"Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,
And we are graced with wreaths of victory;
But, in the midst of this bright-shining day,
I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud,
That will encounter with our glorious sun."
--SHAKESPEARE.
We left the position near Fairfax Court-House early in September, and
marched northward, crossing the Potomac on the 5th at White's Ford near
Edwards's Ferry. We reached Fredericktown in Maryland about midday of
the 6th, after a fatiguing tramp which, for the time, was too hard for
me. My wound had again given me trouble; while wading the Potomac I
noticed fresh blood on the scar.
We rested at Fredericktown for three or four days. One morning Owens of
Company H, while quietly cooking at his fire, suddenly fell back and
began kicking and foaming at the mouth. We ran to him, but could do
nothing to help him. He struggled for a few moments and became rigid.
Some man ran for the surgeon; I thought there was no sense in going for
help when all was over. The surgeon came and soon got Owens upon his
feet. This incident made a deep impression on me. It seemed a forcible
illustration of the trite sayings: "Never give up," "While there's life
there's hope," and it became to me a source of frequent encouragement.
* * * * *
On the 10th we marched westward from Fredericktown. In the gap of the
Catoctin Mountains we came in sight of the most beautiful valley,
dotted with farms and villages. Where the enemy was, nobody seamed
to know.
We passed through Middletown and Boonsboro, and recrossed the Potomac at
Williamsport, where we learned definitely that Longstreet's wing of the
army had been held in Maryland. We marched southward to Martinsburg. The
inhabitants were greatly rejoiced, and were surprised to find
Confederate troops coming amongst them from the north. At Martinsburg
were many evidences that we were near the enemy. Captain Haskell said
that it was now clear that Lee intended to take Harper's Ferry, and that
Longstreet's retention on the north side of the Potomac was part of the
plan. We destroyed the railroad near Martinsburg, moving along it toward
the east. Late in the forenoon of the 13th we came in sight of Harper's
Ferry. The short siege of the place had already been begun; cannon from
our front and from a mountain side on our right were throwing shells
into the enemy's lines, and the enemy's batteries were replying.
On the night of the 14th Gregg's brigade marched to the right. We found
a narrow road running down the river,--the Shenandoah,--and moved on
cautiously. There were strict orders to preserve silence. The guns were
uncapped, to prevent an accidental discharge. In the middle of the night
we moved out of the road and began to climb the hill on our left; it was
very steep and rough; we pulled ourselves up by the bushes. Pioneers cut
a way for the artillery, and lines of men drew the guns with ropes.
When morning came our guns commanded the intrenchments of the enemy. Our
batteries were in full action, the brigade in line of battle. The enemy
replies with all his guns, but they were soon silenced. A brigade at our
left seemed ready to advance; the enemy's artillery opened afresh. Then
from our left a battery stormed forward to a new position much nearer to
the enemy. We were ordered to fix bayonets and the line began to
advance, but was at once halted. Harper's Ferry had been surrendered,
with eleven thousand prisoners and seventy pieces of artillery, and
munitions in great quantity.
We had been hearing at intervals, for the last day or two, far-off
sounds of artillery toward the north. On the night after the surrender,
A.P. Hill's men knew that theirs was the only division at Harper's
Ferry, the two other divisions of Jackson's corps having marched away,
some said to the help of Longstreet on the north side of the Potomac;
then we felt that some great event was near, and we wondered whether it
should befall us to remain distant from the army during a great
engagement.
The 16th passed tranquilly. Sounds of artillery could be heard in the
north and northwest, but we had nothing to do but to rest in position
while our details worked in organizing the captured property. The
prisoners were not greatly downcast. We learned that they were to be
released on parole. Crowds of them had gathered along the roads on the
15th to see Stonewall Jackson whenever he rode by, and they seemed to
admire him no less than his own men did. Late in the afternoon the
regiment marched out of the lines of Harper's Ferry and bivouacked for
the night some two miles to the west of the town.
