The Maryland Campaign

Introduction

Political Implications of the Campaign

    General Robert E. Lee's exhausted, but re-enforced Confederate Army of Northern Virginia invaded Maryland directly after defeating Major-General John Pope's army at the battle of 2nd Bull Run.  The Army  Lee's objective was to carry the fight north of the Potomac, out of Virginia, and if feasible enter Pennsylvania.    If successful the Confederate government could propose a cessation of hostilities in exchange for Southern Independence. If the proposal for peace were rejected by Lincoln's government it could still impact northern voters in the fast approaching elections.   Voters could choose between those who wish to prolong the war or those who wish to pursue peace.  In any case, Lee was in Maryland to inflict injury on "our adversaries" and to "annoy and harass the enemy."  He planned to attack the Union Army, thinking it  was too demoralized to win a fight.  The plan was audacious, but so was General Lee   While he depended upon his army alone for victory, the Confederate government was hoping to gain recognition from Europe.

    The Union Naval blockade kept southern cotton from textile mills in England and France where it was desperately needed.  Their mill workers were put out.  Those two countries were leaning toward Confederate recognition, but prudent England decided to take a wait and see attitude.  President Lincoln's Secretary of State, William H. Seward proclaimed European attempts at mediation in the Civil War would be an act of war.  When news of the Union defeat at 2nd Bull Run reached London, 2 weeks after the battle, the British government thought it was finally time to consider intervention on behalf of The South.  Meanwhile, President Lincoln waited uneasily for a northern army victory so he could announce his "Emancipation Proclamation," which freed the slaves in openly rebellious states.  He knew England could not morally support a nation that condoned slavery, at war with another which did not.

Troop Movements

    After a few days rest at Frederick, MD, General Lee made some plans.    The intended supply route for his Northern invasion was the Shenandoah Valley, and he needed to clear out the Federal garrisons there at Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry.  General McClellan wanted these outflanked posts evacuated, but Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck insisted they be defended.  To capture these forces, General Lee divided his army in half.  General Stonewall Jackson's wing would divide into 3 sections and attack Harper's Ferry on September 12th, from the North, East and West.  The Union troops at Martinsburg were expected to retreat to the larger garrison at Harper's Ferry.  Lee's supply train and the rest of his army would wait in Boonsboro, across South Mountain, shielded from Federal view.  The army moved out September 10th.

      General McClellan had the love and confidence of his army but not of the administration. His presence as commander tremendously boosted morale.  He followed Lee into Maryland, seeking information on the motives and size of the Confederate Army.   McClellan’s   force cautiously spread out over 25 miles, to be ready to cover Baltimore or Washington¹ or enter Penn. depending on the motives of the enemy.  Faulty reconnaissance by his own men, suggested his army was greatly outnumbered by the rebels; a chronic complaint of 'The Young Napoleon.'  By chance, on the morning of September 13th, when going into camp at Frederick, MD, Corporal Barton Mitchell of the 27th Indiana discovered a map of Lee's plans wrapped in a package of 3 cigars.  They were quickly brought to Gen. McClellan's headquarters and authenticated.   Crucial was the discovery that Lee had divided his force.  McClellan knew he had the means to destroy Lee's army and telegraphed the President as much.

     On September 13th, the Union Army moved west through the town of Frederick toward the South Mountain passes.²  The morning of September 14th General Franklin's corps advanced to Crampton's Gap, his objective the relief of Harper's Ferry.  McClellan approached Turner's Gap 7 miles north of Crampton's Gap.  The Union advance surprised General Lee, who had divided his wing of the army further still, and he had to scramble to get troops from far away Hagerstown up to Turner’s Gap on South Mountain to head the Yankees off at the pass.    The Confederates were slow in coming, but the Yankees were even slower.  Confederate General D.H. Hill was lucky and successful in giving the Federals a good fight for control of the mountain passes and he managed to slow the Union advance with an all day fight that lasted until dark. (General James Longstreet’s troops arrived in time to give support.)  At night Lee and his subordinates, Generals Longstreet and D.H. Hill,decided to retreat from the mountain before dawn.  The Union victory gave McClellan's long suffering troops something to celebrate.  

         Seven miles south at Crampton's Gap, General Franklin’s  aggressive Division Commander Major-General Henry Slocum charged the hill in the afternoon and took the mountain pass from the Confederate defenders.  But Franklin’s glacial pace was no help to the Federals trapped at Harper's Ferry.  Jackson's 3 pronged attack forced the surrender of the Garrison the morning of September 15th.

     With the Yankees on his tail, Lee's spread out army was in peril.  He sent orders to Jackson at Harper's Ferry to make haste and re-unite the army at Sharpsburg.  Lee then formed his half of the Army of Northern Virginia into a line of battle on the high ground near the town, facing the Federals across Antietam Creek.   Lee's show of defiance led the super cautious McClellan to pause and ponder what to do next as his army marched down the mountain, through Boonsboro to Keedysville.  The Army of the Potomac bivouacked on the roads around the village, just east of Antietam Creek.  Bad intelligence still led McClellan to believe the Confederates greatly outnumbered his own troops.  The opposite was true.  On September 15th and 16th McClellan outnumbered Lee's available force by 4 to 1. McClellan's fighting strength was about 71,500 troops.  About 18,000 were fresh troops, totally green without any training.³   Lee at this moment had about 26,500 men at hand, yet the Union high command estimated Rebel strength to be between 100,000 and 135,000 men.

           The two day pause of the Union Army bought desperately needed time for the Rebel army to concentrate.

     General McClellan’s battle strategy was sound.   He attacked Lee’s line on both flanks, forcing the Confederates to use up their reserve troops.  The final strike was to be a decisive knock-out blow delivered by a huge attack force massed in the center of the Union line.  It was to strike in either direction at an opportune moment during the battle.   One flaw however, was that the entire Union Cavalry was part of this force, which prevented the Union command from gaining any intelligence about enemy movements on the flanks, especially in the direction of the river crossings towards Harper’s Ferry and Shepherdstown.

    Major-General Joseph Hooker's First Corps opened the battle on the Confederate left flank, assisted by the 2nd Corps, Major-General  Edwin V. Sumner and the 12th Corps, (formerly Major-General N.P. Banks Corps) now commanded by Major-General Joseph K. Mansfield.  Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside's 9th Corps delivered the 2nd attack on Lee's right flank, across the Rhorsback bridge.    

    On September 16th around 4 p.m., Hooker’s First Corps began crossing Antietam Creek to get into battle positions.  The Confederate line shifted to meet the to meet the forthcoming attack.

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NOTES:   1.   Editor Tom Clemens cites an communication from General Halleck reprimanding McClellan for moving too quickly and leaving Washington uncovered during the advance; to be found in the Official Records 19 pt 2, pp 211, 216; ibid, pt 1, pp 25-7, 39-41;  from “The Maryland Campaign” Vol. I, Ezra A. Carman, edited and annotated by Thomas G. Clemens, pp 172 -3, note 24.

 2.   McClellan is criticized by historians for not advancing further toward South Mountain on the night of Sept.13th after Special Order 191 was discovered.  Thos Clemens makes a good point in Vol. I of  “The Maryland Campaign” (Ezra A. Carman) Most of the army was already in motion that day when Special Order 191 was found.  The second and ninth corps caused a traffic jam as they moved through the town of Frederick forcing the 12th Corps to halt east of town. And Confederate rear guard forces were a problem until early afternoon.  Two divisions of the 9th corps did move into the Middleton Valley the night of the 13th.  “It is also worth noting that on Sept 14, Halleck was still notifying McClellan about large numbers of troops in Virginia, and warning him about exposing his flank and rear” [p. 290; note 17.] 

3.  Thomas Clemens’s wrote, “This editor’s research arrives at a figure close to 18,000.” From The Maryland Campaign, vol. I, Ezra A. Carman, edited and annotated by Thomas G. Clemens [p.149, note 68].

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The Battle; September 17, 1862. 

     The following is lifted directly from the Antietam National Battlefield Park description of the fight.

     "The twelve hour battle began at dawn on the 17th.  For the next seven hours there were three major Union attacks on the Confederate left, moving from north to south.  Gen. Joseph Hooker's command led the first Union assault.  Then Gen. Joseph Mansfield's soldiers attacked, followed by Gen. Edwin Sumner's men as McClellan's plan broke down into a series of uncoordinated Union advances.  Savage, incomparable combat raged across the Cornfield, East Woods, West Woods and the Sunken Road as Lee shifted his men to withstand each of the Union thrusts.  After clashing for over eight hours, the Confederates were pushed back but not broken, however over 15,000 soldiers were killed or wounded.

     While the Union assaults were being made on the Sunken Road, a mile-and-a-half farther south, Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside opened the attack on the Confederate right.  His first task would be to capture the bridge that would later bear his name.  A small Confederate force, positioned on higher ground, was able to delay Burnside for three hours.  After taking the bridge at about 1:00 p.m., Burnside reorganized for two hours before moving forward across the arduous terrain - a critical delay.  Finally the advance started only to be turned back by Confederate General A.P. Hill's reinforcements that arrived in the late afternoon from Harper's Ferry.

     Neither flank of the Confederate army collapsed far enough for McClellan to advance his center attack, leaving a sizable Union force that never entered the battle.  Despite over 23,000 casualties of the nearly 100,000 engaged, both armies stubbornly held their ground as the sun set on the devastated landscape."

The '13th Mass.' at the Battle (Ricketts Division, Hartsuff's Brigade)

     The following borrows heavily from the book, “Landscape Turned Red” by Stephen W. Sears; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983.

     General Hooker's attack goal was a "raised open plateau just to the east of the Hagerstown Turnpike in front of the Dunker Church."  He planned to attack "due south toward the Dunker Church along the axis of the Hagerstown turnpike."  Brigadier-General Abner Doubleday's Division, "would advance on the right, along the pike and through the Miller farm toward the West Woods,  with James Ricketts' Division on the left, through the Cornfield and the East Woods.  George Meade's Division would back them up in the center."

     No provision was made for a joint attack with Mansfield's Twelfth Corp.  Hooker's First Corps strength was about 8,600 men.  His opponent, Stonewall Jackson had about 7,700 men to meet the attack.

  Very early in the morning, Brigadier-General Truman Seymour's Pennsylvania Buck-tails skirmished in the East Woods while General Hooker got his attack force ready.  When General James Ricketts moved the 3 Brigades of his Division out of the North Woods on Joseph Poffenberger's Farm, enemy artillery spotted them and opened fire.  "Scores were knocked out of the ranks before they were on the field 5 minutes."  Brigadier-General Abram Duryea's Brigade led the advance to the Cornfield with two artillery batteries in support.  The guns of Captain Ezra Matthews, 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, Battery F, and Captain James Thompson's Pennsylvania Light Battery C, advanced with Duryea to the cornfield and dueled with the Confederate Artillery posted near the Dunker Church.  At 6 A.M. Duryea's 1,100 men from New York & Pennsylvania entered Miller's Cornfield.  Duryea's Brigade fought alone for about 30 minutes without support.  

     This map shows the portion of the field where the 13th Mass fought.  Map boundaries  extend from Dunker Church at the intersection of Smoketown Road and Hagerstown Pike, (bottom center) north to the farm of Joseph Poffenberger where the 1st Corps formed battle lines.  Gen. Hooker's objective was the plateau where Col. Stephen D. Lee's  Confederate artillery was posted.  The map shows Duryea's attack; 6:00 to 6:20 a.m.

     General Ricketts other two brigades ( Brigadier-General George Lucas Hartsuff and Colonel William A. Christian) suffered a break-down in command which delayed the advance. Hartsuff was supposed to lead the attack with Duryea and Christian in close support.   The first delay happened when General Hartsuff went forward to reconnoiter and was badly wounded by a shell fragment from enemy artillery.   Between the confusion of the command change and a mix-up of orders, his entire brigade remained standing under arms back in Poffenberger's meadow while Duryea's lines were broken and driven back in the cornfield.  Finally everything was straightened out.  Colonel Richard Coulter assumed command and  hurried the brigade forward.

     As the columns of Christian's Brigade approached the East Woods they came under a deadly cross fire of Rebel artillery.   Col. Christian had a sudden break-down, dismounted and ran to the rear.  "While Christian's Brigade was trying to sort itself out, Hartsuff's troops under Colonel Coulter emerged from the Cornfield and the East Woods to meet a blizzard of fire."  The Confederate artillery had their exact range. 

    Confederate General Lawton was facing the Yankees on this part of the line and his thinning force began to waiver.  He called for reinforcements and up charged the infamous Louisiana Tigers, who with some of Lawton's Georgians, came head on at Col. Coulter.  A Southern war correspondent for the Charleston Daily Courier, described the scene this way, "The fire now became fearful and incessant,…merged into a tumultuous chorus that made the earth tremble.  The discharge of musketry sounded upon the ear like the rolling of a thousand distant drums…"   Thompson's Battery moved into the cornfield to support the Union line and blasted the Tigers and the Georgians until they fell back.  The fight in the cornfield was about an hour old at 7 A.M. when Christian's Brigade led by Colonel Peter Lyle of the 90th PA finally advanced through the East Woods.  "Col. Coulter hurried back from the front line, found Lyle and called out, "For God's sake, come help us out!"   Coulter's wrecked formations were pulled back and Lyle's men took their places."  In his report of the battle Colonel Coulter wrote, "The Thirteenth Massachusetts had disabled three officers out of twelve taken into action.  I would here make especial mention of Major Gould, commanding this regiment. He brought his men well into action, by his gallantry maintained and encouraged them while there, and was among the last to leave the field."     

     Battle Map No. 2 shows the attack of Hartsuff's Brigade, commanded by Col. Richard Coulter.

