THE INVASION OF MARYLAND AND THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM
General Longstreet always thought that the division of the Confederate army after they moved into Maryland proved their downfall. This, however, is not a part of my story.
At this time General Pope had been relieved and General McClellan restored to the command of the Union army. With ninety thousand troops, he marched towards Antietam to avenge the second Manassas.
General D. H. Hill was at South Mountain with five thousand men; Longstreet’s First Corps was at Hagerstown, thirteen miles farther on; General Lee was with him, and on the night of the 13th of September, 1862, information was received that McClellan was at the foot of South Mountain with his great army. It was decided to withdraw the forces of Longstreet and Hill from their respective positions and unite at Sharpsburg, which afforded a strong defensive position. On the afternoon of the 15th of September the commands of Longstreet and Hill crossed the Antietam Creek and took position in front of Sharpsburg, Longstreet on the right and Hill on the left. They soon found their weak point was on the left at the famous Dunkard Church. Hood, with two brigades, was put to guard that point. That night, after the fall of Harper’s Ferry, General Lee ordered Stonewall Jackson to come to Sharpsburg as quickly as possible.
On the forenoon of the 15th the blue uniforms of the Federals appeared among the trees that crowned the heights on the eastern bank of the Antietam. Their numbers increased in proportions distressing to their opponents, who were shattered by repeated battles, tired by long marches, and fed most meagrely. On the 16th Jackson arrived and took position on Longstreet’s left. Before night the Federals attacked, but were driven back. Hood was ordered to replenish his ammunition during the night and resume his position on Longstreet’s right in the morning. General Jackson’s forces were extended to the left, and reached well back towards the Potomac, where most of the Confederate cavalry was. General Robert Toombs was placed as guard on the bridge at Longstreet’s right.
On the Federal side General Hooker, who had been driven back in the afternoon, was reinforced by the corps of Sumner and Mansfield; Sykes’s division was also drawn into position for battle; Burnside was over against Longstreet’s right threatening the passage of the Antietam. On the morning of the 17th the Federals were in good position and in good condition. Back of McClellan’s line was a high ridge, upon which he had a signal-station overlooking every point of the field. D. R. Jones’s brigades of Longstreet’s command deployed on the right of the Sharpsburg pike, while Hood’s brigades awaited orders; D. H. Hill was on the left towards the Hagerstown-Sharpsburg pike; Jackson extended out from Hill’s left towards the Potomac.
The battle opened heavily with attacks by Hooker, Mansfield, and Sumner against Longstreet’s left centre, which consisted of Jackson’s right and D. H. Hill’s left. So persistent were the attacks that Longstreet sent Hood to support the Confederate centre. The Confederates were forced back somewhat; McClellan’s forces continued the attacks; the line swayed forward and back like a rope exposed to rushing currents; a weak point would be driven back and then the Confederate fragments would be collected and the lost ground recovered; the battle ebbed and flowed with fearful slaughter on both sides. The Federals came forward with wonderful courage, and the Confederates heroically held their ground, while they were mown down like grass.
How Lee’s ragged army withstood McClellan’s troops no one will ever be able to tell. Hood’s ammunition gave out; he retired for a fresh supply; the Federals continued to come up in great masses. At one point, under the crest of a hill occupying a position that from four to six brigades should have held, there were only the stranded troops of Cooke’s regiment of North Carolina Infantry, who were without a cartridge. As Longstreet rode along the line of his staff, he saw two pieces of Washington Artillery (Miller’s battery), but there were not enough men to handle them. The gunners had all been killed or wounded—and this was the Confederate centre. Longstreet held the horses of his staff-officers, put them to man the guns, and calmly surveyed the situation. He saw that if the Federals broke through the line at that point the Confederate army would be cut in two and probably destroyed. Cooke sent him word that his ammunition was entirely out. Longstreet replied that he must hold his position as long as he had a man left. Cooke responded that he would show his colors as long as there was left a man alive to hold them up. The two guns were rapidly loaded with canister by the staff-officers, and they rattled leaden hail into the Federals as they came up over the crest of the hill. That little battery, with superhuman energy, had to hold thousands of Federals at bay, or the whole battle would be lost.
The Confederates sought to make the Federals believe that many batteries were before them. As they came up, they would see the colors of Cooke’s North Carolina regiment waving as placidly as if the whole of Lee’s army were back of them, while a shower of canister came from the two lonely guns. General Chilton, General Lee’s chief of staff, made his way to Longstreet and asked, “Where are the troops you are holding your line with?” Longstreet pointed to his two pieces and to Cooke’s regiment, and replied, “There they are; but that regiment hasn’t a cartridge.” Chilton, dumb with astonishment, rode back to tell the story to General Lee. Then an enfilade fire from General D. H. Hill’s line ploughed the ground across the Federal front and kept them back; meanwhile, R. H. Anderson and General Hood came to the support of this fearfully pushed Confederate centre. In a little while another Federal assault was made against D. H. Hill and extending far to the Confederate left, where McLaws and Walker were supporting Jackson. In this fearful combat the lines swung back and forth, the Federals attacking with invincible motion and the Confederates holding their positions with irresistible force.
Meanwhile, General Lee was over towards the right, where Burnside was making the attack. General Toombs, assigned as guard at that point, had only four hundred weary and footsore soldiers to meet the Federal Ninth Corps, which pressed the brave little band slowly back. The delay that Toombs caused, however, saved that part of the battle, for at the last moment A. P. Hill came in to reinforce him and D. H. Hill discovered a place for a battery and lost no time in opening it. Thus the Confederates drove the Federals back, and when night settled down the army of Lee was still in possession of the field. But it was a victory that was not a victory, for thousands of Confederates were dead on the field and gallant commands had been torn into fragments. Nearly one-fourth of the troops who went into the battle were killed or wounded. This day has been well called the bloodiest day of the Civil War.
General Longstreet was fond of telling how during the battle he and General Lee were riding along his line and D. H. Hill’s when they started up a hill to make a reconnoissance. Lee and Longstreet dismounted, but Hill remained on his horse. General Longstreet said to Hill, “If you insist on riding up there and drawing the fire, give us time to get out of the line of the fire when they open up anew.” While they were all standing there viewing with their glasses the Federal movements, Longstreet noticed a puff of white smoke from a Federal cannon. He called to Hill, “That shot is for you.” The gunner was a mile away, but the cannon-shot took off the front legs of Hill’s horse. The horse’s head was so low and his croup so high that Hill was in a very ludicrous position. With one foot in the stirrup he made several efforts to get the other leg over the croup, but failed. Lee and Longstreet yelled at him to dismount from the other end of the horse, and so he got down. He had a third horse shot under him before the close of the battle. General Longstreet said that that shot at Hill was the second best shot he ever saw. The best was at Yorktown, where a Federal officer came out in front of the Confederate line, sat down to a little platting table, and began to make a map. A Confederate officer carefully sighted a cannon, touched it off, and dropped a shell into the lap of the man at the little table a mile or more away.
After the battle closed, parties from both sides, by mutual consent, went in search of fallen comrades.
After riding along the lines, giving instructions for the night and morning, General Longstreet rode for general head-quarters to make report, but was delayed somewhat, finding wounded men hidden away under stone walls and in fence-corners, not yet looked after, and afterwards in assisting a family whose home had been fired by a shell, so that all the other officers had arrived, made their reports, and were lounging about on the sod when General Longstreet rode up. General Lee walked up as he dismounted, threw his hands upon his shoulders, and hailed him with, “Here is my old war-horse at last!”