On the 17th the division was put in motion on a road running up the
Potomac. The march began, at sunrise. Soon the sounds of battle were
heard far in front, and the step was lengthened. The day was hot, and
the road was dusty. Frequently we went at double-quick. About one
o'clock we waded the Potomac below Shepherdstown. Beyond the river the
march turned northeast--a rapid march; many men had fallen out before we
reached the river; now many more began to straggle. All the while the
roar of a great battle extended across our front, mostly in our left
front. We passed through a village called Sharpsburg. Its streets were
encumbered with wagons, ambulances, stragglers, wounded men, and all
the horrid results of war that choke the roads in rear of an army
engaged in a great battle.
Beyond the village we turned to the right. We marched up one side of a
hill and down the other side. On the slope of the opposite hill we
halted, some of the troops being protected by a stone fence. The noise
of battle was everywhere, and increasing at our right, almost on our
right flank. Wounded men were streaming by; the litter-bearers were
busy. Nothing is so hard to bear as waiting while in expectation of
being called on to restore a lost battle from which the wounded and dead
are being carried. Our time was near.
Thick corn was growing on the hillside above us. General Gregg
dismounted. His orders reached our ears and were repeated by the
colonels and the captains. We were to advance.
While Jackson had marched south from Maryland in order to effect the
capture of Harper's Ferry, Longstreet had retired before McClellan, who
had collected an immense army and had advanced. The North had risen at
the first news that Lee had crossed the Potomac and McClellan's army,
vast as it was, yet continued to receive reinforcements almost daily;
his army was perhaps stronger than it had been before his disastrous
campaign of the Chickahominy, his troops on James River had marched down
the Peninsula and had been taken in transports to Fredericksburg and
Alexandria. Porter's and Heintzelman's corps of McClellan's army had
fought under Pope in the second battle of Manassas. Now McClellan had
his own army, Pope's army, Burnside's corps, and all other troops that
could be got to his help. To delay this army until Jackson could seize
Harper's Ferry had been the duty intrusted to Longstreet and his
lieutenants. But Longstreet with his twenty thousand were now in danger
of being overwhelmed. On the 15th, in the afternoon of the surrender at
Harper's Ferry, two of Jackson's divisions had marched to reënforce
Longstreet. Had not time been so pressing, Hill's division would not
have been ordered to assault the works at Harper's Ferry--an assault
which was begun and which was made unnecessary by the surrender.
McClellan knew the danger to Harper's Ferry and knew of the separation
of the Confederate forces. A copy of General Lee's special order
outlining his movements had fallen into General McClellan's hands. This
order was dated September 9th; it gave instructions to Jackson to seize
Harper's Ferry, and it directed the movements of Longstreet. With this
information, General McClellan pressed on after Longstreet; he ordered
General Franklin to carry Crampton's Gap and advance to the relief of
Harper's Perry.
On Sunday, the 14th, McClellan's advanced divisions attacked D.H. Hill's
division in a gap of South Mountain, near Boonsboro, and Franklin
carried Crampton's Gap, farther to the south. Though both of these
attacks were successful, the resistance of the Confederates had in each
case been sufficient to gain time for Jackson. On the 15th Harper's
Ferry surrendered, and McClellan continued to advance; Longstreet
prepared for battle.
The next day, at nightfall, the Federals were facing Lee's army, the
Antietam creek flowing between the hostile ranks.
At 3 P.M. of the 17th, A.P. Hill's division, after a forced march of
seventeen miles, and after fording the Potomac, found itself in front of
the left wing of the Federal army,--consisting of Burnside's
corps,--which had already brushed away the opposition in its front, and
was now advancing to seize the ford at Shepherdstown and cut off Lee
from the Potomac.