     The battle-line of the Thirteenth Massachusetts extended partially into the East Woods, which provided some shelter from enemy fire for those men.  The accounts of the soldiers suggest some of them fought longer than the rest of the brigade, due to  this protection.  Their sister regiment, the Twelfth Massachusetts, was totally exposed on high open ground.  This organization suffered the highest casualty rate of any regiment in the fight this day.  The usual statistic given states the '12th Mass.' lost 224 men out of 334 taken into battle, (67 % loss).  But like the '13th Mass.,' the 12th had a post-war Regiment Association, and in the annual circular of 1897, historian George Kimball states that only nine of the 12th Regiment's ten companies were in the action, and that losses were 222 of 262, or 85%.   Lieutenant Charles B. Fox compiled a careful list of the 13th Regiment's losses.   A transcription of the list is included on this page.  Charles E. Davis, Jr. stated in the Thirteenth Massachusetts regimental history,  "We took into this fight three hundred and one men, and brought out one hundred and sixty-five, a loss of forty-five percent."  

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Picture Credits:  All pictures & maps come from the Library of Congress digital collections except where indicated.  The graphic "Into the Cornfield" by artist Walton Tabor is from Century's publication, "Battles & Leaders of the Civil War."  South Mountain Inn images come from the  Maryland Historical Register; and images of Boonsboro, from the Western Maryland Room of the Hagerstown Library.  Soldiers of Co. B (Worcester, Dorr, Richards, Armstrong, Whidden, Samuel S. Gould, & Adna Hall's breastplate) were shared with me by private collector Scott Hann.  Captain Eben Fiske, John B. Noyes from Massachusetts Historical Society;  John S. Fay, Charles N. Richards, James Lascelle Forbes, Adna P. Hall from descendants of these men, Gen. Hartsuff from Robert Moore's blog,; Confederates marching through Frederick from Harry Smeltzer's blog;  Col. D. H. Strother, Captain Charles Hovey, Lt. Charles B. Fox, J.H. Cutting,  from Mass. MOLLUS Collection, Carlisle, Army Heritage Education Center; battlefield snapshots by webmaster Brad Forbush, taken March, 2005; Abel H. Pope from Hudson, Mass. Historical Society; Dead at Antietam from,  "Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes", Francis Trevelian Miller, 1911; Austin Stearns' sketch of the cornfield from "Three Years with Company K" ed. by Arthur Kent, 1975.;  Enoch C. Pierce, Maj. J.P.Gould, Alfred W. Brigham, Eugene Allen Fiske, Will Soule, Walter Pollard, J. P. Shelton, Edward Archibald,  from various online auction houses.  Charles R. Dale shared with me by Steve Heintzleman of Stoneham, Mass.  ALL PHOTOS HAVE BEEN CROPPED AND RETOUCHED IN PHOTOSHOP.

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Campaign Narrative:  New Recruits; Sept. 10, 1862

From "Three Years in the Army" by Charles E. Davis, jr. Estes & Lauriat, Boston, 1894.

Wednesday, September 10.
     Yesterday at 4:15 P.M. we marched to Mechanicsville, about eight miles, where we now were.

     We received another lot of recruits to-day, and a fine looking set of men they were.  It is a notable fact that this batch of recruits was the last in which we had any feeling of pride.  Up to and including this time we had been fortunate in our recruits.  They were a credit to the State and reflected honor upon the regiment; they were in such marked contrast to those who followed that the fact is worth mentioning.

     Disappointment and mortification was the lot of one of this number, who came to us full of confidence and hope.  Having completed his school education he was seized with the patriotic desire to enlist, and leaving the tender care of mother and father he joined the Thirteenth.  His first shock was at our appearance.  Instead of bright uniforms, with gilt buttons and shoulder knots, he found us with ragged trousers, ill-fitting blouses, and torn and faded caps - the result of long marches over dusty roads and bivouacking in ploughed fields, that made us look more like a regiment of tramps than soldiers.

     On the morning following his arrival, our new recruit made inquiry of his comrades as to where he was to get milk for his coffee, and was told that the captain kept the milk in his tent.  Having perfect confidence in his comrades, he made application at once.  The captain was surprised at the request, and explained to him that milk was not in the list of articles of diet provided by the Government.  Of course the recruit felt mortified at his mistake, but made the best of it, though it destroyed his confidence for a while in his associates' statements.  He learned that "Ask and ye shall receive" had no coinage in the army.  Notwithstanding his verdancy he became an excellent soldier.

     Most of us cared little about the deprivation of milk, though the temptation was strong among some of the boys, when sighting a cow, to ascertain if they had lost the trick of milking.  Although a cow, under ordinary circumstances, is a peaceable animal, she draws the line when her lactar reservoir is being too energetically pumped.  To hold a dipper with one hand and milk with the other, particularly when three other hands were endeavoring to do the same thing on the same cow, and she unwilling to stand still, required a degree of skill that few of us possessed.  In spite of being well-aimed, the stream of milk would generally go in any direction but that of the dipper; hence the necessity of struggling with this problem when no other soldiers were about, unless you were fond of unrewarded labor.  Therefore most of us preferred buying it at farm-houses, though the demand was so much greater than the supply, we were often disappointed in our efforts to obtain it.  When the sutler was with us we could buy "condensed milk," which we found an excellent substitute.

Thursday, Sept. 11.
     At 9 A.M. we started on the march and kept it up all day, in a slow, tedious manner, until we paced off twelve miles on the road to Frederick.  

Friday, Sept. 12.
     After inspection in the morning we marched to Ridgeville, seven miles, and camped.

Saturday, Sept. 13.
     We started at 1 P.M. and marched twelve more miles toward Frederick.

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Pursuit of Lee's Army: Battle at South Mountain; Sept. 14 - 15, 1862

An Astonshing Discovery (From "Three Years in the Army," by Charles E. Davis, Jr.)

Sunday, September 14.
     At 5 A.M. we broke camp and marched all day with frequent and uncertain halts, passing through Frederick and Middletown, untl about six o'clock, when our division (Hooker's) was placed in second line of battle on South Mountain.  As we climbed up the steep sides of the mountain we were fired at by the enemy, who made the very common mistake of soldiers when firing from an elevated position, - that of firing too high, - by which means we escaped any casualties.  We laid on our arms until morning.

     The unexpected often happens in the army.  When we retreated from Manassas, the afternoon of August 30, we gave up all hope of seeing our knapsacks again, as the grove where they were deposited had been taken possession of by the enemy.  During our advance up the mountain to-day, the dead body of a rebel belonging to a Georgia regiment was seen lying on the ground near the road, where he was killed.  One of our boys, regretting the loss of his knapsack, and noticing the Reb had one, concluded to make good his loss by transferring it to his own back.  Now the most astonishing thing about this was the discovery, upon removing the knapsack, that it was his own property, which had been toted from Manassas to South Mountain by a rebel soldier.  He was still more amazed on opening it to find the contents had been undisturbed.

Austin Stearns Describes the advance from Frederick (From "Three Years With Company K" by Sergeant Austin C. Stearns, (deceased) Edited by Arthur Kent, Associated University Presses, Cranbury, NJ, 1976;  (p.119-123) Used with permission.

    How beautiful it looked on this pleasant sabbath morning, the 14th day of September 1862, to see the army winding up on the ridge, the Sun shining brightly, flags waving, and bayonets glistning.  If that was a glorious sight, how much more so was the sight when we had reached the summit of the ridge and could look down and across the valley, to see the fields and farm-houses in all their quiet stillness extending up and down in this "garden of Maryland."   Looking straight across the troops could be seen, winding their slow length along, the advance of the union army contending with the rear of the rebels, the rugged slopes of South Mountain in the not very far distance.

     Down the west side of the ridge and across the valley we pushed.  All thoughts of our recent defeats was for the moment forgotten, for in our front were the enemies of our country, and the old thoughts and feelings, and love of country, flag, and home came back, and how eager we all were to again measure our strength with the enemy, and wipe the stain of defeat away.  Most of us privates knew that if there was concert of action amongst the leaders, that we could whip the enemy upon any field.  So we marched on down the ridge, across the valley and through the village of Middleton on that sabbath day.

     We were halted by the side of the road with our guns stacked, waiting for the division of Gen'l Reno to pass, when an officer approached surrounded by a brilliant staff.  The Col. ordered us to fall in and "give three cheers for George B. McClellan, Commander in Chief of the Potomac Army."   Of course we cheered, for a good soldier always obeys.

     McClellan in acknowledgement of the compliment raised his cap and rode on.  Soon we followed, and on coming to the foot of the moutain we turned to the right and went a half mile or so, when we halted and orders were given to "pile knapsacks," and leaving them under a guard we formed a line of battle and commenced the ascent.  The battle in the meantime was going on, Cox's divison being engaged at the pike road and at the left of it, while Reno's division was engaged at the right of Cox's.  We formed on the right of Reno's, when about two thirds of the way up the left of our brigade became engaged; we being on the extreme right were not actively engaged, although the left of the reg't was where there was some firing and the bullets sang merrily over our heads.  Darkness coming on, the troops halted then and there with orders to sleep on our arms, without any blankets, and not allowed a fire, not even to strike a match to light a pipe.  We shivered through the night.

     How my teeth chattered with the cold.  We huddled together and tried to keep warm.  The officers were as cold as we were; a group of them was standing but a few feet from where we lay when a stragler coming up in the dark addressed them:

     "Can you tell me where the 11th P.V.'s are?" 

     "Do you belong to that regiment?" said Col Coulter.

     "Yes sir," meekly replied the soldier, and recognizing his Col. and not daring to say anything but the truth.  

     "How did you lose your regiment then?" said the Col.

     "I fell out," he replied.

     "Well, do you see that black line," said the Col., pointing towards a black line that could be seen through the darkness.  "Well, that is the 11th P.V.'s and do you double quick to it in no time, or I'll put you in a place where you can't stragle."

     The soldier, knowing the metal of his commander, left his presence in quick time for his regiment, well satisfied to escape so easy.

     Morning at length dawned and our lines were reformed and preperations were made for an advance.  Hooker was there directing the movements.  Gen'l Meagher, of Richardson divison, with his brigade was forming on the right of us, and not taking room enough overlapped almost our entire regiment. 

     "Move those troops farther to the right," said Hooker.

     "By whose orders?" said Meagher, turning towards him.

     "Major Gen'l Hookers, sir";  no more was said, Meagher moving the troops.  Companies D. and K. were deployed as skirmishers and sent forward into the woods, taking our places on the line of skirmishers;  the order "forward" was givein and we advanced to find no enemy in our front, for they were discovered to be in full retreat.  Immediately we were filed off to the left through the woods, and coming out on the west side of the ridge near the "Mountain House," we halted for breakfast.  Our rations were runing low, for we had marched so fast that the commssary had not been able to keep up; two hard bread to a man was issued, a scant meal to march and fight on.

     Dan Warren, in looking over the premises, found two eggs and a half dozen potatoes, I found a few onions, and we put them together and had quite a meal out of the whole.   After halting a few hours we descenced the ridge, pushing on after the retreating rebs, their rear and our advance fighting all the way.  We went down through Boonsboro, a place we had visited in our earlier life as a soldier, and on towards Sharpsburg.

Pictured is the Commercial Hotel, Boonsboro, 1887.  The hotel has a long history; probably built in the 1790's.  At the time of the Civil War it may have been called the Eagle Hotel,  but it has had several different names through the centuries.  One can picture the soldiers marching down this street with colors flying, the buildings decorated with bunting and flags.  Doug Bast allowed the Hagerstown Library to post this image.

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 Division Commander, General James B. Ricketts' Report:

  

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In his report on the battle of South Mountain, General Hooker makes the following statement:

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The Old Summit House

The Mountain Tavern, as Sam Webster called it, or the Summit House, as John S. Fay calls it, still exists.  The structure was built in the 1700's.   Today, it's a restaurant called the Old South Mountain Inn.  Webster and Fay wrote that the regiment halted for breakfast  here, in front of the old tavern.  At the door of the tavern General Hooker received the party of rebels under a flag of truce, who came to retrieve the body of Brigadier-General Samuel Garland, a promising young general killed at Fox's Gap the moring of September 14th.  Garland was at the front with his North Carolina brigade fighting back the advance of two Ohio Brigades of the 9th Corps, lead by Colonel Eliakim Scammon and Colonel George Crook.  

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From the Diary of Samuel Derrick Webster, Company D
Excerpts of this diary (HM 48531) are used with permission from The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

Thursday September 11^th, 1862
     Were to move yesterday but re-encamped.  Rained.  Marched to Cooksville today, and to a short distance west on the pike.  Took possession of a hatchet found sticking in a post.  Rain again today.  16^th Maine furnish several pieces of music from their large drum corps.

Friday, September 12^th.
     Marched to Ridgeville.  68 rebel cavalry were here yesterday.   Got bread from one of cousin Emma Webster’s acquaintances – says she knows me – maybe she does. Only about 20 miles from Westminster.

Saturday, September 13^th.
     Moved up near Frederick, crossed the Monocacy at dark.  Water scarce and I feeling very feverish.  Many stragglers.  Rebels were driven from here today by our advance.

Sunday, September 14^th, 1862
     Advance to Mountain beyond Middletown.  At foot of Mountain turned to the right, and along the stream until we came to a little brick church.   Turned up the mountain.  Left knapsacks at a brick farm house.  Johnny Towne too sick to go further.  Capt. Ordered me to stay with him, and I, being nearly played out, do so.  Get a little butter and milk from the house and stew some apples making a nice, refreshing supper.

