division was the only
part of the Twelfth Corps troops Sumner saw, and he led Sedgwick's
men to the right of these. Ignorant as he necessarily was of what
had occurred before, he assumed that he formed on the extreme right
of the Twelfth Corps, and that he fronted in the same direction as
Hooker had done. This misconception of the situation led him into
another error. He had seen only stragglers and wounded men on the
line of his own advance, and hence concluded that Hooker's Corps was
completely dispersed and its division and brigade organizations
broken up. He not only gave this report to McClellan at the time,
but reiterated it later in his statement before the Committee on the
Conduct of the War. [Footnote: C. W., vol. i. p. 368.] The truth was
that he had marched westward more than a mile south of the
Poffenberger hill where Meade was with the sadly diminished but
still organized First Corps, and half that distance south of the
Miller farm buildings, near which Goodrich's brigade had entered the
north end of the West Wood, and in front of which part of Williams's
men had held the ground along the turnpike till they were relieved
by Sedgwick's advance. Sedgwick had gone in, therefore, between
Greene and Crawford, and the four divisions of the two corps
alternated in their order from left to right, thus: French, Greene,
Sedgwick, Crawford, the last being Williams's, of which Crawford was
in command.
It was not Sumner's fault that he was so ill-informed of the actual
situation on our right; but it is plain that in the absence of
McClellan from that part of the field he should have left the
personal leadership of the men to the division commanders, and
should himself have found out by rapid examination the positions of
all the troops operating there. It was his part to combine and give
intelligent direction to the whole, instead of charging forward at
haphazard with Sedgwick's division. Both Meade and Williams had men
enough in hand to have joined in a concerted movement with him; and
had he found either of those officers before plunging into the West
Wood, he would not have taken a direction which left his flank
wholly exposed, with the terrible but natural results which
followed. The original cause of the mischief, however, was
McClellan's failure to send Sumner to his position before daybreak,
so that the three corps could have acted together from the beginning
of Hooker's attack.
But we must return to Sumner's divisions, which were advancing
nearer the centre. The battle on the extreme right was ended by ten
o'clock in the morning, and there was no more serious fighting north
of the Dunker Church. The batteries on the Poffenberger hill and
those about the East Wood swept the open ground and the cornfield
over which Hooker and Mansfield had fought, and for some time Greene
was able to make good his position at the church. The Confederates
were content to hold the line of the West Wood and the high ground
back of the church, and French's attack upon D. H. Hill was now
attracting their attention. French advanced toward Greene's left,
over the open farm lands, and after a fierce combat about the
Rullett and Clipp farm buildings, drove Hill's division from them.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 323.] At what time
the Confederates made a rush at Greene and drove him back to the
edge of the East Wood is uncertain; but it must have been soon after
the disaster to Sedgwick. It seems to have been an incident of the
aggressive movement against Sedgwick, though not coincident with it.
It must certainly have been before French's advance reached the
Rullett and Clipp houses, for the enemy's men holding them would
have been far in rear of Greene at the church, and he must by that
time have been back near the burnt house of Mumma and the angle of
the East Wood. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 505.
Greene says that he held the ground at the church for two hours, and
that his men were in action from 6.30 A. M. to 1.30 P. M. The length
of time and hours of the day are so irreconcilable as given in
different reports that we are forced to trust more to the general
current of events than to the time stated.]
Richardson's division followed French after an hour or two,
[Footnote: Hancock says the division crossed the Antietam about
9.30. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 277.] and then, foot by
foot, field by field, from fence to fence, and from hill to hill,
the enemy was pressed back, till the sunken road, since known as
"Bloody Lane," was in our hands, piled full of the Confederate dead
who had defended it with their lives. Richardson had been mortally
wounded, and Hancock had been sent from Franklin's corps to command
the division. Colonel Barlow had been conspicuous in the thickest of
the fight, and after a series of brilliant actions had been carried
off desperately wounded. On the Confederate side equal courage and a
magnificent tenacity had been exhibited. Men who had fought
heroically in one position no sooner found themselves free from the
struggle of an assault than they were hurried away to repeat their
exertions, without even a breathing-spell, on another part of the
field. They exhausted their ammunition, and still grimly held
crests, as Longstreet tells us, with their bayonets, but without a
single cartridge in their boxes. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 840.] The
story of the fight at this part of the field is simpler than that of
the early morning, for there was no such variety in the character of
the ground or in the tactics of the opposing forces. It was a
sustained advance with continuous struggle, sometimes ebbing a
moment, then gaining, but with the organization pretty well
preserved and the lines kept fairly continuous on both sides. Our
men fought their way up to the Piper house, near the turnpike, and
that position marks the advance made by our centre. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 279.] The crest of the ridge
on which the Hagerstown turnpike runs had been secured from Piper's
north to Miller's, and it was held until the Confederate retreat on
the 19th.
The head of Franklin's Corps (the Sixth) had arrived about ten
o'clock, and had taken the position near the Sharpsburg bridge,
which Sumner had occupied in the night. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 376.]
Before noon Smith's and Slocum's divisions were both ordered to
Sumner's assistance. As they passed by the farm buildings in front
of the East Wood, the enemy made a dash at Greene and French. Smith
ordered forward Irwin's brigade to their support, and Irwin charged
gallantly, driving the assailants back to the cover of the woods
about the church. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 402, 409.] Franklin's men
then formed under the crest already mentioned, from "Bloody Lane" by
the Clipp, Rullett, and Mumma houses to the East Wood and the ridge
in front. The aggressive energy of both sides seemed exhausted.
French and Richardson's battle may be considered as ended at one or
two o'clock. There was no fighting later but that on the extreme
left, where Burnside's Ninth Corps was engaged, and we must turn our
attention to that part of the field.