Francis J. Parker

UNTIL September 12th, our Division remained at Upton’s Hill, while the rest of the Army of the Potomac drew off into Maryland in observation of General Lee, concerning whose movements no definite information could for a time be obtained.

It was a favorite theory among the authorities in Washington that General Lee would lead McClellan off into Western Maryland, and then slip round into his rear and capture the aforesaid authorities. Of course 80,000 men do not slip about such a country very easily, and of course General Lee would never have dared to place his army between the forts of Washington and the Army of the Potomac; but even such absurd fears required consideration, and in addition to the artillery garrisons in the forts and the new levies inside the defences, Morell’s division was left for a time to watch the approaches to the Chain Bridge, which was the weakest point in the defences of the city.

During these days the various corps of the army whose organization a week before had been almost destroyed, were marching through the town in columns of platoons, with their drums beating and colors flying, their array as fine as it would have been on parade before they had ever seen the enemy, and inspiring all who saw them to a happy augury of the result of the first Maryland campaign.

On the 11th, our Division received orders to join the army in the field with all possible speed, and on the 12th we folded our tents, and took the route in the track of our comrades. As usual the start was delayed until the sun was well up in the sky, and before we were out of the District of Columbia the heat had become oppressive, and the men, especially those of the new companies, were suffering greatly. Our route was from Upton’s Hill past Fort Corcoran, through Georgetown and Washington, and out by 7th street.

Early in the day came a circular order to be read at the head of each company denouncing the penalty of death, without trial, as the punishment for straggling, the utter absurdity of which was shown by the fact that before nightfall one-third of the men had fallen out of their ranks, the order to the contrary notwithstanding. The old soldiers, happily, (or unhappily) had learned that the bark of the orders was worse than their bite, but the new recruits had the impression, as yet, that orders meant what they said, and believed that the officers would shoot down all those who faltered; consequently, what between soldierly ambition and personal fear, the new men would struggle on until they could do so no longer. The day was burning hot, and the last hour before noon was chosen to give the command one pull of three miles without rest; and when at last the bugle sounded “halt,” not less than fifty of our men fell exhausted, fainting or sunstruck, several of them raving with insane imaginings.

Although we tarried at this place for an hour or more, the Colonel assuming the responsibility to fall out with his entire command, it was found necessary at last to leave some twenty men who needed rest and care, the greater part of whom were finally discharged from hospitals disabled for service. Here, too, in order to lighten the march, a quantity of knapsacks and blankets were left stored in a barn, but before our teams could return for them the whole had been gobbled by stragglers.

It was after dark when at last we halted for the night, and the Adjutant’s returns showed that one of the new companies then numbered three officers and seven men, and another no officers and one man1 present for duty. We bivouacked in columns of companies, and that one man executed under his own command the company right wheel, dressed his ranks, stacked his arm (by plunging the bayonet into the ground), called the roll, broke ranks, supped, and slept the sleep of the just.

1 Private Isaac W. Thurlow, of Methuen, afterward promoted to be Lieutenant C. T.

The next two days’ march brought us, via Middlebrook, Clarksville, and Hyattstown to Frederick; the weather, though clear, was not so hot as on the 12th, the men were in better condition and, on the whole, we gained in numbers. Many will remember our bivouac that Sunday evening as the place where they indulged in a welcome bath in the clear waters of the Monocacy river. All day on the 14th (Sunday), we heard heavy firing, and on the 15th the sound of heavy guns at Harper’s Ferry continued to assure us that our flag still was there, but its sudden cessation at last told as plainly of the surrender.

Our march of the 15th and 16th, although rapid, was not exhausting; the air was more autumnal, and we were cheered by the evidence of the fact that we were the pursuers. Large numbers of rebel prisoners passed us going to our rear. As we marched through Frederick we were greeted with hearty cheers from civilians and the waving kerchiefs of ladies, and children distributed ripe fruits, which were most welcome to the bilious soldiers. On the South Mountain battle-field a detail was burying the dead, and we saw many bodies in grey uniforms awaiting burial. We had previously met and saluted the dead General Reno, borne to the rear in an ambulance draped with the national colors.