Monday September 15^th
     Capt. Fiske, [pictured, Company G] came to the rear about midnight, with “rheumatism in the knees.”   The 9^th fellows hooted at him.  He wouldn’t let a man fall out during the day, and was himself first out of sight of danger.  Left Johnny and joined the Co. on the Mtn. in front of the Mtn Tavern.   They had an awful march getting up last night, being nearly worn out, and quite a severe fight to face, too.  They came up on the extreme right and had not so much fighting to do as the Penna. Reserves.  A great many rebels are dead just back on the crest, and along the stone fence.  Flag of truce just come in this a.m. for body of Gen. Garland.  Gen. Hooker received them at the door of the tavern.  Joe Kelly captured a couple of woeful looking Johnnies, up in the rocks, who are afraid of being shot.  Marched, later in the day, through Boonsborough, radiant with flags, to Keedysville, where we lay until after dark, when we crossed a bridge and lay on a high ridge near a mill.  Co. D. got into somebody’s pantry and spring house, as proved by the quantity of milk, butter, and preserves on hand.

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The March to Keedysville;  from "Three Years in the Army"

Monday, Sept. 15.
     Marched at daylight, two companies being thrown out in front as skirmishers, until the top of the moutain was reached, when we saw the enemy retreating toward Boonsboro', whereupon we started in chase, passing through that town to Keedysville, about ten miles, without overtaking them.  It is not without some truth they were called the "Fleetfooted Virginians."

     The towns of Boonsboro' and Keedysville were decorated with Union flags, and it was inspiring to march through towns with Uncle Sam's bunting displayed, and listen to encouraging words from friends.  This was our stamping ground of '61, and it seemed like home to us.

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Short Summary of the Battle of Antietam

From "Three Years in the Army."  Regiment Historian, Charles E. Davis, jr.,  gives a remarkably simple summary of the regiment's participation in the battle.  Only the statistic at the end suggests the ferocity of the fight.

Tuesday, Sept. 16.
      At 3:30 P.M. we moved across a bridge toward the village of Bakersville, on the Hagerstown and Sharpsburg turnpike, turning to the left after crossing a country road, also leading to Sharpsburg, moving parallel to it nearly half a mile under a heavy artillery fire from the enemy.  In order that their guns might have as little effect as possible we were formed "double column half distance" and march to the front, then to the right, then front, then to the left, then front, then right again, then  front, always preserving our formation, and gaining to the front all the time.  This movement made under a heavy fire was performed with as much precision and coolness as though the regiment was on a battalion drill.  It is worth mentioning to show what good use may be made of the skill and confidence acquired by constant drilling.

The Joseph Poffenberger Farm where elements of the First Corps, probably Meade's Division, bivouacked the night of September 16.  Hartsuff's Brigade was camped a ways to the east of here, along the Smoketown Road.   (View looking North).

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Wednesday, Sept. 17.
      It was a gray, misty morning, and like the girl who was to be Queen of May, we were called early.  All night long the firing of guns on the picket line in front of us disturbed our sleep, sounding very much like a "night before the Fourth" at home.   While we were endeavoring to see whether the men moving in front of us were our own men or the rebels, an aid from General Hooker's staff dashed up to where we stood, and, after satisfying himself, ordered us to move.  We went obliquely to the right, across a fence, then across a lane and on to the corner of the woods, from which we moved to the cornfield in front of the Dunker Church.  As we entered the corn-field we were received by a sudden volley from the enemy, who, until that moment, were lying concealed from view.  Here we stayed until our ammuniton was exhausted, when we were relieved and marched to the rear, where our cartridge-boxes were replenished, and where we remained the rest of the day.  We took into this fight three hundred and one men and brought out one hundred and sixty-five, a loss of forty-five per cent.

Another Account
     The following summary is from "Massachusetts in the War, 1861 - 1865" by James Lorenzo Bowen, Springfield, MA; 1889.

      The regiment was with its division in support and not actively engaged at the battle of South Mountain, September 14, but in the fierce battle of the Antietam, three days later, it had its full share.  Near night of the 16th, Hooker's Corps crossed the creek and took position well up to the left of the Confederate line of battle, after some fighting in which the Thirteenth did not take part. Ricketts's Division had the left of the corps, and when the advance was made next morning Hartsuff's Brigade had the center of the division, with the other two brigades in echelon, the Thirteenth being the left center regiment.  

     The line advanced for some distance till it came under a heavy fire and was within a few hundred feet of the enemy when it opened fire and the action became deadly. The two right regiments of the brigade were after a stubborn contest obliged to fall back, having suffered severe loss; another regiment took their places and that in turn gave way.  The regiment at the left, the Eighty-third New York, was also obliged to fall back, so that before the order came to the Thirteenth to retire it was left alone of the brigade line.  The few hundred men that remained of the division were reformed and placed in line, ready to respond to any call which might be made upon them, but they were not again sent into the fight. The loss of the Thirteenth Regiment during the two hours or less that it had been engaged reached 139, of whom 15 were killed, 120 wounded and four missing.*

*Note:  The full casualty report is listed below.  The revised  number of killed is 26.

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George W. Smalley's Report of the Battle

   

      The Battle of Sharpsburg from the extreme Right.  Sketched by A.R. Waud. Inscribed upper left: Mansfield; Williams; Green; Lt. Col. Knipe; Early;  Inscribed within the image as indicators, Best's Battery 4th Maine; 16th Indiana; Gen Mansfield and staff in here; 3rd Wisconsin; Col. Ruger wounded; 43rd N.Y. laying on the ground.  [Col. Ruger was in Gordon's Brigade.]

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      Intrepid New York Tribune War Correspondent George W. Smalley was acting aide to General Hooker during the fight.  He wrote a vivid account of the early morning battle, and gave prominent mention to Hartsuff's Brigade in his report.  But he attributed the brigade to Doubleday's Division which throws doubt on the story.   John S. Fay and Warren Freeman quote the story in their memoirs.  In the case of Freeman, it was in a letter home soon after the battle.  Thirteenth Mass. Historian Charles E. Davis, Jr. was aware of the discrepency and addressed it at some length in his book, "Three Years with the Army," published in 1894.  Davis sites a letter in the National Tribune, March 24, 1892 from General Abner Doubleday regarding Smalley's report.

     Still, Author, Stephen W. Sears assigns credit to the brigade mentioned by Smalley to Brig.-General George H. Gordon of Mansfield's 12th Corps, which arrived on the field after Hartsuff's Brigade left.  

Here is Smalley's Report as quoted in "Three Years in the Army."  [George Washburn Smalley, pictured].

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     The battle began with the dawn.  Morning found both armies just as they had slept, almost close enough to look into each other's eyes.  The left of Meade's reserves and the right of Ricketts' line became engaged at nearly the same moment, one with artillery, the other with infantry.  A battery was almost immediately pushed forward beyond the central woods, over a ploughed field, near the top of the slope where the cornfield began.  On this open field, in the corn beyond, and in the woods which stretched forward into the broad fields, like a promontory into the ocean, were the hardest and deadliest struggles of the day.

     For half an hour after the battle had grown to its full strength, the line of fire extended neither way.  Hooker's men were fully up to their work. They saw their general everywhere in front, never away from the fire; and all the troops believed in their commander, and fought with a will.  Two-thirds of them were the same men who, under McDowell, had broken at Manassas.

     The half-hour passed; the rebels began to give way a little, - only a little; but at the first indication of a receding fire, "Forward!" was the word, and on went the line with a rush.  Back across the wood, and then back again into the dark woods, which closed around them, went the retreating rebels.

     But out of those gloomy woods came suddnly and heavily terrible volleys - volleys which smote, and bent, and broke, in a moment, that eager front, and hurled them swiftly back for half the distance they had won.  Not swiftly nor in panic, any further.  Closing up their shattered lines, they came slowly away; a regiment where a brigade had been; hardly a brigade where a whole division had been victorious.  They had met at the woods the first volleys of musketry from fresh troops - had met them and returned them till their line had yielded and gone down before this weight of fire, and till their ammuniton was exhausted.

     In ten minutes the fortunes of the day seemed to have changed; it was the rebels who were now advancing, pouring out of the woods in endless lines, sweeping through the conrfield from which their comrades had just fled.  Hooker sent in his nearest brigade to meet them, but it could not do the work.  He called for another.  There was nothing close enough, unless he took it from his right.  His right might be in danger if it was weakened; but his centre was already threatened with annihilation.  Not hesitating one moment, he sent to Doubleday, "Give me your best brigade instantly."

     The best brigade came down the hill to the right on the run, went through the timber in front, through a storm of shot and bursting shell, and crashing limbs, over the open field beyond, and straight into the cornfield, passing, as they went, the fragment of those brigades shatterd by the rebel fire, and streaming to the rear.  They passed by Hooker, whose eyes lighted as he saw these veteran troops led by a soldier whom he knew he could trust.  "I think they will hold it," he said.

     General Hartsuff took his troops very steadily, but, now that they were under fire, not hurriedly, up the hill from which the cornfield begins to descend, and formed them on the crest.  Not a man who was not in full view - not one who bent before the storm.  Firing at first in volleys, they fired then at will with wonderful rapidity and effect.  The whole line crowned the hill, and stood out darkly against the sky, but lighted and shrouded ever in flame in smoke.

     They were the Twelfth and Thirteenth Massachusetts, the Ninth New York, and the Eleveth Pennsylvania - old troops, all of them.

     Then for half an hour they held the ridge, unyielding in purpose, exhaustless in courage.  There were gaps in the line, but it nowhere bent.  Their general was severely wounded early in the fight, but they fought on.  Their supports did not come - they determined without them.  They began to go down the hill and into the corn;  they did not stop to think that their ammuniton was nearly gone; they were there to win that field, and they won it.  The rebel line for the second time fled through the corn and into the woods.  I cannot tell how few of Hartsuff's brigade were left when the work was done.  There was no more gallant, determined, heroic fighting in all this desperatae day.  General Hartsuff is servely wounded; but I do not believe he counts his success dearly purchased.

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     Davis states that Alfred C. Monroe, of the Twelfth Masachusetts, at the time of the battle, attached to General Hooker's headquarters, says he heard the order given as Smalley relates it.   According to battlefield maps from the Antietam Library, Hartsuff's 3rd Brigade advanced to the cornfield at 6:20 a.m. after Duryea's 1st Brigade had been battling the rebels alone for about 1/2 an hour.  They made a heroic stand between 6:20 and 7 a.m.  Between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. Hartsuff's Brigade fell back to the north.  Gordon's Brigade advanced  to the same spot between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m.  It is disappointing to cast doubt on such a glowing report of Hartsuff's Brigade at Antietam, but I felt it necessary to inform readers that the question exists.  

    In a letter to Col. John M. Gould*, written April 20, 1894, Sgt. Robert B. Henderson of the 13th Mass., wrote:  "As for Smalley’s account, I have of course always known it to be not correct as to its details.  I can only account for his story in some such way as this.  (For I don’t desire to charge him with deliberately manufacturing a lie).  But we were very heavily engaged, and the enemy were with a heavy force of infantry and Artillery with grape and canister falling back very slowly and with firm resistance.  I can imagine that when some officer may have expressed some doubt as to the outcome, Gen. Hooker may have said “one of my best brigades is there”.

*Historian John Gould, was researching the fight in the East Woods and the death of Genral Mansfield at the battle of Antietam.

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The Memoirs of John Sawyer Fay

     Sergeant John Sawyer Fay of Company F, was severely wounded during the Chancellorseville Campaign of 1863.  Fay was struck by a shell that killed two others.  Sergeant Enoch C. Pierce tied a tourniquet around Fay's shattered leg and rushed him to the field hospital.  Thirteenth Mass. Surgeon, Allston W. Whitney, operated and saved Fay's life, but it cost John his right arm and leg.  Soon after, the field hospital was captured by the advancing Rebel Army and both men were sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, VA.  Fay survived the ghastly journey and several  weeks imprisonment at Libby.  He was parolled and brought to Annapolis, MD to begin his long recovery.  This story will be told at another time on this website.   I recieved this unpublished remembrance of the Battle of Antietam from one of Fay's many descendants.

Fay's account quotes liberally from War Correspondent George Smalley's report for the NY Tribune. 

     A writer in The Worlds Work for March 1904 says, “Every man in the Northern and Western States who is old enough to remember the civil war must often be surprised at the ignorance of the two generations, younger than he, about even the principal facts of the conflict".

     The writer goes on to say, "There is much less popular knowledge of the civil war than of the war of the Revolution.  This fact is not an accident, it is a striking proof, that the war was the end of an epoch rather than the beginning of one; that it closed a series of events and ended a long controversy and that subsequent generations have thanked Heaven that it was passed before their period of activity began.  Even the great actors in it, except the few greatest, have practically been forgotten.

     ‘It is passing out of the minds of most people, less than forty-five years of age - or would pass out - if the old survivors would keep quiet and permit them to forget it".

     From your association with the veterans of the Civil War, you may think that about all they had to do in the army was to sit around a campfire and smoke.

     I shall briefly try to show you that all the smoke made in the army by the old soldier was not caused by burning tobacco.

     It is true the best soldiers were those who would cheerfully accept any situation in which their duty placed them so that they could get all the comfort possible as they went along.

     A soldier in the ranks during a battle can see but little that is going on about him except on rare occasions.  He is but a cog in one of the many wheels composing that vast machine, an army.  He must fill the position in which he is placed without questioning. Yet the more intelligent the soldier in the ranks, the better the army.  Like all other positions in which man is placed, the more intelligent he is the better he will perform his duties; the more valuable he will be to the cause in which he is engaged.

     The Regiment in which I served has the meritorious record of having the smallest number of deaths from disease of any regiment in the Union Army.  This was due mainly to their habits of cleanliness. The men were intelligent enough to appreciate and understand the necessity of faithfully obeying orders of our officers, particularly of our Surgeon, in regard to keeping ourselves and our camp as clean as possible, which was not an easy duty, for our camps were often pitched in swampy places where it was difficult to find a dry spot on which to spread our blankets.

     In most wars more men die or are disabled from disease contracted in the army than are killed or disabled in battle.  It was so in our Civil War.

     The battle of Antietam was the greatest slaughter of human life in the world's history in same length of time considering the numbers engaged.  The battle only lasted about 10 hours.  There was actually engaged only-about 60,000 Union troops and 50,000 Rebel.