A.P. Hill rode into battle at the head of his division. The few brigades
which, had been opposed to Burnside had offered a stout resistance, but,
too weak to resist long, had fallen back to our right. Into the gap we
were ordered. In the edge of the corn a rabbit jumped up and ran along
in front of the line; a few shots were fired at it by some excited men
on our left. These shots seemed the signal for the Federals to show
themselves; they were in the corn, advancing upon us while we were
moving upon them. There were three lines of them. Our charge broke their
first line; it fell back on the second and both ran; the third line
stood. We advanced through the corn, firing and shouting. The third line
fired, then broke; now we stood where it had stood, on the top of the
hill. A descending slope was before us, then a hollow--- also in thick
corn--and an open ascent beyond. Behind the brow of this next hill a
Federal battery made its presence felt by its fire only, as the guns and
men were almost entirely covered. This battery was perhaps four hundred
yards from us, and almost directly in front of the left wing of the
First. The corn on our slope and in the hollow was full of Federals
running in disorder. We loaded and fired, and loaded and fired. Soon the
naked slope opposite was dotted with fleeing men. We loaded and fired,
and loaded and fired.
In a thick row of corn at the bottom of the hill I saw a bayonet
glitter. The bayonet was erect, at the height of the large blades of
corn. The owner of the bayonet had squatted in the corn; he was afraid
to run out upon the naked hillside behind him, and he had not thought
too well. He had kept his gun in his hand, with the butt on the ground,
and the sun's rays betrayed him. Nothing could be seen but the bayonet.
I fired at the ground below the bayonet. The bayonet fell.
An officer was riding back and forth on the open hillside, a gallant
officer rallying his men. None would stop; it was death to stop. He
threatened, and almost struck the men, but they would run on as soon as
his back was turned. They were right to run at this moment, and he was
wrong in trying to form on the naked slope. Beyond the hilltop was the
place to rally, and the men knew it, and the gallant officer did not. He
rode from group to group of fleeing men as they streamed up the hill. He
was a most conspicuous target. Many shots were fired at him, but he
continued to ride and to storm at the men and to wave his sword.
Suddenly his head went down, his body doubled up, and he lay stretched
on the ground. The riderless horse galloped off a few yards, then
returned to his master, bent his head to the prostrate man, and fell
almost upon him.
The Federal infantry could now be seen nowhere in our front. On our left
they began to develop and to advance, and on the right the sound of
heavy fighting was yet heard. The enemy continued to develop from our
left until they were uncovered in our front. They advanced, right and
left; just upon our own position the pressure was not yet great, but we
felt that the Twelfth regiment, which joined us on our left, must soon
yield to greatly superior numbers, and would carry our flank with it
when it went. The fight now raged hotter than before. I saw Captain
Parker, of Company K, near to us. His face was a mass of blood--his jaw
broken. The regiment was so small that, although Company H was on its
left, I saw Sam Wigg, a corporal of the colour-guard, fall--death in his
face. Then the Twelfth South Carolina charged, and for a while the
pressure upon us was relieved; but the Twelfth charged too far, and,
while driving the enemy in its front, was soon overlapped, and flanked.
Upon its exposed flank the bullets fell and it crumbled; in retiring, it
caught the left of the First, and Company H fell back. Now the enemy
moved on the First from the front and the regiment retired hastily
through the corn, and formed easily again at the stone fence from which
it had advanced at the beginning of the contest. The battle was over.
The enemy came no farther, and the fords of the Potomac remained to Lee.
All the night of the 17th and the day of the 18th we lay in position. A
few shells flew over us at irregular intervals, and we were in hourly
expectation of a renewal of the battle, but the Federals did not
advance. By daylight on the morning of the 19th we were once more
in Virginia.
While A.P. Hill's division had suffered but small loss in the battle of
Sharpsburg, and while our part in the battle had been fortunate, it was
clear that Lee's army as a whole had barely escaped a great disaster. I
have always thought that McClellan had it in his power on the 18th of
September to bring the war to an end. Lee had fought the battle with a
force not exceeding forty thousand men, and had lost nearly a third.
McClellan, on the 18th, was fully three times as strong as Lee; but he
waited a full day, and gave the Confederates opportunity to cross,
almost leisurely, the difficult river in their rear.
* * * * *
A.P. Hill's division went into bivouac some five miles south of
Shepherdstown.