As we passed over one of the mountain ridges, there broke upon our sight a view such as New England cannot offer. A valley stretching far away on either hand, everywhere divided into large fields of rich farming lands, among which the homes of well-to-do farmers stood, with groups of barns and granges and hay ricks gathered about them, the whole testifying to the comfort and wealth of the inhabitants. At every house there were words of welcome and cheer. The entire population evidently was in sympathy with our cause, and their recent sight of the retreating army of the enemy had evidently strengthened their enthusiasm for his pursuers.

It was almost sundown on the 16th when we came up with the main body of our army between Keedysville and Antietam Creek. The air was full of smoke from the camp-fires, and the hillsides alive with the men, who were making ready for their supper and their sleep. Our Division was guided into the field assigned to us, and our men were soon deep in similar preparations.

We knew that the hostile armies were now face to face, and that a great battle was imminent. Curiosity led many to gather on the hilltops and to look over what was to be the battlefield, to the crests of the low hills on the opposite bank of the stream, where we could see the spires of the little town of Sharpsburg sharply defined against the warm sky, and the smoke from the rebel camp-fires glowing in the light of the setting sun. A few well-directed shells from the enemy’s batteries however, dulled our curiosity in that direction, and we turned to our camps to see how an army looks upon the eve of a pitched battle.

The eastward slopes of the hills on the left branch of the Antietam were occupied by the infantry of the army of McClellan, extending some four miles from right to left. Near the tops of these hills a few batteries of artillery were ready for use at a moment’s notice, but more of them were below us, their horses feeding at the picket ropes, the men busy about their supper.

Farther away to the rear the ammunition wagons were parked, those of each division by themselves, and yet farther back the supply trains of the different corps, and the reserve divisions of artillery and cavalry.

There was every show of complete readiness for the morrow, in the array of the troops and the provision for the fight—but everything was busy and cheery. As night fell the smoke became less dense, and the bright light of a thousand glowing fires enlivened the scene. There was no sign of haste or of anxiety; occasionally a mule sounded his trumpet as a signal for more feed, and often the sound of horses’ feet was heard as some officer or orderly galloped leisurely by; there was some singing and much laughter heard from the various camps, and at last the stirring but confused sound of the tattoo along the whole line from the bugles of the distant cavalry and the neighboring artillery, and the drums and fifes of the infantry of the line.

Then came gentle sleep, nowhere more grateful and welcome than in the bivouac of the soldier on the night before the battle.

From dawn to dark no fairer sky was ever seen than that beneath which, on the 17th day of September, 1862, was fought the battle of the Antietam. It may be doubted whether there was in the history of our civil war, any instance of a battle for which the preparation was on both sides so complete, of which the field was more free and open to the movements of the troops and the oversight of the commanders, or in which the result depended so directly upon the ability of the generals and the conduct of the troops, and so little upon purely accidental occurrences.

The Confederate army occupied the crest of the rising ground which lies immediately west of the Antietam, and between it and the Potomac. That portion of this crest in which lay the left and the centre of their army, was for the most part wooded and broken by outcropping ledges, and through it ran roads whose fences and cuts afforded frequent vantage ground for a defensive force. Their right was in an open country, but one intersected by stone walls, and presenting on the side toward the Union lines very abrupt declivities.

The left of our army (directly opposite the rebel right), were posted on low hills, whose western sides were also steep and rough. Between the two positions the gap was just sufficient for the passage of the little river and for a narrow country road on either bank, and here the stream was spanned by a stone bridge of three arches, since known as Burnside’s bridge.

Nearly a mile above, over a similar bridge, the Sharpsburg turnpike crossed the Antietam, cutting by a direct line the centres of both armies. Lying across this road, east of the river, on commanding ground, the corps of Gen. Porter held the centre of the loyal army, connecting with Burnside on the left and with Sumner on the right. On the right of the Union army was Hooker’s corps, on the west bank of the stream, and almost in contact with the rebel left, occupying the ground which they had won from the enemy at nightfall of the day before; both parties in the same wood sleeping on their arms in line of battle.

Taken together, the positions of the two armies described a figure not unlike the letter D, of which the curved portion may represent the Union lines, and the straight part (which was in fact also curved), those of the Confederates. Except at our left (the bottom of the D), our army held both banks of the Antietam, and at both extremes the two armies almost touched.