     McClellan had about 27,000 men; Fitzjohn Porter’s Corps held in reserve; they did not fire a gun that day.  The Union killed and wounded were 11,657.  The Rebel loss must have been more for he left according to Gen. McClellan's report 2,700 dead, unburied on the field.

     The Rebel Gen. Lee reports that he had 7,816 wounded, making his loss at least 10516 and good judges estimate that his killed and wounded were at least 1,000 more, so there is no doubt that the total of killed and wounded on both sides was at least 23,173.

     In other battles of the Rebellion like Gettysburg, the loss was  greater, but there were more troops engaged and the battle extended over three days.

     I propose to describe what I saw and the part our Brigade took in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam.  My regiment was the 13th Mass.  We were in the third Brigade, second division, first Corp. Our Brigade was composed of the 12th and 13th Mass 11th Penn. and 9th New York Regiments.  We had served together for many months.  The Regiments were all acquainted with each other.  We had been through several battles together and we knew by experience that each would stand by the other.

     Our Brigade was commanded by Gen Hartsuff.  A more skillful or a braver man I never saw.  He was a West Point graduate, a strict disciplinarian, but kind to his men and we had the utmost confidence in him. Our Division was commanded by Gen Ricketts and our Corp by Gen Hooker.  The latter took command of our Corp immediately after the Second Bull Run battle where we were badly defeated on Aug 29 and 30.

     The battle of South Mountain commenced on Sept 14,1862 when our army met the rebel forces at Turners Gap west of Frederick City, Md.

     On the night of Sept l3 our Brigade bivouacked in the outskirts of the city which on that day had been evacuated by the rebels.  This was the day that was preceded by that “Cool September morn” described by the poet Whittier in his poem on Barbara Freitchie.  It was on the 13th day of Sept. that the loyal old lady waved from her window the Stars and Stripes in the face of the retreating rebel hordes as they marched through the city.

     On the morning of the 14th we were marched into the city.  Our Regiment was some acquainted in the town for we had camped within their borders the year before, but we were not allowed to stop to renew old acquaintances but were hurried through the city to the West, out through the town of Middleton on to the national turn-pike that passed over South Mountain through Turners Gap.  About noon we were halted beside the road at the foot of the mountain.  While we were resting there, Gen McClellan rode by; this was my first view of the then famous General.  He was received with much enthusiasm as he rode by our Corp.

       The rebels had fortified the pass and had a strong force entrenched on the slopes commanding the road through Turners Gap. They also had troops posted on the summit both sides of the Gap.  The battle commenced soon after noon by the advance of our left under Gen Reno who moved his troops up the slope on the south side of the road.  It was here that the brave General was killed.  Soon after the battle commenced on the left, our Brigade was filled out on north side of the road and commenced to climb up the rocky sides of the mountain.  The ascent was so steep in places we had to push and pull each other up.  We soon encountered the rebel picket line who kept up a plunging fire at us, but we were so far below that most of their shots passed over our heads.

      We kept steadily but slowly advancing, their picket line retreating.  The ground was rocky and steep; we could not advance as rapidly as our General wanted.  We understood that Gen Hooker was making one of his famous flank movements.  All this time while we were crawling up the steep mountain side heavy firing could be heard way down on our left indicating that a severe engagement was taking place.

     Gen Hartsuff told us if we could reach the summit before dark he hoped to swing around and take the rebel force that was opposing Gen Reno in flank and rear.  But it was a hard road to travel.  It was nearly dark when we reached the summit very much exhausted.  We were immediately reformed and changed direction to the left and  commenced to move in direction to strike the enemy on their left flank and rear, but they hastily retreated before we could get into position to do them much injury.  Their retreat opened the road through the pass for our army to advance.  We lay on our arms in line of battle all night.  We were not allowed to build a fire to cook coffee or to keep warm.

     At daylight on Sept. 15 we were advanced down the western slope of the mountain.  Soon we emerged from the woods where we could obtain a view of the valley below where we saw the rebel army, in full retreat on the road through Boonsboro some four or five miles distant.

    As we marched down the slope, we had to halt several times to remove the dead bodies of the rebels from the road, as in places they were so thick we could not get along without stepping on them.

     We were halted near the Summit House for a rest and to cook our breakfast, while fresh troops followed up the retreating rebels. 

     While we were resting here Comrade C. E. Haynes and myself went down back of the Summit House into a field that looked as tho we might find some new potatoes.  When we got into the field we saw in a piece of woods on the edge of it, a squad of five rebel soldiers guarding a pile of knapsacks.  We inquired to know what they were doing.  They replied that they were ordered to guard those knapsacks until they were relieved.  We asked them if they knew their army had retreated.  They replied that they did; they stayed so as to be captured; they had rather be prisoners in our  hands than fighting in the ranks of the rebel army.

      We marched them up into our camp and turned them over to the provost marshal.  Among the knapsacks that they were guarding was some that belonged to our regiment which had been captured from us three weeks before at Bull Run but I did not find mine among them.

     A staff officer of McClellan’s, Col D. H. Strother (pictured) was in a position to witness our advance.  He describes it as follows.

    "Hooker"s column was seen crawling up the rocky and difficult ascent on the right, slowly trailing across the open ground, now  entering a piece of wood and again emerging on the upper side, winding over spurs and ravines; the march resembled the course of a huge black serpent with glittering scales, stealing upon its prey.

     “At length we had a glimpse of Hooker’s Command in some open ground on the summit, moving in column of Companies, and heading towards the Gap.  They presently disappeared in the wood and then came the distinct muttering of musketry which continued with little intermission until after dark and always approaching the Gap.

     “As Hooker moved from his position on the right we could discern a dense and continuous column of the enemy moving to meet him not far from the national turnpike at the Summit House”.

     The next morning Sept. l5, the same staff officer rode over the field and described the scene as follows.

     “On the summit and slope beyond, the earth was thickly strewn with the rebel dead who lay as they fell, in all their squalor and hideous distortions; numbers of them lay in the laurel thicket half hidden among the blood stained leaves.  Near a cabin riddled with musket balls, we saw the lane formed by parallel stonewalls which had served the enemy as a rampart.  It had been cleared of the dead to admit the passage of our troops, and the bodies lay on either side as high as the walls.  In the bushes near by were many still living but too far gone to bear moving."

 Confederate Dead at Fox's Gap;  September 15, 1862 after an eyewitness sketch by James E. Taylor inscribed "On the Mountain Top Cross Roads Day after Reno's Fight."  Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. II - p.583.

     After we had our breakfast and a rest near the Summit House, we were started out on the road over which the rebels had retreated, on through Boonsboro to Keedysville.  Along the road was evidence of their hasty retreat in broken-down wagons, dead mules, crippled caissons, houses filled with wounded, and the road strewed with muskets, knapsacks and butternut jackets.

     We reached Keedysville, ten miles distant from the Summit House, about three o’clock in the afternoon without overtaking the rebel army, they having retreated across the Antietam creek and were forming their lines of battle with that stream in their front.

     We camped here until the afternoon of Sept.16.  During all of Sept.15 and until afternoon of the 16th there was no indication that Gen. McClellan had attempted to attack them.  The rebels during this time were getting into a splendid position for them on ground between the Potomac river and Antietam creek which is described by Col. Palfry as follows.

     “Between Mercerville on the north and the confluence of the Antietam on the south, a distance of about six miles in a straight line, the Potomac follows a series of remarkable curves, but its general course is such that a line of battle something less than six miles long may be drawn-from a point a little below Mercerville to a point a little above the mouth of the Antietam so as to rest both of its flanks upon the Potomac to cover the Shepherdstown Ford and the town of Sharpsburg and to have its front covered by Antietam Creek."

     The Antietam creek is crossed by three bridges over that portion of the stream in front of Lee's lines.  The bridge nearest to its confluence with the Potomac was not used during the battle except by the rebel Gen. A. P. Hill's troops coming from Harpers Ferry to re-enforce Lee.  The next bridge is known as the Burnside Bridge.  It is that by which the road from Sharpsburg to Rohrersville crosses the stream.  The next is the bridge of the Sharpsburg, Keedysville and Boonsboro turnpike.  This is the one over which the rebels retreated from South Mountain and over which the right wing of our army crossed on the afternoon of Sept.16.  The stream is sluggish and winding and tho it has several fords they are difficult.  (pictured is the Upper Bridge, view from the northwest).

     In the rear of Sharpsburg is a good road to the Shepherdstown Ford across the Potomac into Virginia.  Besides the roads already mentioned, an important turnpike leads northward from Sharpsburg to Hagerstown on the western side of the Antietam (that is the side occupied by Lee's army.)

     The ground occupied by Lee rises in a slope of woods and fields to somewhat of a bold crest and then falls away to the Potomac.  In this strong position Lee proceeded to form his lines and Gen. McClellan was accommodating enough to give him all of Sept.15 and until the afternoon of the 16th in which to do it unmolested.

    About three o'clock in the afternoon of Sept.16 we were marched across the bridge on the turnpike from Sharpsburg to Keedysville towards the Hagerstown pike, turning to the left after crossing a country road also leading to Sharpsburg and moving parallel with  it for nearly a mile, under a heavy fire from the enemy.

     Hooker was forming the first Corps on our extreme right so as to strike the rebels left where it was not protected by the stream.  In order that their shelling might have as little effect as possible we were formed in double column half distance and marched to the front then to the right, then front, then to the left, then front, then right again, then front, always preserving our formation and gaining to the front all of the time.

     The ground over which we advanced was much broken by small hills and ravines.  Gen. Hartsuff, who was an artillery officer in the regular army before the war, showed his skill as a trained officer in that branch of the service in the masterly way he advanced us in the face of that heavy artillery fire with so little loss.

     Our Brigade had so much confidence in him, they moved with as much precision and coolness as tho the regiments were on battalion drill.  We were halted after dark for the night in the edge of a grove of scattering trees.  In front of us was an open field from whence issued heavy musketry fire.  We lay in line of battle all  night with our picket line only a few yards in front of us.  As  night came on, the firing from both armies nearly ceased, only a scattering fire was kept up on the picket line.  Gen. Hartsuff lay down behind a large tree just in the rear of our company.  We were the Color Company of our Regiment.  About midnight we were aroused by a volley of musketry fired in our front which was immediately answered by a second volley.  Then stillness reigned.

    I heard Gen. Hartsuff ask "What's that Joe." and to our surprise Gen. Joseph Hooker replied, "Rebels shooting each other. We have no troops in there."  That was the first we knew that Gen. Hooker was bivouacking with our Brigade.  It appeared as tho two brigades of rebels while moving in the darkness mistook each other for Union troops.  (Major-General Joseph Hooker, pictured).

     Towards morning I obtained a little sleep.  I remember I was awakened by a branch of a tree falling upon me, it having been cut from near the top of a tree under which I was sleeping, by a rebel shell.

     They commenced the battle by opening on us with their artillery before it was fairly daylight on Sept. l7.  It was a cool gray foggy morning.  While we were endeavoring to see whether the men in our front were our men or the rebels, an officer from Gen. Hooker's staff dashed up to where we stood and after satisfying himself, ordered us to advance.

     We moved obliquely to the right, across a fence, then across a lane and cut to the corner of a piece of woods near the house of Joseph Poffenberger.  Here we held our position for about half an hour.  We were having comparatively an easy time.  From our partially sheltered position evidently we were doing good execution with small loss to ourselves.  We could see that out on our left our forces were having much harder fighting than we were. We saw our line charge but they seemed to have but little effect, for the rebels would return with a charge and drive our forces back.  I thought we were very fortunate in being placed in such a sheltered position. I never saw our regiment so cool when under fire.

This is a view looking to the south; the route Hartsuff's Brigade took to the cornfield which would be up front in the distance.  The Joseph Poffenberger farmhouse and barn are behind the viewer some distance to the right.  The East Woods are up ahead on the left.  Of course there wasn't snow on the ground.  This photo taken, March, 2005.

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     They fired as deliberately as tho they were on target practice, but our self congratulations were of short duration, for suddenly we were ordered to move by the left flank for a short distance towards the part of the line where we had seen those desperate charges.  Then by front, then left oblique, through a small piece of woods in which the shells from the rebel artillery were rattling like hail in a thunder storm, up a small hill into a field of standing corn in front of Dunker church.  While making this advance, the shattered regiments of three brigades passed through our line on their way to the rear. When we arrived at the crest of the hill from which the cornfield begins to descend, we were met by a sudden volley from a division or a brigade that far out-numbered us, who until this moment were lying concealed from view.

     They fired too high.  We replied with a volley that I am satisfied was far more effective.  We held this position, firing at will as rapidly as we could for about half an hour, when seemingly from a common impulse, for none of us remember hearing an order, we advanced down the hill through the cornfield and obtained a position in the edge of a grove of large scattering trees; in our front was an open field.

  This is a view from the corner of the East Woods looking toward the Rebel Position.  The Cornfield was directly to the right, the plowed field. across the fence just in front.  The farm buildings on the hill in the distance are behind what was the Rebel position.  Those buildings were not  present at the time of the battle.  Photo taken, March, 2005. 

    The enemy were formed in a sunken road in our front about an eighth of a mile from us.  We used the large trees for shelter as much as we could and kept up a steady fire that I know was very effective.  At times the smoke and dust was so thick, we could not see the enemy when we would cease firing until it cleared so that we could see something to fire at.  Three times they charged under cover of the smoke, across the open field.  Every time we repulsed them, tho they outnumbered us two to one. We were losing heavily but the trees afforded us some protection. Our ammunition was getting low.  We used all we could find in the boxes of our dead and wounded comrades.

     I remember James L. Stone throwing his belt and cartridge box at my feet as he crawled to the rear after receiving a severe wound in the thigh.

