The Young Sharpshooter at Antietam

by Everett T. Tomlinson

At this time Noel was not able to see any indication of a hidden force in the fields and woods opposite the position where his division had taken their stand. As yet, too, very few missiles had come as far as the place which he and his comrades were occupying. Ambulances could now be seen carrying off the more desperately wounded, or on their way back to the field for their new freights of agony.

The fighting seemed to be going on mostly on the right. The roar of the artillery and of the infantry became louder and more terrifying. As Noel advanced with his comrades he passed improvised hospitals sheltered in a little valley. Farmhouses and barns were all occupied now, and still the stretcher-bearers brought in from the front a constant and fresh addition of suffering men.

It was no time for faint-heartedness, however. Into the smoke and the din of battle, out of which the bleeding forms had come, Noel and Dennis must enter.

So many were the stragglers from the field that the cavalry was brought up and stationed on the Hagerstown Turnpike and with drawn sabers prevented the withdrawal of any more.

On his right Noel saw troops drawn up in line of battle. On his left were other troops in a grove near the road. To his surprise as they advanced he saw some of the troops apparently falling back. A cry passed through the ranks that General Hooker, who was in command of the division, had been wounded and that the right wing had been compelled to fall back. There were rumors also that the enemy far outnumbered the right wing and that there was great danger also for the left.

Beyond all that, Stonewall Jackson, a name that every Yankee soldier had come to respect, had sheltered his reserves behind some rocky ledges and had thrown up long lines of fence-rail breastworks.

A feeling of intense and bitter disappointment now took possession of the Union men. The division was sent ahead and drawn up in line of battle on both sides of the Hagerstown Turnpike. It seemed at that moment as if the Confederate soldiers were about to break through the army of the North and repeat the successes which they had won on the field of Bull Run.

One of the batteries in Noel's division had lost thirty-eight officers and men and twenty-eight horses. Two of his comrades had tried to appease their desperate feeling of hunger by a hoe-cake which they had taken from the haversack of a dead rebel soldier. One general in the division had leaped forward in a critical moment and personally sighted the guns when the enemy was almost upon him. Another general, of a different division, had ordered his brigade to advance, but he himself had remained behind.

Apparently matters once more were moving well, but just as Dennis and Noel were pushing with their comrades into some woods, they found themselves with others confronted by fresh troops who instantly stopped them with volleys so terrible that a retreat was unavoidable. Neither Noel nor Dennis knew at this time that the battle of Antietam really was nearly over. As yet, to both boys there seemed to have been set only the first act of the tragedy.

On the left the din of battle had long been heard and out in front the cannon thundered, and every moment an attack was expected on the division where Noel and Dennis were.