Standing among the guns of Porter’s batteries, about the centre of the Union lines, one seemed to look down upon the field, the whole of which, except the immediate vicinity of Burnside’s bridge, was open to the view. Directly in our front the Antietam washed the base of the hill, on the rounded summit of which the guns were placed, but from the farther bank the land rose gently rolling to the lines of the army of our enemy. Between us and the rebel centre were cleared fields, many of them bearing crops of nearly ripened corn, bounded to the left by steep hill-sides closing in to the river, but on the right running up to a glade bordered by woodlands. In these woods, and in and over that glade, occurred the severest struggles and the greatest slaughter of this hard-fought battle. Near Porter’s lines, on yet higher land, the headquarters of our army were established for the day.

Of the curving line of the union army, the left was the corps of General Burnside, the centre the corps of General Porter, and the right the corps of General Hooker; but in the rear of Hooker was the corps of General Mansfield, and behind it that of General Sumner, while the force of General Franklin, just up from Pleasant Valley, acted as the reserve.

McClellan’s plan of the battle was to make the principal attack from his right, but as soon as that was well engaged, to throw Burnside from his left against the right of Lee, not absolutely as a real attack, but by menacing the road to the ford which was Lee’s only line of retreat, to occupy and divert certain portions of the Confederate army, and thus reduce its power of resistance to the real attack upon the other flank.

By reason of the curvation of the line, our batteries in its centre could reach effectively the whole extent of the front of the enemy from left to right; and throughout the day, as opportunity offered, the guns did good execution, and more especially upon our right where we could annoy the rebel infantry while in the cover of the woods, and enfilade them whenever they appeared in the open glade.

At break of day the rattling volleys of musketry on the right told that Hooker was opening the great struggle. Soon occasional deep thuds of his cannon were also heard, then nearer and more constant came the sounds approaching from both wings, until our own batteries in the centre joined in the din. Along the whole line gun for gun came back—as if echoed from the other ridge—the voice of the invading army from lips of bronze and iron, and its exploding messengers repeated in our ears the arguments of war, until hundreds of heavy guns were united in one deep quivering roar. And although there was rising and falling in the sound, yet until nightfall the sound of battle never ceased.

Just across the creek the skirmishers of our corps showed like dotted lines upon the fields; now and then we could see the smoke puff from their rifles, although the sound was lost in that of the general conflict. On the left, until afternoon, no movements were visible, but across that open glade, far away on the right, the tide of battle ebbed and flowed.

First from the edge of the woods on our side, appeared a ragged line of men fleeing for their lives, and following them the solid front of Hooker’s corps, firing as it followed.

The fugitives were three brigades of Jackson’s men, and the dark spots before the advancing line were the first fruits of that harvest of slaughter, whose winrows before nightfall traversed the whole of that fatal glade.

Hooker’s men had nearly crossed the open ground when the whole of Jackson’s corps burst from the western wood and met them in the open field; Hooker against Jackson—that was the tug of war. No sign of yielding could be marked on either side. Both lines became involved in the smoke of their rifles, but whenever the breeze wafted the smoke away, the reduced number of the combatants could be noted, and the fringe of wounded men and their too numerous helpers, which always hangs from the rear in the battle line, was constantly visible between each body and its nearest sheltering wood.

There was no moment when this contest ended; no line was seen pursuing or pursued, but little by little both melted away; and when all were gone, out from the edge of the woods on either side belched the fire and smoke of the batteries.

Now seven o’clock by Sharpsburg time. The scattered men of the broken divisions of each army sought the friendly shelter of the lines which were advancing to relieve them. Hood of Longstreet’s command, was marshalling his brigades within the timber on the west, and Mansfield’s corps was moving up through the rough woodland on the east, and for a season the open space between was unoccupied save by the dead and wounded, and the rolling, drifting smoke from the artillery.