     We kept ourselves covered as much as possible behind the trees and stumps.  Sergt. James H. Belser and myself were behind a tree.  Belser was a better marksman than I was.  I suggested that I would load for him to fire which he did with good effect.

     During a lull in our firing, because the smoke was so thick, we were startled by a shot coming from a point well on our left.  In a few minutes some one, I think it was Sergt. Pierce, exclaimed, "There he is behind that mound”, which was evidently made by a tree having been blown over.  We fired several shots at him but could not hit him.  Belser suggested if some one could get behind a large stump some distance out in our front he might be dislodged.  Corp. Bridgewater started to go; Pierce stopped him as he was not a good shot.  Pierce said he would go himself. 

(Sergeant Enoch C. Pierce, Company F, pictured, below right).  Belser says, No if several of you would fire at the reb, one at a time so as to keep him behind his cover,  he Belser, would make for the stump.  We did so and Belser got a position safely behind the stump.  The reb soon discovered Belser.  After trying for several minutes to get a bead on each other, Belser held up his cap on a stick. The reb shot the cap and Belser shot the reb and got safely back to our line. 

    The next day Belser found the rebel dead behind the mound.  He belonged to a Georgia regiment and was armed with an Enfield rifle like those we carried.  Belser took the rifle and carried it until he was promoted to a Lieut.

     Our Corp. Commander Gen. Hooker and our brigade Commander, Gen. Hartsuff were both wounded.  We had been fiercely engaged for nearly three hours and had been constantly in line of battle and under fire for eighteen hours with no opportunity for rest or to cook our food.  Nearly one half of our regiment were killed or wounded.  The other regiments in our brigade had lost as heavily.

     The enemy had been re-enforced and were preparing to make another charge.  Our ammunition was exhausted.  We could do no more so were ordered to the rear.  As we turned to retreat, we found fresh troops in line of battle just in our rear ready to receive the charge the rebels were about to make.  As we went to the rear we helped off what wounded we could.

     While helping a comrade to the rear we passed four men who were carrying a wounded man on a stretcher.  I thought it was Sergt. Pierce of my company.  After getting the men that I was helping to a safe place I hastened back to help those who were carrying the stretcher.  Some of them had been disabled so they were obliged to lay their burden down in a very exposed position where the rebel bullets were flying thickly around, when I reached them.

    I found that the man on the stretcher was not Sergt. Peirce but Lieut. Abel H. Pope (pictured, left) who entered the service as first Lieut. of my company but who on that day was in command of Co. D.  I helped to carry him back to a field hospital.  He was badly wounded and so weak from the loss of blood I thought he was dying.  He partially recovered and in due time reached his home in Hudson but died soon after the war closed.

     In our battles, earlier in the war, when a man was wounded, one or two well men would leave the ranks to help him to the rear but we had learned, better than that.  In this battle not a well man left the ranks to help a wounded comrade.  A squad from each regiment was organized as stretcher bearers consisting of the musicians and a few detailed men whose duty it was to carry off the wounded, but in this battle there was so many wounded they could not carry half of them off.

     I have told you in a feeble way what I saw in this battle.  I will now read to you a short description of what our brigade did in this battle as seen and described by Geo. W. Smalley who was a correspondent for the New York Tribune and who was acting aid on Gen. Hooker's staff.

     “The battle began with the dawn.  Morning found both armies just as they had slept, almost close enough to look into each other's eyes.  The left of Meade's reserves and the right of Rickett's line became engaged at nearly the same moment, one with artillery, the other with infantry.  A battery was almost immediately pushed  forward beyond the central woods, over a ploughed field near the top of the slope where the cornfield began.  On this open field in the corn beyond and in the woods which stretched forward into the broad fields, like a promontory into the ocean, were the hardest and deadliest struggles of the day.

     “For half an hour after the battle had grown to its full length, the line of fire extended neither way.  Hooker's men were fully up to their work.  They saw their general everywhere in front, never away from the fire; and all the troops believed in their commander, and fought with a will.  Two-thirds of them were the same men who under McDowell, had broken at Manassas.

     “The half-hour passed; the rebels began to give way a little, -only a little - but at the first indication of a receding fire, ‘Forward’ was the word, and the line went on with a rush.  Back across the cornfield, leaving dead and wounded behind them, over the fence, and across the wood, and then back again into the dark woods, which closed around them, went the retreating rebels.

     “But out of those gloomy woods came suddenly and heavily, terrible volleys - volleys which smote, and bent, and broke, in a moment, that eager front, and hurled them swiftly back for half the distance they had won.  Not swiftly nor in panic, any further.  Closing up their shattered lines, they came slowly away; a regiment where a brigade had been - hardly a brigade where a whole division had been victorious.  They had met at the woods the first volleys of musketry from fresh troops - had met them and returned them till their line had yielded and gone down before this weight of fire, and till their ammunition was exhausted.  In ten minutes the fortunes of the day seemed to have changed; it was the rebels who were now advancing, pouring out of the woods in endless lines, sweeping through the cornfield from which their comrades had just fled. 

     “Hooker sent in his nearest brigade to meet them, but it could not do the work.  He called for another.  There was nothing close enough, unless he took it from his right.  His right might be in danger if it was weakened; but his center was already threatened with annihilation.  Not hesitating one moment, he sent to Ricketts, ‘Give me your best brigade instantly’.

     The best brigade came down the hill to the right on the run, went through the timber in front, through a storm of shot and bursting shell and crashing limbs, over the open field beyond, and straight into the cornfield, passing as they went, the fragments of three brigades shattered by the rebel fire, and streaming to the rear.  They passed by Hooker, whose eyes lighted as he saw these veteran troops led by a soldier whom he knew he could trust.  ‘I think they will hold it’ he said.

     General Hartsuff took his troops very steadily, but, now that they were under fire, not hurriedly, up the hill from which the cornfield begins to descend, and formed them on the crest.  Not a man who was not in full view - not one who bent before the storm.  Firing at first in volleys, they fired then at will with wonderful rapidity and effect.  The whole line crowned the hill, and stood out darkly against the sky, but lighted and shrouded ever in flame and smoke.

     They were the Twelfth and Thirteenth Massachusetts, the Ninth New York, and the Eleventh Pennsylvania - old troops, all of them.

     Then for half an hour they held the ridge, unyielding in purpose, exhaustless in courage.  There were gaps in the line, but it nowhere bent.  Their General was severely wounded early in the fight, but they fought on.  Their supports did not come - they determined without them.  They began to go down the hill and into the corn; they did not stop to think that their ammunition was nearly gone; they were there to win that field, and they won it.  The rebel line for the second time fled through the corn and into the woods.  I cannot tell how few of Hartsuff's brigade were left when the work was done.  There was no more gallant, determined, heroic fighting in all this desperate day.  General Hartsuff is severely wounded; but I do not believe he counts his success dearly purchased.”

     When we reached our supply train in the rear, the brigade was reformed the four regiments could not muster five hundred men.  Ammunition was issued to us and we were marched out to a point on  the Hagerstown pike and placed in position to support our batteries that had been placed on a bluff in position to command the pike.  Later in the day the rebels attempted to cut their way through, but were repulsed by our artillery.  We lay in this position all night.

     No words of mine can adequately depict the uproar and confusion of that battle-field.  The tremendous thunder of the guns, the roar of bursting shell, the incessant roll of musketry, the dense clouds of dust, the yells of the combatants, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the ghostly human fragments strewing the earth, the smell of sweat and  powder made such an appalling scene, that we could not banish it from our thoughts during that long night.  The next morning we counted up our losses.

     Our regiment took into this battle 301 men.  We brought out 165, making a loss of killed and wounded, 136 or 45 per cent.

     The rebel army retreated during the night of Sept.17.  On the morning of Sept.18, I saw in front of where our brigade made their fight, the sights described by a staff officer, Col. Stother, as follows.

   “The hollow road leading from the turnpike to the right, which had been occupied by the enemy the greater part of the day and from which they were driven late in the afternoon was so encumbered with dead bodies as to be impassible, and it seemed in some places as if they had heaped them up with fence rails and other material to form a defense against our musketry.  They were elsewhere corded up in heaps of 20 to 30, while the standing corn in the field to the right, seemed full of them”.

     I know of no other record of such slaughter, taking into consideration the space occupied and the numbers engaged.

     It was deeds like this that the soldiers and sailors of the Union were called upon to perform on land and sea to maintain the Union and make our beautiful flag truly the “Emblem of the free” and prompts the beautiful services which on 30 of May brings to the graves of the soldier dead, the offerings of an affectionate people and the undying gratitude of a Nation.

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    Colonel Coulter's Battle Report (Hartsuff's Brigade)

Colonel Richard Coulter praises Major Jacob Parker Gould for his leadership of the 13th Mass in battle.  At the end of the report he relates the change in morale in the brigade due to the irreplaceable loss of General Hartsuff.   Hartsuff was the leader the men  had all learned to trust.

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A View of the Front  

        I took the following picture August, 2012, from the same viewpoint or orientation the soldier's of the '13th Mass'. would have seen as they stood in line on the edge of the East Woods.  I was trying to get a panoramic view, and found that annoying group of trees in the way.  But then I found something interesting.  Notice the monument behind the rock outcropping.  

    It is a kettle hanging from 3 stacked rifles, a monument recently re-dedicated to the 90th PA  (Lyle's Brigade) who fought in this same spot, with the 13th Mass.  It is the rock out-croppings we are interested in.

    Here is the same rock outcropping in a photo taken by Alexander Gardner a few days after the battle.  William Frassanito discovered the location of this photograph in his 1978 book,  "Antietam, The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day."  The Park was still purchasing land at this time.  

    Mr. Frassanito dated the photograph to September 19, 1862, two days after the battle and wrote, "Gardner recorded this scene from a point some fifty yards south of the original boundary of the famous Cornfield, looking southwestward toward the West Woods."

    Few areas on the Antietam battlefield saw as much concentrated and continuous fighting during the battle as did that protrayed in Gardner's photograph of the mound.   It was here, early in the morning of September 17, that the first lines of Union infantyr to emerge from the southern edge of the Cornfield came under the direct fire of Confederate Infantry located in the open fields beyond."

Initially, the 105th New York Volunteers of Gen. Abram Duryea's brigade, Gen. James B. Rickett's divisions of the Union First Corps, passed over the area in the immediate forground of this view.  Within a half hour, the 105th New York was forced back ...along with the remainder of Duryea's brigade."

    Next to arrive at this point was the Thirteenth Massachusetts..."

Here is the view from the other side of the tree.  The Antietam Visitor Center, which is very near the Dunker Church, is just visible on the horizon, just to the right of the Brigade Marker.  There is a small patch of yellow-brown grass in front of the Visitor Center.  This would have been the field of view near the junction of  the 11th PA Regiment and the right of the right of the "13th Mass."  Click on the Image to view larger.

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Sergeant Austin Stearns Memoirs, Company K

From "ThreeYears With Company K" by Sergeant Austin C. Stearns, (deceased) Edited by Arthur Kent, Associated University Presses, Cranbury, NJ, 1976;  (p.124-131) Used with permission.

     Again moving on we halted at Rohrersville, where we bivouaced for the night in an open field by the side of the road, and here we remained the greater portion of the 16th.  Having drawn another scant ration of hard bread and pork, and finding some more potatoes, we again had a good square meal.   Troops were moving in all directions, and there seemed to be no end to their coming, and rumor said that on the ridge but a short distance away, even now in sight, stood the "Veterans" of Lee's army waiting for us to attack.

     Towards night Hooker appeared mounted on his white horse.  We were ordered to "fall in" and commenced to move through the fields up towards the right.  Antietam creek was crossed and still farther to the right we went.  Hooker easily discerned by his horse as usual, was every-where directing the movements.

      At length we were within range of the enemy's guns, and when we showed a good mark they quickly let us know it.  Nearer and nearer we crawled like a great snake, winding in and out between the little hills and through woods to keep out of sight, wishing to get as near as possible without losing many men.  Darkness settled down before we were in position.  How well I now remember of going through a piece of corn whose stalks towered far above our heads, and how the enemy, hearing and wishing to let us know with what a reception they were prepared to receive us, would fire a gun, and a shell or solid shot would come schreeching over to warn us of their presence.  I remember of how one struck the ground but a few feet away and threw the earth up on to the Major.  "Get up, get up," said he, speaking to his horse, "that was ment for us, get up, get up."  At last we were in position, and were ordered to remain every man in his place. I was tired, and sitting down soon lay down, falling asleep immediately;  the last thing I remember was some horses of a neighboring battery stamping and their shoes striking fire on the rocks.  The skirmishers were busy all night, so twas said, but I did not hear them, and as there was no alarm given I slept soundly till morning with the many that slept for the last time their earthly slumber.

     A foggy morning was the 17^th of September 1862, and each army was astir early and was preparing for the deadly struggle that the lowest private knew was to take place, without building any fire to cook our coffee or anything else, but simply eating our dry hard bread.  We were prepared for what was to come.  Hartsuff in the early morning was out in front of his brigade reconnoiting, when he was wounded by a sharpshooter.  Styles of the 9^th was absent, and so was Leonard of the 13^th, and the command devolved upon Coulter of the 11^th.

     The sun coming up soon drove the fog away and we were quickly in line and advanced out of the friendly shelter of the woods into an open field; the stubble had but just been turned in.  Directly in our front and but a short half mile away was the rebel line of battle awaiting to receive us.  The ridge behind their line was crowned by their batteries and I remember one planted near a stone church that opened fire on us as soon as we showed ourselves.  The first shots went over our heads, the second came nearer, but on we went, and were soon up to the fence that separated the fields.  I remember of looking back when a shell came screeching past and seeing it strike in the midst of the brigade following us; we were quickly over the fence and advancing through a mow field.  The skirmishers of both armies were here having a regular give and take fight, the rebs falling back as we advanced.