On the morning of the 20th the warning rumble of the long roll called us
once again to action. We were marched rapidly back to the Potomac.
Firing could be heard in front, and wounded men could be seen here and
there. Men said that in the night McClellan had thrown a force to the
south side of the river, and had surprised and taken some of our
artillery. As we drew near the river, we could see the smoke of cannon
in action spouting from the farther side, and from our side came the
crackling of musketry fire.
The division was formed for battle; we were to advance in two lines of
three brigades each, General Gregg in command of the first line. Orr's
Rifle regiment was thrown forward as skirmishers and advanced to the
river bank. The division moved behind the skirmishers. The ground was
open. We marched down a slope covered with corn in part, and reached a
bare and undulating field that stretched to the trees bordering the
river. As soon as the division had passed the corn, the Federal
batteries north of the Potomac began to work upon our ranks. The first
shots flew a little above us. We were marching at a quick time, keeping
well the alignment. The next shots struck the ground in front of us and
exploded--with what effect I could not see. And now the enemy had our
range and made use of the time. Before us, about three hundred yards,
was a depression of the ground, with a low ascending hill beyond. Shells
burst over us, beyond us, in front of us, amongst us, as we marched on
at quick time. We reached the hollow and were ordered to lie down. The
sun was oppressive. The troops had scant room in the hollow; they hugged
the earth thick. Shells would burst at the crown of the low hill ten
steps in front and throw iron everywhere. The aim of the Federal gunners
was horribly true.
We were cramped with lying long in one position; no water. Behind us
came a brigade down the slope--flags flying, shells bursting in the
ranks. Down the hill that we had come they now were coming in their
turn, losing men at every step. The shells flew far above us to strike
this new and exposed line. Behind us came the brigade; right against
Company H came the centre of a regiment. The red flag was marching
straight. The regiment reached our hollow; there was no room; it flanked
to the left by fours; a shell struck the colour-group; the flag leaped
in the air and fell amongst four dead men. A little pause, and the flag
was again alive, and the regiment had passed to the left, seeking room.
For hours we lay under the hot sun and the hotter fire. The fight had
long since ended, but we were held fast by the Federal batteries. To
rise and march out would be to lose many men uselessly.
A shell burst at the top of the rise. Another came, and I felt my hat
fly off; it was torn on the edge of the brim. Again, and a great pain
seized my shoulder and a more dreadful one my hip. I was hit, but how
badly I did not know. The pain in my hip was such agony that I feared to
look. Since our great loss at Manassas, I was the tallest man in Company
H, and the Captain was lying very near to me. I said to him that I was
done for. "What!" said he, "again? You must break that habit, Jones." I
wanted to be taken out, but could not ask it. What with the danger and
the heat and the thirst and pain, I was unnerved and afraid to look.
Perhaps I lost consciousness for a time; the pain had decreased. At last
I looked, and I saw--nothing! I examined, and found a great contusion,
and that was all. I was happy--the only happy man in the regiment, for
the cannon on the hills beyond the river had not lessened their fire,
and the sun was hot, and the men were suffering.
As the darkness gathered, the regiment filed out and marched back to
bivouac. I limped along and kept up. We got water and food and, at
length, rest; and sleep banished the fearful memory of a fearful day.
In the fight at Shepherdstown the Confederate infantry drove the
Federals to the river bank, where many surrendered. Some succeeded in
getting across to the northern bank, but most of those who attempted the
crossing were lost. It was said in Lee's army--- but with what truth I
do not know--that blue corpses floated past Washington.
After this fight Lee was not molested. Jackson camped his corps near
Martinsburg, and a week later moved to Bunker Hill, where water was
plentiful.
From the 25th of June to the 20th of September--eighty-seven days--the
Army of Northern Virginia had made three great campaigns: first, that of
the week in front of Richmond; second, that of Manassas; third, that of
Harper's Ferry and Sharpsburg. The Confederates had been clearly
victorious in the first two, and had succeeded in the last in
withdrawing with the fruits of Harper's Ferry, and with the honours of a
drawn battle against McClellan's mighty army.