The next movement visible to us was from the Confederate side, whence, with a rapid rush, came the command of General Hood,—Texas, Georgia, and Alabama men. In a few minutes they had crossed the open field in the face of our guns, and although a portion of their line faltered, yet another pushed even up to the line of our batteries, silencing almost every gun. Mansfield had fallen, but his men were there, and their rattling volleys showed that the enemy could get no foothold in the wood, just in the edge of which the line of smoke hung steadily an hour or more.

At nine o’clock the contest was for the moment ended by the advance of Sedgwick’s division of Sumner’s corps, before which the southern troops broke and fled over the glade to the cover opposite, and again our guns opened upon their shelter.

Sedgwick’s division was the right of Sumner’s corps, and now between it and us moved up from the Antietam the divisions of Richardson and French, his left and centre. Unobserved by the enemy, we could see them forming for the attack, and we watched with intense interest their steady progress diagonally across our front. As they crossed the summit of each rise, they came under the fire of the rebel batteries; but our twenty-pounders playing over their heads, kept the rebel lines crackling with shells, to the comfort of our friends and the confusion of their foes. In each depression of the land Richardson and French halted to dress their ranks, and then moved quickly on; and so they won closer and closer to the enemy, until they were so near that the guns of our batteries could not help nor those of the enemy hurt them. Here, in a field of standing corn, they came upon the infantry of General Hill, who, protected by fences and road cuttings, opened a galling fire. Receiving but not answering this, Sumner’s divisions, aided by horse batteries from Porter’s corps, dashed forward and secured these defences for themselves, driving out the Confederate infantry on the right, capturing or slaying them in the sunken road on the left. For a few brief minutes the carnage was terrific.

Here Richardson and French, not without frequent contests, held their advanced position all the day. We have described their movement as if it had been an isolated one; but it was not so. The right of Sumner’s corps, the division of “Old John” Sedgwick, was carrying everything before it. It swept in solid form across the glade, and pushed out of our sight into and through what we have called the western wood, and into the open land beyond.

The violence of this attack outran discretion and the division found itself out in the open fields with no support on either flank, and met by fresh troops of the enemy. Falling slowly back it came into line with the division of General French, but leaving a great gap between, into which the advancing forces of the enemy hastened to drive a cleaving wedge.

It was now one o’clock P. M., and we held the whole of the right and centre of General Lee’s original position, but not firmly. Besides the danger at the gap between Sedgwick and French, the latter was short of ammunition and Sedgwick’s right was feeble.

At this time, most opportunely, McClellan ordered forward his reserve, the corps of General Franklin; and that officer dividing his command, closed up the threatened gap, re-inforced French’s line and strengthened Sedgwick’s right, welding the whole to such tough consistency that no further impression could be made. What we had won we held.

Three o’clock in the afternoon and nothing seen of Burnside yet.

The most untutored of those who had watched the varying fortunes of the field could see that if Lee’s right had been attacked while McClellan was thus hammering on his left, either his right or left must have yielded. We had seen troops moving from the one flank to reinforce the other, until it seemed as if none could remain to hold the right. From officers about the headquarters we knew that McClellan, in person, had the night before advanced the division of Burnside’s corps close to the bridge, and that he had told that general to reconnoitre carefully, in readiness for attacking in the morning. We knew that at six o’clock he had been ordered to form his troops for the assault upon the bridge, and that at eight o’clock orders had been sent to carry the bridge, gain the heights, and move upon Sharpsburg.

General McClellan himself looked not more anxiously for movement on the left, than did we who saw the gallant fighting of the right; but five hours had passed before the capture of the bridge by the twin 51sts of New York and Pennsylvania, and since then two more of those priceless hours had passed away. Oh! if Sheridan or our Griffin could but have been commanding there.

The last peremptory order to advance and “not to stop for loss of life” produced the wished-for movement, but it was too late and too hesitating to accomplish great results.

When, at last, the heights were gained, the division of A. P. Hill had arrived to reinforce the enemy, who could also spare something from in front of our now-weakened right.

Burnside’s men fought well—gave only slowly back, and that not far. Six battalions of regulars from our corps moved to the front, joining the right of Burnside’s corps to the left of Sumner’s, and leaving our (Morell’s) division, in the rear of the advanced line, the only reserve force of McClellan’s army. One brigade was sent to the left to strengthen Burnside, and at five P. M., our own, the last, was marched toward the right, but the declining sun already showed that the contest for the day must soon be ended. Just as it reached the horizon there was one roaring feu d’enfer along both lines, and almost of a sudden the firing ceased, and the battle of the Antietam had filled its page in history. It was an important victory. By it Washington, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were relieved from menace and the country for a time was grateful.