    The next field was a large cornfield and we were soon going through the corn.  Our batteries, as well as the rebs, kept up a continuous shelling, making music for our advance.  While going through the corn I was struck by a piece of shell on my right side that tore my blouse and shirt, and scratched my side a little, just drawing blood; it completely knocked the wind out of me, and I doubled up like a jack-knife and sat down on a corn-hill.

     Sergeant Fay [Charles M. Fay] seeing me drop asked I ”if I was hit?” and Cap’t. Hovey coming repeating the question, as soon as I could regain my wind I told them “I was not hurt much only lost my wind.”  The Cap’t. told me “to sit there till I would be able to follow on,” and went on with the line.  I had not sat there half a moment when just behind me, where the ledge cropped out of the ground, a shell struck not a rod away and went into a thousand pieces, causing me to evacuate that place rather suddenly.

     I went on and soon joined the company and we left the cornfield for another grass field and at the farther side were the rebels in line of battle; the skirmishers had all disappeared.  Still on we went and we boys thought we were to go for them with the bayonet, and we fixed the same.  Neither side with the exception of the skirmishers and batteries had fired, but now it was time for the infantry to take their turn, and we were getting uncomfortably near.  The rebs fired first but we being so near, many of the balls went over our heads, but still many took effect.  We halted and commenced fireing immediately.  Men now commenced to drop on all sides;  I remember now, as I stood loading my gun, of looking up the line and seeing a man of Co. D. who I was quite intimate with throw up his hands and fall to the ground; one little struggle more and then all was still.*

     Being intensely engaged in loading and firing, I had not noticed in particular all that was going on around me;  I knew that many were hit and had left the ranks, but how many I did not know, when Cap't. Hovey gave the order to "close up to the right."  Looking to the right, and left as well, I saw that there was quite a space between me and my right hand man; at my left stood Henry Gassett, and repeating to him the Cap't. order, [I] stepped to execute the same. Just then Henry said "Jim, I'm hit,"  and throwing his gun down, ran to the rear perhaps a rod and fell.**  I went to him as quick as I could and, kneeling down, enquired where he was wounded.   Before he had time to answer me Cap't. Hovey (pictured below) came up and said I had better try and get him to the rear, for he thought the whole line would go back soon.  I asked Henry if he could walk and he said he would try.  So I helped him up and, putting my right arm around his waist and having him put his left arm around my neck, we started for a piece of woods that was but a few rods away at our right.  Before we reached the woods Henry was hit again in the left leg, a flesh wound; the other was a shot clean through the right shoulder.  On reaching the woods and going in a short distance, we stopped behind a large Maryland Oak to rest.  I gave him water to drink and tried to cheer him up; his wound pained him some and he was faint from the loss of blood.  I asked him if we had not better make another attempt to get farther to the rear but he said he could go no further, all he wanted was to rest.  All this time the battle was raging fearfully; the solid shots and shells came tearing through the woods and, some of them striking, those large oaks would drop down cords of wood at a time.

     Wounded men were continually going to the rear, and some that were not.  I asked several if they would give me a lift and help Henry to the hospital, but they all declined, saying they had as much as they could do to get back themselves.  None were of the 13th though. They told me if I wanted to save my life I had better be getting away from there as the rebels were advancing, and I could see them almost up to the edge of the woods.  I again urged Henry to make one more effort for life, but he, holding up his hand for me to shake, bade me good by and told me to save myself.  I told him I would not go unless he went with me.  He then said he would try, and putting his well arm around my neck and I grasping him around the waist, we again started.  Fear gave us wings, and strength as well, for we placed a good distance between the rebs and ourselves before I would consent to stop, although Henry wanted to several times. As we advanced into the woods, the ground declined to the east, and as our rear was to the north we must cross up and over a slight elevation, where the bullets were flying too thick for comfort.  After taking a good rest and cheering Henry up as best I could, we again started and went over the hill in safety.  We rested several times before we reached the hospital.  The hospital was only a field one at a farmhouse, where the Surgeons were to bind up the wounds before sending them farther away.

     I laid Henry in the front yard with a great many others and went to find a Surgeon or some of the boys, for I knew there must be several somewhere.  I went up to the house and round to the back door but it was full of terribly wounded men, and finding none of our regiment there, I went back and out toward the barn and beyond to an immense straw stack; there I found about a dozen of K men, besides others from [the] regiment.

Some had desperate wounds, and others were ministering to their wants as best they could.  Going back to Henry, I soon had him on a nice bed of straw near the other boys.  I made coffee and gave him some, although he had not much of an appetite for anything.  I kept his wound wet with water all the time, as that was all that could be done now, the Surgeon said, when there was no danger of bleeding to death.

     At the stack were Sergeants Greenwood shot through the shoulder, Fay through arm, Cordwell*** hit on head  with piece of shell, Corp’l Davenport through the foot, and Private Trask with a mortal wound in side and back by a piece of shell.   I learned that Tom Gassset and Hollis Holden were killed, Duke Wellington mortally wounded and left on field, Cap’t. Hovey wounded and gone on with many others.

     Surely we had had a good shaking up. The battle all this time was rageing with terrific power only a short distance away and many shells passed over and beyond.

     I stayed with Henry two days and nights, taking the best care I could, and then I left for the regiment.

     Incidents:  When I was helping Henry off the fields we saw Gen’l. Mansfield with Banks old division going into the fight; when we reached the Hospital they were bringing him back dead.

     After I left, the line fell back and the rebs advanced till our line was reinforced, when they in turn drove the rebs back, and so it went till the ground was fought over two or three times.  The field beyond the cornfield was filled with dead men, both Yank and reb.  Dan Warren counted thirty three dead rebs in the length of four fence rails.  We were two hours and ten minutes fighting by the Chaplain watch before we fell back.

     The results of this severe fighting was a victory baren of results, if I am allowed that expression, for the day after the battle, instead of following up what had been gained a “Flag of truce” was granted on the plea to bury dead men, while under its peaceful folds the living were quietly withdrawn to the other side of the Potomac.

Notes:  *Probably Thurber or Lawrence.

**Jim is Austin Stearns younger brother, also serving in Co. K.

***Cordwell was struck and killed by the same shell that hit John S. Fay later on in the war.

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Several soldiers of the 13th Mass. Regiment commented on the numbers of Confederate dead that lay where they fought on the battlefield, either at the Sunken Road (Bloody Lane) or along the Hagerstown Pike.  Photographer Alexander Gardner took this picture of Stonewall Jackson's men, probably Starke's Brigade  who fell by the rail fence along the Hagerstown Pike.

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Letter of Major Gould to Colonel Leonard

The Battle of Antietam is the second large scale deadly engagement in which Major Jacob Parker Gould led the troops of the '13th Mass'. into battle.  Major Gould was praised by acting brigade commander, Colonel Richard Coulter,  who wrote in his report :  "I would here make special mention of Major Gould, commanding this Regt.  He brought his men well into action, by his gallantry maintained and encouraged them while there and was among the last to leave the field."   (see above).

"GLC03393.30  Major Gould to Colonel Leonard, 23 October 1861.  (The Gilder Lehrman Collection.  Not to be reproduced without written permission.)"

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Diary of Samuel Derrick Webster, Company D

Excerpts of this diary (HM 48531) are used with permission from The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

Tuesday, September 16^th, 1862
     Ration of green coffee, issued instead of the ground as usual.  Took a lot of it across to a house and traded it for “short Cake.”  Lt. Pope in command of Co. D.  Moved across a bridge and toward the village of Bakersville on the Hagerstown and Sharpsburg turnpike.  Turned to the left after crossing a country road leading to Sharpsburg, and moved parallel to it nearly half a mile, and about an hour after dark got settled in line of battle for the night, after enduring quite a heavy fire, the Penna Reserve in front of us.  Laid in a woods; cornfield to right, and beyond it a lane, a woods and then the pike.  Country road to Sharpsburg to the left a short distance through the wood.

Wednesday, September 17^th, 1862
     Antietam – All last night the Pa. Reserves and the rebels in our front kept up volleys – creeping in upon each other and firing.   Just at daylight I was up. Had tried to sleep, but lay on the ground with only a piece of rubber blanket about 18 inches wide for Dana and I, and didn’t succeed very well.  At daybreak was speaking with Capt. Miller of Gen. Hartsuff’s staff, and climbed on a rock to see if we could make out whether the men we could see moving away ahead were our men or rebels, when one of Hookers aids (Hooker is in command of our corps now) dashed up – Capt. Kidder of 14^th N.Y. –asked for Ricketts, and Capt. Miller went with him to show him.   In five minutes he was back and we on the move.   Went obliquely to the right, across a fence running with our line; then across the lane, and on to the corner of a woods, from which we moved towards the Dunker Church ahead of us on the pike, about half the regt – the left – being covered by the woods; the 5^th Maine battery to the right, near the pike, and facing the church.    

     Moved right ahead, the skirmishers in front falling back over the first line of the rebels, in a cornfield, who suddenly rose and poured in a volley.    This line soon used up, and so was the brigade sent to relieve them.   After about 2 ½ hours the division was relieved by another, tho’ by that time they were a mere skirmish line.    Note. – I copy in here from an old letter.   “The division of 12 regts is scarcely as large as a full regt.   It’s supporting a battery.   When ordered off Co. D. had but 4 men, under a sergt, and a corporal – the latter wounded.  Co. K. had but 3 men under the Capt. who was wounded just as he told them to help off such wounded as they could.” – Thurber and Lawrence killed.   Lt. Pope being wounded, Sergt Washburn is in command of Co. D.   Capt. Hovey of K. had his lip and lower part of his nose split by a buckshot.   Stragglers from the Division were collected, and put to support a battery.   Gen.  Hooker, who has command of the corps since the Chantilly affair, and Gen. Hartsuff, are both wounded;   also Jim Reed, Ike Dana, Toby, Sanders and others.   Sander’s life was probably saved by his wife’s picture – which was smashed – and a testament in his blouse pocket.   One bone of his arm is broken, the bullet crushing through in the picture, etc., as above and falling into his pocket.   I went back to Keedysville and established a Hospital for my boys in the upper part of the stable alongside the bridge.   Get in at a hole on the end where a board was knocked off.   Have Dana, Reed, Toby, Sanders, Dutchy Bartlett, and Champney of Co. D., and some 9^th fellows.  Sixty of the 13^th lie around a straw stack in rear of the field, wounded, but they seem to bear it right easily.  One cut the bullet out of his leg with a jack knife.  All who are not too badly hurt laugh and joke over their wounds as though they were fun.

Thursday, Sept. 18^th, 1862
     Managed to find the commissary and raised some rations for my charge.  Also saw Capt. Hovey.  Visited the Regiment.  139 of the regt. reported killed and wounded.

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     This illustration by Thur de Thulstrup is one of my favorites of Civil War art.  It shows the Union assault on Confederate Artillery near the Dunker Church.  Its a good representation of the early part of the battle in which the 13th Mass.  fought.

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Letter of John B. Noyes, Company B

 Confederate Artillery and the Dunker Church

     The batteries that rained shot and shell on the advancing Union lines, as described by Noyes in the letter above, belonged to Colonel Stephen D. Lee  in front of the Dunker Church, and  Stonewall Jackson's artillery positioned on Nicodemus Hill a little to the north,  a  half mile west of the Hagerstown Pike.  Jackson's artillery fired first with Stephen Lee's battery quickly following it up.

     Hooker's batteries blasted back at them from the ridge of Joseph Poffenberger's farm.  The Federal's big guns two miles east of Antietam Creek joined in.  

     The high plateau of ground in front of the Dunker Church  was General Hooker's military objective.  Field artillery advanced with the two flanks of Union Infantry. From the left, (east) of the Union attack, Captain James Thompson and Ezra Matthews Pennsylvania batteries aggressively drove into the cornfield in support of Generals Duryea & Hartsuff's opening attack.  They blazed away at Lee's guns in front of the church.  The rebel cannon roared back.  So many horses were shot, Thompson had to pull back and abandon his cannon when Hood's Confederate Infantry counter-attacked.   It was Lee's battery that dropped cords of wood on the Union soldiers in the East Woods.

     This photograph by Alexander Gardner shows Confederate dead around an abandoned limber, in front of the Dunker Church, west woods in the background. (this view is looking west).  Colonel Stephen D. Lee's artillery battalion lost 86 men, killled.  Lee called the fight at Antietam "Artillery Hell."

Noyes' letter is also the only account I have that mentions the great fire created by the burning of the Mumma House and Barn by  Confederates. (See battle map No. 2 at the top of this page)  The property is located just south of the Smoketown Road which guided the left of Hartsuff's Brigade to the Battle.  Brigadier General Roswell Ripley ordered the buildings burned to prevent Federal sharpshooters from using them as cover.  Artist Alfred R. Waud recorded the scene in this sketch.

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Levi L. Dorr Reminiscences, Company B

      Private Levi L. Dorr became a prominent San Francisco physician after the war.  He signed his name L. L. Dorr.  He kept in touch with comrades through the 13th Regiment Association Circulars.  The following are letter excerpts from correspondence printed in Circulars #29,  Sept., 1915;  #33, Sept. 1919; & #34, Sept. 1920.   At the battle of Antietam he mentions comrades Charles N. Richards (wounded in the face) & Commisary Sergeant Melvin Smith.

Circular #29, L. L. Dorr wrote...

Circular #33:

Commissary Sergeant Mel Smith stands at far right.  Also in this photo, (left to right) are Surgeon Allston W. Whitney, Captain James A. Fox, Co. A, Quartermaster George E. Craig, and 2nd Lt. Edwin R. Frost, Co. A.  The image is undoubtedly taken by George L. Crosby at the regiment's winter camp, Williamsport, February, 1862.  The image shared with me and had been cropped in two.  The original print shows two more men standing in the group   Missing  from this image to the left of Surgeon Whitney are 2nd Lt. Charles B. Fox, Co. K,  and 1st Lt. Joseph Colburn, Co. E.  

