SECOND BULL RUN. ANTIETAM. FREDERICKSBURGH.
About the middle of August, the government having determined upon the evacuation of the Peninsula, the army abandoned its position at Harrison's landing. Water transportation not being at hand in sufficient quantity, a large portion of the army marched southward towards Fortress Monroe, passing, by the way, the fields of Williamsburgh. Lee's Mills and Yorktown, upon which they had so recently stood victorious over the very enemy upon whom they were now turning their backs. Co. F. was with the division which thus passed down by land. Upon arriving at Hampton the Fifth Corps, to which the sharp shooters were attached, embarked on steamboats and were quickly and comfortably conveyed to Acquia Creek, at which place they took the cars for Falmouth, on the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburgh.
No sooner did McClellan turn his back on Richmond in the execution of this change of base, than Lee, no longer held to the defense of the rebel capitol, moved with his entire force rapidly northward, hoping to crush Pope's scattered columns in detail before the Army of the Potomac could appear to its support. Indeed, before McClellan's movement commenced, the Confederate General Jackson—he whose foray in the valley in May had so completely neutralized McDowell's powerful corps that its services were practically lost to the Union commander during the entire period of the Peninsular campaign—had again appeared on Pope's right and rear, and it was this apparition that struck such dread to the soul of Halleck, then General-in-Chief at Washington. Now commenced that campaign of maneuvers in which Pope was so signally foiled by his keen and wary antagonist.
The Fifth Corps left Falmouth on the 24th of August, marching to Rappahannock Station, thence along the line of the Orange & Alexandria R. R. to Warrenton Junction where they remained for a few hours, it being the longest rest they had had since leaving Falmouth, sixty miles away. On the 28th of August the sharp shooters arrived, with the rest of the corps, at Bristoe's Station where Porter had been ordered to take position at daylight to assist in the entertainment which Pope had advertised for that day, and which was to consist of "bagging the whole crowd" of rebels.
The wily Jackson, however, was no party to that plan, and while Pope was vainly seeking him about Manassas Junction, he was quietly awaiting the arrival of Lee's main columns near Groveton. The corps remained at Bristoe's, or between that place and Manassas Junction, inactive during the rest of the twenty-eighth and the whole of the twenty-ninth, and the sharp shooters thus failed of any considerable share in the battle of Groveton on that day. During the night preceding the 30th of August, Porter's corps was moved by the Sudley Springs road from their position near Bristoe's to the scene of the previous day's battle to the north and east of Groveton, where its line of battle was formed in a direction nearly northeast and southwest, with the left on the Warrenton turnpike. Morell's division, to which the sharp shooters were attached, formed the front line with the sharp shooters, as usual, far in the advance as skirmishers. With a grand rush the riflemen drove the rebels through the outlying woods, and following close upon the heels of the flying enemy, suddenly passed from the comparative shelter of the woods into an open field directly in the face of Jackson's corps strongly posted behind the embankment of an unfinished railroad leading from Sudley Springs southwestwardly towards Groveton.
It was a grand fortification ready formed for the enemy's occupation, and stoutly defended by the Stonewall brigade. Straight up to the embankment pushed the gallant sharp shooters, and handsomely were they supported by the splendid troops of Barnes and Butterfield's brigades. The attack was made with the utmost impetuosity and tenaciously sustained; but Jackson's veterans could not be dislodged from their strong position behind their works. The sharp shooters gained the shelter of a partially sunken road parallel to the enemy's line and hardly thirty yards distant; but not even the splendid courage of the men who had held the lines of Gaines Hill and Malvern against this same enemy, could avail to drive them from their shelter.
To add to the peril of the charging column, Longstreet, on Jackson's right, organized an attack on Porter's exposed left flank. The corps thus placed, with an enemy in their front whom they could not dislodge and another on their unprotected flank, were forced to abandon their attack. The sharp shooters were the last to leave their advanced positions, and then only when, nearly out of ammunition, Longstreet's fresh troops fairly crowded them out by sheer numerical superiority. Of Co. F the following men were wounded in this battle: Corporals H. J. Peck and Ai Brown and Private W. H. Blake. Corporal Peck was honorably discharged on the 26th of October following for disability resulting from his wound. The sharp shooters were not again seriously engaged with the enemy during Pope's campaign. On the night after the battle they retired with the shattered remains of the gallant Fifth Corps, and on the 1st of September went into camp near Fort Corcoran. So far the campaigns of the sharp shooters had, although full of thrilling incident and gallant achievement, been barren of result. Great victories had been won on many fields, but the end seemed as far off as when they left Washington more than five months before.
Disease and losses in battle had sadly thinned their ranks, but the remnant were soldiers tried and tempered in the fire of many battles. They were not of the stuff that wilts and shrivels under an adverse fortune, and putting the past resolutely behind them, they set their faces sternly towards the future, prepared for whatever of good, or of ill, it should have in store for them.
THE ANTIETAM CAMPAIGN.
On the 12th of September, the main portion of the army having preceded them, the Fifth Corps crossed to the north bank of the Potomac, and by forced marches came up with the more advanced columns on the sixteenth and took part in the maneuvers which brought the contending armies again face to face on the banks of the Antietam.