Just as it appeared to the looker-on the battle of Antietam has been described. What happened, before our eyes has been told, without digressions, and the digressions may now be added.

The battle-field was all day long bathed in sunshine; hardly one cloud appeared to throw even a passing shadow over the fair autumnal landscape, of which the background was made up of shadowed tracts of woodland, and into which were introduced blocks of rough pasture, lawn-like vistas, rolling fields of corn ready for the harvest, with just enough of distant spire and nearer farmstead to add a look of human comfort to the natural beauty of the scene. Although the foreground and the middle distance of this picture were occupied by the various combatants—killing and maiming—wounded and dying—there was present to our sight no blemish of horror. We saw no ghastly wounds, no streams of flowing gore; we heard no groans nor sighs nor oaths of the struggle, and rarely did the sound even of southern yells or northern cheers penetrate the massive roar of ordnance to reach our ears; and yet before our eyes was fought a battle in which four thousand men were slain, and fifteen thousand more were disabled by savage wounds.

So entirely were the sadder sights of bloody war excluded from our minds, that when two men of our Regiment were badly wounded by the accidental discharge of a falling rifle, the incident created almost as much excitement as one like it might have done at a muster of militia here at home.

It must not be imagined that any one of us stood throughout that equinoctial day gazing upon the sunlit scene beyond the Antietam, for in time even the terrible events of battle fall tamely upon eye and ear. In the long pauses between the rounds of infantry fighting we sat down upon the green sward and ate our lunch, or strolled away to talk with the staff officers about the headquarters, or over to one of our other brigades to discuss the incidents of the action, or to hear or tell the news of its latest casualties.

The rank and file who had not the same liberty to stray away, and who, screened from the field by the knoll on which our batteries were planted, saw little or nothing of the fight—passed the time in chat with laugh and story, as they stood, or sat, or laid, keeping in some sort the form of the massed column which was more distinctly marked by lines of rifles in the stack. Every man of them knew that at any moment he might be called to be reaper or grain in the harvest of death so near at hand; but men cannot keep themselves strained up to the pitch of heroic thought or wearing anxiety, and so within the line of battle our men joked and laughed and talked and ate, or even slept in the warm sunshine.

No heartier laugh ever rewarded Irish wit than that which shook our sides when Guiney, the handsome Colonel of the Massachusetts 9th, bedecking himself in the gorgeous apparel of a brilliant sash, was reminded that it would make him a capital mark for the enemy’s sharp-shooters, and replied, “and wouldn’t you have me a handsome corpse?”

Early in the day, as soon as we were in position in rear of the batteries, some of our mounted officers naturally desiring to get a correct idea of the lay of the land and the order of the battle, rode at a foot pace to the summit of the knoll in front, and from their saddles were quietly examining the position of affairs through field-glasses, and pointing hither and yon as they conversed, when the chief of some rebel battery, possibly suspecting them to be big generals and high functionaries, began from two guns some practice with round shot, using the mounted officers for the bull’s-eye of the target. In their innocence they assumed that this sort of thing was a matter of course on such occasions, and for a time they went on with their observations.

It was not long however before the aim became more accurate, and our officers suddenly became aware of the scared looks of the German gunners, who, watching for the smoke of the rebel guns, dodged behind the trail of their own pieces until the shot had passed by, and presently a sergeant ventured to suggest that the gentlemen were drawing the fire on the battery, and to prefer the request that they would send away the horses and pursue their study of the field dismounted, which not unwillingly they did.

Not far from mid-day, in an interval of comparative quiet along the lines, most of us stretched at full length basking in the sun and waiting for “what next?” enjoyed a beautiful sight in the endeavor of the enemy to shell our division.