---

Circular #34:

Charles N. Richards

Charles N. Richards was born in Quincy, Mass., the son of a Massachusetts State Senator.  When the Civil War broke out he enlisted in Company B, 13th Mass. Regiment.  Charlie Richards would survive his horrendous wound at Antietam.  Unable to serve in the infantry he was honorably discharged from the army and appointed to the Senate staff.  To hide the wound on his upper lip he grew a beard and mustache.  During his long term of service, nearly 55 years, he came to know very well,  many prominent men in American hsitory.  He met all the presidents from Lincoln to Wilson.  He was present at the first meeting of President Lincoln and General Grant, when the latter received his commission as commander-in-chief of the armies of the U.S. in the field.  At the time of his death he was Chief of the Stationery Room of the U.S. Senate.    His decendants shared this post war photograph with me.  

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Letter of Warren H. Freeman, Company A

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Letter of Prince Dunton, Company H

     I found this letter of Private Prince A. Dunton, in the library collection of materials on the '13th Mass.' at Antietam National Battlefield.   Dunton belonged to Company H, a resident of Natick, Mass., where that company was organized in 1861.  He was writing to a civilian friend in Maine, N.B. Milliken, who by the time this letter reached him, had enlisted in 26th Maine, and was serving in Baton Rouge with that organization.  Corporal Dunton was wounded in action with the '13th Mass.', at Gettysburg, July 1st 1863.  He died of his wounds, July 8th, and is buried in the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.   This letter was presented to the National Park Library by Louis M. Hull, Boontown, NJ.  

     The photo in the body of the letter captures a Confederate column on  a halt while marching through Frederick, Maryland taken from the second floor of J. Rosenstock's store. 

     The 26th Georgia fought in the cornfield with Col. Marcellus Douglass (Lawton's Brigade).  They withstood the attack of Duryea's Brigade, then Hartsuff's (Col. Coulter).  The two sides faced off until both their ranks were decimated.  When Col. Coulter arrived (Hartsuff's Brigade) the Louisianna Tigers were sent to  re-enforce Douglass.   Col. Douglass was killed in the crossfire received from the East Woods.  (See Battle Map # 2 at top of page).

   Alexander Gardner took this photograph of Confederate dead  in a ditch on the right wing used as a rifle pit.   In the Photographic History of the Civil War, the caption for this picture reads:

     About nine O'clock the Confederates fighting in the vicinity of the little Dunker Church heard the shout, "They are flanking us!"  "This cry spread like an electric shock along the ranks.  In a moment they broke and fell to the rear," says General D. H. Hill.  In the rear of the fleeing companies General Rodes immediately formed a line along an old sunken road.  The soldiers rendered the position more secure by piling rails upon the ridge.  Some of these rails are seen scatttered along the edge of the ditch. General Hill continues:

 "It was now apparent that the grand attack would be made upon my position, which was the center of the line.  Before re-enforcements arrived a heavy force advanced in three parallel lines, with all the precision of a parade day, upon my two brigades.  They met with a galling fire, however, recoiled, and fell back; again advanced and again fell back, and finally lay down behind the crest of the hill and kept up an irregular fire." 

      Owing to an unfortunate blunder, Rodes's men retreated, whereupon the Federal troops charged and after a fierce struggle drove the Confeeerate force from its position.  The "Bloody Lane" was full of the men who had defended their position to the bitter end.

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Letter of Charles B. Fox;  Tending to the Wounded

Lieutenant Charles B. Fox's detailed casualty report is included further down on this page.

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Westborough Transcript; Casualty List for Co.'s F, I, & K

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Letter of James Lowell, Co. A; (battlefield experiences)

 James Lowell kept in touch with his comrades after the war via the Thirteenth Regiment Association.  This letter was published in Association Circular #34, Sept. 1, 1921. 

Samuel Poffenberger House

Pictured is the farm house of Samuel Poffenberger used as a field hospital during the battle.  Lowell and many others waited around the haystacks of this farm for medical care during the battle.  (The satellite dish is a new addition since the battle).

Biographies of James H. Lowell & His Comrades

Information on Lowell was obtained from the Kansas Historical Society.

     Restless after the war,  James Lowell went west in the spring of  '65 eventually making a name for himself as a judge in the state of Kansas. In his own words he wrote,

"I came west from Massachusetts in the early spring of 1865, on my own hook and without letters of a fixed destination, and without other schooling in roughing it than that acquired in active service in the Army during the Civil War.  Glad to shuffle off the uniform, but unready for the humdrum grind of civil pursuits."

 A short biographical clip from the Kansas Historical Society reads as follows.  "James H. Lowell was born in Boston, Mass., June 12, 1842.  In that city he received his education, and when civil war broke over the United States he was studying the art of lithography.  In June, 1861 he enlisted in the Thirteenth Massachusetts infantry, serving with that regiment until August, 1864.  He was wounded at Antietam, and while in hospital at Harrisburg, Pa., met the lady who afterward became his wife, Miss Kate M. Roberts; they were married in January, 1873.  Soon after his discharge from the army Mr. Lowell came west, and, crossing Kansas, went on into Montana, where he lived some five or six years - placer mining for three years, trading with the Crow and Gros Ventre Indians near Cow island on the upper Missourie, and later practicing law in Fort Benton.  He was deputy district attorney and county assessor for Chouteau county, Montana, 1870 and 1871, and in June and July, 1871 under commission from Gov. B. F. Potts, he organized Dawson county, which had an area at that time equal to all of New England.  In the fall of 1871 he returned to the states and settled in Holton, Kans., where he has since resided. He has served as mayor and police judge of Holton and twice as county attorney of Jackson county."  

     What is interesting about the small number of comrades Lowell mentions, besides the fact that two of them, (Lowell & Forbes) met their future wives at the hospital in Harrisburg, is the remarkable story of their future adventures.  I know little of Dammers and Brigham, other than their record in the rosters.  James Dammers was a mariner before the war.  His wound at Antietam disabled him for further service.  He was discharged in November, 1862 and settled in Chelsea, Mass.  afterwards.  Alfred W. Brigham (pictured) was also honorably discharged due to his wounds at Antietam.  James Lowell recalled in a 1906 letter, "Brigham was restless during his confinement and convalescence, constantly clamoring for release to return to active service."   In August 1863, Brigham was commissioned 1st Lieutenant in the 7th Unatached Company of Mass. Heavy Artillery.  He was commissioned Captain, Co. C,  3rd Regt. Massachusetts Heavy Artillery in October 1864, serving until September, 1865.  He settled in Boston after the war.

   Levi L. Dorr was transferred to Veteran Reserve Corps, March 28, 1864, by reason of his wounds received at Antietam.  Dorr became a prominent physician in San Francisco where he settled after the war.  He was active in local politics and veteran associations.  He was in part responsible for the establishment of the National Cemetery for soldiers in San Francisco where he is buried.  Dorr kept in touch with his comrades, as did Judge Lowell, through the circulars.  He wrote his comrades about the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906:

     "Well, I am alive and doing; but had a hard rub on April 18th and 19th.  The 'quake was more severe than it is discreet to confess.  Most of the evidences of severity were burned the next three days.  I lost my office and contents, my house and all contents but silver  and some clothing.  Small insurance and getting only seventy per cent of that from a company well able to pay.  

     Every association I had was destroyed; clubs, societys, orders, church, and patients scattered to the many corners of the world.  I was a little groggy for a while, and ate refugee bread for a few days, but am still in the ring.  The city is building slowly on account of the defaulting insurance companies, but is bound to be a better appearing town in time.  What time no one knows.  Our half developed country, our magnificent harbor and the gorgeous Pacific are at last attracting railroad and eastern capitalists."

     Dr. Levi Dorr lived a long life and passed away September 10, 1934.  He is buried at San Francisco National Cemetery, Plot G. H., 398-D.  He was a member of G.A.R. Post 2.

James Lascelle Forbes
     James Lascelle Forbes married Miss Ella Small, the daughter of the woman who lived on the same lot as the Harrisburg Hospital where these 8 friends recovered from their battle wounds.  Around 1868 - 1869 James traveled to North-western India to help manage his maternal Uncle’s indigo plantation.  By December, 1873, James had re-located to another region of India, and changed jobs.  He was one of 3 managers of the Tarapore Tea Company in Cachar. That’s when Ella Small set sail from America for British Colonial India to marry James. They were wed in Calcutta, January 31, 1874. Soon they had two children, a son and daughter. Between extended trips to America, to visit Ella’s relatives, James Uncle died.  He left 1/3 of his indigo plantation to James and Ella.  James' siblings, who shared in the inheritance, agreed James should run the estate.  In early 1881, the family, now with 4 children, settled on "Uncle’s" remote Indigo plantation in NW India. The plantation thrived and the family prospered.

     It was a lonely existence with neighbors spread wide apart across the region. The social center was a club located at the nearest town 22 miles away.  Celebrations, parties and dances were sometimes hosted there, giving the European population a chance to congregate.  "We would go into Azamgarh, and we would have a whole week there of very good times. We had races: races for men, races for the women. For instance, you had to mount your horse and ride around the course so many times, holding a tennis ball on your tennis racket, and get right round without letting it fall off."  So wrote Mary Forbes; James & Ella's eldest daughter.

     James died in 1899 at age 60 and was buried in India next to his uncle. His wife Ella continued to travel extensively through Europe and America with her daughters.    In 1905 Charlotte, the youngest, married a member of the British Indian Civil Service. The plantation estate was sold in 1920.  Ella settled in Paris, France with her two un-wed daughters.  Ella senior died in 1925 in Paris. The two girls later relocated to the US, settling finally in Boston, Mass.

Will Soule
     Too severely wounded at the battle of Antietam to continue in the infantry, 27 year old Soule finished out the war clerking in Washington D.C. "For a time thereafter he worked in a photographic gallery in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  Photographic work for young Will Soule was iminently sensible as his elder brother, John P. Soule, had founded the Soule Photographic Company in Boston before the Civil War.  John photographed many of the Massachusetts Volunter soldiers of the war.  Will's employment in the Chambersburg gallery ended when the gallery burned to the ground, completely destroying the business.  Early in 1867, Will Soule determined to "go west" to improve his shattered health.  He took with him  a complete photography outfit both for landscapes and portrait work.  Arriving at Fort Dodge in Kansas, Soule secured employment as chief clerk in the post store run by Trader John E. Tappin.  It is believed that Will Soule suppelemented his work with odd jobs as an amateur photographer.

     Soule's first published work was an engraving, made from his photograph of the body of Ralph Morrison, a scalped hunter lying dead on the Kansas plains about a mile from Fort Dodge. This engraving was published in Harper's Weekly.  Soule relocated 100 miles south to Fort Supply while General Philip Sheridan's Indian campaigns were well under way.  In 1870 his photographs recorded the building of Fort Sill in Oklahoma Territory. At Fort Sill, he made a reputation for himself, taking portraits of Indian warriors and their camps.  The volume of his work conveys the trust Soule established with the Plains Indians who were at war with the whites during this time period.  Soule returned to Boston in 1874.  He remained in the photography business with his brother until 1902.  To this day his work on the Indian Frontier is highly prized and his prints command high prices. 

Eugene Allen Fiske
Eugene A. Fiske was born in the state of New Hampshire; the son of Allen Fiske and Mercy Rogers Parmenter.  He received his education in the common schools of his native state and in Massachusetts.  At the age of sixteen he enlisted for the war of the rebellion.  He was wounded at Antietam and subsequently promotd to second Lietenant Veteran Reserve Corps.  He mustered out of service as a lieutenant in the 8th U. S. Veteran Volunteers. After leaving the army he graduated from the law department of Columbian University at Washington, D. C, [George Washington University] and thereafter served in various department offices in the capital.  President Grant appointed him chief of the division of private land claims in the general land office, and subsequently assistant secretary to the President to sign patents for lands.  Resigning his office in Washington in 1876, he located in that year to Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, where he successfully practiced law.  In 1886 he assisted in the organization of the New Mexico Bar Association, was its treasurer for the succeeding ten years and its president in 1901.  He was one of the organizers of the Santa Fe Board of Trade, was attorney and vice-president of, and a director in, the Second. National Bank of New Mexico, assisted in the foundation of the University of New Mexico at Santa Fe, and was the organizer of the first gas company in New Mexico at Santa Fe, and subsequently of the gas company at Las Vegas. In 1889, he was appointed United States attorney and held the office for four years. He died at Santa Fe in 1910.  A representation of his character as Attorney General can be found in the following clip from the book "The United States Marshals of New Mexico and Arizona Territories 1846-1912" by Larry D. Ball. (p. 90) regarding the "Lincoln County War."

By Late 1878, many letters of complaint about Deputy Widenmann and other participants in the “war” had reached the Dept. of Justice.  These accusations, added to the recriminations dating from the Colfax County War, persuaded Attorney General Charles Devins to investigate both outbreaks.  Devens dispatched Judge Frank Warner Angel of New York to examine the conduct of the federal and territorial officials.  In a letter of April 16, 1878, the attorney general introduced Angel to Marshal John Sherman.

Judge Angel questioned many officials and recorded a confidential assessment of each person in his “journal.”  About Marshal Sherman, Angel wrote:  “means to tell all he knows [about the Lincoln County War] – reliable – but not much back bone unless “braced up.’  Use him through E. A. Fiske.”  Eugene A. Fiske was an influential lawyer in Santa Fe.  When John Sherman arrived in 1876, the two men shared an office in the Palace of the Governors.  Sherman trusted Fiske with the affairs of the marshalcy when he took leaves.  Judge Angel concluded that Fiske was “shrewd – honest – reliable.”  He can be “of great service – He controls the U.S. Marshal – Has been of great service to me – well posted as to the people and the frauds in the territory.”