As we were hidden from his view no direct shot could reach us, and he seemed to have calculated that by exploding his shells high in the air, the fragments could be dropped among our ranks. What became of the fragments we did not know, hardly one of them fell near us, none of them did us injury; but we watched for the shells with interest, and were sorry when they came no more. Gazing up into the clear blue sky there would from time to time suddenly appear a little cloudlet, which unfolding itself drifted lazily away, and soon melted in the air. Each of these cloudlets was the smoke from an exploding shell, the rapid flight of which gave no other evidence of its existence to the eye, and all sound was lost in the general tumult. Each seemingly miraculous appearance of the cloudlet was hailed with admiration, and we were quite ready to enjoy the entertainment as long as our friend the enemy chose to supply it, and were inclined to be gruff with him when it stopped.

While the divisions of Generals Richardson and French were advancing on the Confederate centre, a gun from one of Porter’s horse batteries was run out quite a distance to the left, where, from a little swell of land, entirely unsupported, it opened upon the rebel infantry. The rake upon the enemy’s line was so complete that after the first few shots we could see them breaking; but the position was untenable and after the gun had been discharged perhaps a dozen times, the enemy got two guns to bear upon it, whereupon our gun was hastily limbered up and went scampering back to cover as fast as four horses could run with it, and as it went rebel shots could be seen striking up the dust all about its track, as the stones strike about an escaping dog when boys are pelting him.

When such an incident occurred we could hardly refrain from cheers. And when—as was once or twice the case—we could see some movement of the enemy against our lines which was unseen to those it menaced, it was almost irresistible to cry out a warning, and several times shells from the batteries of our division gave to the Union troops the first warning of a threatening movement.

Twenty-five days after the battle our Company C on detached service encamped for a night on the plateau, the summit of the heights which were won by Burnside’s charge, and Captain Fuller observing that the line of battle could even then be traced by the cartridge papers which lay in winrows on the ground, wondered that troops which had so gallantly charged up the steep ascent should have halted in this place long enough to have used so many cartridges.

On the 18th of September, Porter’s corps relieved Burnside’s at the lower bridge, and then we saw only too many of the woful sights which belong to battle, and saw them without that halo of excitement which in the midst of the contest diminishes their horror.

On the 19th, at dawn, we were in expectation of immediate participation in a second battle, but the enemy had retreated. In the pursuit Porter led the way. After passing through the town of Sharpsburg, the artillery occupied the roadway, the infantry moving along the fields on either side. At each rise of the land, a few pieces dashed to the summit and shelled the nearer woods, the infantry forming in the hollow in the rear, and so we felt our way a mile or two down to the Potomac. The rear guard of the enemy had just crossed the river, and General Griffin with parts of two brigades followed closely, capturing some prisoners and much property, among which were the very guns that were lost on the Peninsula from the battery he then commanded.

Returning, he reported the enemy as in full flight, and on the 20th Porter prepared to give immediate chase. A part of one of his divisions had crossed the ford and gained the bluffs on the right bank. Our own brigade was on the high lands of the other bank, when, looking across we saw the woods swarm out with rebel infantry rushing upon our little force. A sharp cannonade checked them and covered the return of nearly all our regiments, but the 108th Pennsylvania was cut off from the road to the river crossing, and forced to retire up a rising ground, terminating at the river in a high bluff, from which the only escape was to scramble down the steep cliff and thus to gain the ford.

The men poured like a cataract over the edge and down the declivity, and so long as they stayed at its immediate base they were tolerably safe, but their assailants soon gained the edge of the bluff and lying flat, could pick off any who attempted to cross to the Maryland side, and many were killed or wounded and drowned before our eyes.

Our brigade was formed near to the ford; sharp-shooters were placed along the river bank, and the artillery rattled solid shot upon the summit of the bluff. After a time the Pennsylvanians began to run the gauntlet of the ford, but it was several hours before all of them had left the other shore.

In this time many gallant acts were performed, but none more daring than that of the Adjutant of the 108th, who, after reaching the Maryland shore, walked back upon the plate of the dam just above the ford, and standing there midway across the river, exposed from head to heels, shouted the directions to his men as to the manner of their escape from their awkward fix.

When this fight at the ford was over it was near nightfall, and the army encamped along the river side, the pickets of each army occupying its own bank, and for weeks it was all quiet on the Potomac.