Robert "Bob" Armstrong
Corporal "Bob" Armstrong  is described by comrade Charles Davis as a silver-tongued charmer.  "The most thrifty have been allured into giving, and the meanest succumbed to his persuasive tongue."  Bob was also a mooch.  According to Davis, he was born into wealth, spoiled by his mother, and became accustomed to a life of ease.  "He was acquainted with several languages,  was a fine singer, could play the piano and had read and traveled much."  When the family fortune disappeared Bob fell on hard times and used his persuasive powers to live off the generosity of his friends.   Genial and free of malice he was an agreeable companion whose company was a delight.  "Bob never earned a dollar in his life."  

     At Antietam Levi Dorr remembered, "when faint with bleeding from my wound, Bob made me give him my rifle as his was clogged."  Davis relates the following incident as the regiment was falling back.  "He was crawling over a rail fence, and just as he was balancing on the top, he was struck in the leg with a bullet which found its exit at the upper part of his thigh.  His movements were so accelerated as to land him in a heap on the ground.  As he gathered himself together he burst out in language as ornate and beautiful as that of  a pirate captain, to the very great surprise of his comrades who had never heard an expression of wrath from his lips.  Once on his feet he took careful aim and shot the rebel skirmisher, who threw up both hands and dropped to the earth."   

     About 1876, Bob borrowed some money from his friends and joined a squad of G.A. R. men who were going to the Black Hills to establish a colony.   His aversion to work eventually got him expelled from the group.  He showed up in San Francisco, with a shabby  appearance, and hunted up his old friend Levi Dorr.  Dorr reported that the owner of the foundry where Bob was employed  discovered his intelligence and breeding and promoted him to mail carrier.  But one day Bob went missing to roam for parts unknown.   (More about "Bob" will be posted on a future page.)

John B. Noyes
       Harvard Graduate John B. Noyes has several mentions on this site already.  His war-time letters are filled with detail and accute observation.  The Battle of Antietam knocked Noyes out of service for several months.  He returned to the 13th Regiment at winter camp in Belle Plain, Va, in Feb. 1863.  Soon after, with a recommendation from Major Gould, Noyes obtained a Second Lieutenant's commission in the Irish "28th Mass. Vols."  His first day as an officer with that unit was in the midst of the Battle of Chancellorseville.  The veteran officers of the 28th, were reluctant to accept the outsider Noyes, but he soon gained the respect of the men  for his leadership capabilities and reliability in battle.  The respect of the officers eventually followed.   Noyes led from the front, and miraculously survived several bloody engagements with the 28th.  

     Recalling his memories of Noyes, James Lowell wrote,  "The last I saw of him was on the 17th of June, 1864 at night, near Petersburgh.  He was near the road looking for us.  He told us he was in command of the 28th Massachusetts as all the officers had been killed, wounded or captured."  An excerpt from one of Noyes letters dated May 18th 1864, gives a good idea of his service with the 28th Mass. Vols.  

"From the rebel breastorks we captured on the 12th Inst. Spottsylvania Va May 18th 1864"
  
     We suffered heavily from the enemy's artillery which was hardly one hundred yards away.  Major Lawler was mortally wounded by my side, struck by a shell which shattered his arm and & stove in his left side, - since dead.  Capt Corcoran is mortally wounded.  He fell by the side of Lawler, struck by a musket ball some say in the lungs.  I saw a terrible wound in his throtat.  I thought the paleness of death was upon him.  I was bringing him an order to take command of the Regiment when I found him by Lawler's side.  Capt. Flemming was wounded in the head.  Capt Coveny severely in the left arm.  Capt Bailey's little finger taken off.   Capt Magner was mortally wounded in the side, late in the action.  Lieut. Armand in the foot.  I was struck by a slug on my left arm which I caught before it fell.  1st Serg't Linnehan, Privates R. Curley, and M. O'Sullivan wounded, - the last two seriously, also four men missing in my Co. [C]  Lieut. West commands the Regiment. I am next senior officer."

More of Noyes's war-time letters willl be featured on this site.

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Letter of John B. Noyes, Co. B; (summary of the campaign)

Artist Alfred Waud sketched Sharpsburg residents fleeing town upon the advance of the Rebel Army.

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Letter of Warren H. Freeman, Co. A; (battlefield experiences)

     Stoic Warren Freeman never told his father about his personal injuries and the wounds he suffered in the service until long after the fact.  And, when he does mention them, he underplays the pain they caused.  In this lettter Warren mentions the Color Guard.  The names of the soldiers of the 13th Mass. Color Guard, who bore an important position in battle, are omitted from the regimental history.  In most instances, it is difficult to discover their identities, with few exceptions.  David Chenery of Company A, is specifically named here, (and another source) ––and according Warren's letter home, one can guess who else was present in the color guard by reviewing the regiment's casualty list.

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Lt. Charles B. Fox's Casualty List

     Lieutenant Charles B. Fox (commanding Company I) carefully compiled this casualty list. I have found discrepancies with other lists.  I put name corrections in brackets, and listed men who died from wounds in red.  I have added an asterix to the names of the new recruits that joined the regiment on August 18 or Sept. 10.   See article "Short Service " below for more information on the recruits.

Company A

Company B

Company C

Company D

Company E

Company F

Company G

Company H

Company I

Company K

Total

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Adna P. Hall, Company H

    Twenty-four year old Adna was a little older than the average soldier in his company, and had the added responsibilities of being a husband and father.  July 16, 1861, Adna mustered into the 13th Mass. at Fort Independence with the others.  Just four months later, when the regiment was at Williamsport, Maryland, his poor wife Martha Nutt Hall died of consumption.  Adna took a furlough in November to return home to Natick and attend her funeral.  Martha's untimely death left Adna with two infant children, Nelli, and Eugene.  They moved in with Martha's parents and Adna returned to the regiment.

     He fought with the 13th Mass. at Cedar Mountain, Rappahannock Station, Thoroughfare Gap, 2nd Bull Run, Chantilly and South Mountain.  At Antietam his luck ran out.  Company H, had the highest casualty rate in the regiment with six men killed. This betrays the company's position in line of battle as one of the exposed companies that fought out in the open, away from the shelter of the East Woods.  Perhaps they held the  junction with the 12th Mass,. which suffered the highest casualty rate of any Federal Regiment that day, (67%).  It is believed Adna was killed instantly.  Perhaps he was one of the men referred to in Prince Dunton's letter, above, when he wrote:

"I fired 28 rounds and came out of it without a scratch.  One ball just grazed my shoe.  The men that stood each side of me both got shot.  I do not see how any of us got out alive.  The shot and shell fell about us thick and fast, I can tell you, but I did not think much about getting shot after the first volley."

     Adna's daughter Nellie, age 4 1/2 years at the time of his death, was raised by her grandparents, Isaac and Sarah Nutt of Natick. Eugene was adopted by Israel Gurney, a prominent citizen of the town of Natick who had vowed to adopt the first orphaned male child of the war.  True to his word, he took in Eugene, changed his name to William Gurney, and raised him as his own.  Adna P. Hall is buried in the Massachusetts section of the National Cemetery at Antietam.  Many of his descendants still reside in Natick today.

    Years later, Adna's breastplate was dug up on the battlefield near the Smoketown Road.  Stamped on the back in large bold letters is "A.Hall 13 MASS."  The stamping is unique; Massachusetts was the only state to do this.  The front of the breast plate is stamped MS for Massachusetts.  

The item was manufactured for the soldiers by "Boyd & Sons Boston."

Short Service

By Brad Forbush
13thmass blog.

    New recruits joined the 13^th Mass in the field several times during their 3 years of service.  About 70 joined them in the field near Culpeper, Virginia on August 18^th 1862 with another 60 or so joining the regiment September 10^th outside Mechanicsville, Md just before the battle of Antietam.*  The adjutant Generals report credits them all to August 1862. (None are listed for September.)  

    Regimental Historian Charles Davis wrote in the regimental history :

September 10^th 1862  “We received another lot of recruits to-day, and a fine looking set of men they were. It is a notable fact that this batch of recruits was the last in which we had any feeling of pride.  Up to and including this time we had been fortunate in our recruits. They were a credit to the State and reflected honor upon the regiment; they were in such marked contrast to those who followed that the fact is worth mentioning.”

    These new men came to the regiment just before several hard marches and deadly battles; Thoroughfare Gap, August 28^th; Second Bull Run, August 30^th; and Antietam, September 17^th.  Samuel Shelton Gould was one among the September group.   Gould's Company A comrade, Warren H. Freeman  writes:

"Samuel S. Gould stood within five feet of me when he was mortally wounded; he had been in the company but four or five days.  He was fresh from Harvard College, and I got quite well acquainted with him; he was a wide-awake, noble fellow, about as tall as I am. He has relatives in West Cambridge.  …We had forty-one men in our company, twenty-one of whom were killed or wounded.  …After I had fired forty rounds I went to Gould and got some of his cartridges; he was living, but not able to speak; he died before the battle was over. During most of the day we were between 300 and 400 yards of the rebel lines – a good easy range for our rifles.”

    Gould’s story is exceptional. The following information is followed closely from “Harvard Memorial Biographies,” edited by Thomas W. Higginson; 1866.  

     Gould's  father was headmaster of the Winthrop School, Boston, when Samuel Shelton Gould was born January 1, 1843.  Samuel attended Boston schools until his twelfth year, studying Latin for two of them.  When his parents moved to Dorchester he completed his preparatory studies at the Roxbury Latin School.  In 1858 at age 15 he entered Harvard College.  After a year he decided to leave school to see the world.  He went to sea as a common sailor on the ship ‘Peabody’ bound for Melbourne, Australia.  He brought along several Latin and Greek text-books and remarkably kept up his studies during his spare time.  His plan was to “re-enter College on his return with as little delay as possible.” Samuel kept up a daily journal where he recorded his surprise at the mean tasks, drudge-work and poor food aboard the Peabody.  There was little opportunity to learn more of the “difficult parts of the work,” one of his personal goals.  The grumbling of the veteran sailors reinforced his idea that these were unusual conditions for a sailing ship.  When in port he chose not to return to America on the Peabody and instead sailed a few days later for the Peruvian port of Callao, on the American vessel ‘Commonwealth.’

     The work was harder on the Commonwealth, and the food worse, but the experience was better, because as an ordinary seaman, young Samuel was now learning the more intricate parts of the job.  There was less time for study on the Commonwealth but Gould kept at it. 

     At Callao the Captain revealed the true destination of the Commonwealth was up the coast to Chinca Island to harvest guano; seagull feces and urine, used as fertilizer.  Naturally, this was repulsive work for sailors. Gould and another mate approached the Captain and requested a discharge from the vessel.  The Captain refused.  Words were exchanged and Gould demanded recourse with the American consul in Callao.  The Captain struck him and the Second Mate beat him badly.  Samuel jumped ship that night.

     In a few days he joined the crew of a Boston ship, the ‘Rival,’ bound for Cork, Ireland.  He got on well with the officers and had a pleasant experience, even with 20 days severe weather sailing ‘round Cape Horn.  The rest of the voyage was pleasant and he continued his studies, and his journal.

 "Tuesday, June 26th. — Forenoon below; finished the first volume of Macaulay's England. I am glad to say that, in spite of the contrary predictions of my friends before I left home, I have not as yet neglected my reading and study, though my time has been much more limited than I expected, and consequently I have not accomplished nearly all that I could wish. Greek and Latin I have kept at with a constancy of which, under all the circumstances, — hard work and scarcity of rest, — I think I may be justly proud.  I find that I have lost none of my ability to read them easily, but from the want of grammars I feel that my knowledge of them is not nearly as exact as it once was. The Holy Bible, — the reading of which has been a daily duty and pleasure to me, — John Foster, De Quincy, Macaulay, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Dickens have formed my leisure reading, if that time which I have stolen from my sleep can be called leisure.  I can fairly say that they have been my greatest pleasure ever since I left home. I hope that a year's time, and possibly less, will see me again so situated that the bulk of my time, and not the spare minutes only, may be given up to them.  I have been like the mother in Tom Hood's ' Lost Child,' who did not know the love she felt for her child till she lost it.  I only hope that I may not, like her, forget it as soon as I find it."

     From Ireland Samuel sailed to New Orleans, and then made passage for home in a schooner.  The ship nearly wrecked in a storm off Cape Hatteras in March, but Gould arrived safely home in April, 1861 after an absence of nearly 2 years.  He followed up his desire to re-enter College and devoted the next three months catching up on the studies he had missed his sophomore year.  He re-entered Harvard as a junior in July 1861!  

     Believing he had a part to play in the great struggle now underway he promised to enlist should the President again call for troops in the future.  That opportunity came in the summer of 1862 and Samuel Gould joined the '13th Mass' as a recruit.  “During that time he attended and addressed several of the war-meetings in Cambridge and Boston …and the fire of his words were inspiring.”

     He joined the regiment in the field near Mechanicsburg, Md., September 10th.  At Antietam, Samuel Gould was still unarmed but assisted the stretcher-bearers removing the wounded from the battlefield.  In short order he found a rifle and “joined his company at the front, and very soon fell, shot through the heart.”  He is buried, with Adna P. Hall and others at Antietam National Cemetery in the Massachusetts section.

    Samuel Gould’s story made me wonder how many others from this batch of new recruits were immediate casualties.  Charles H. Bingham of Company C was one of the recruits.  He joined the regiment in mid-August, was wounded at Antietam and received his discharge soon after.  But he survived the ordeal and wrote several interesting articles about his short war time experiences.  Several of the recruits died at Fredericksburg a few months later, but at least they had a little time to assimilate into army life.

What follows is a list of 12 recruits who died from wounds received at 2nd Bull Run & Antietam.  I wonder what their stories were?   I offer the names of these unfortunate recruits who sacrificed everything for the cause of the Union.

Company A
William F. Barry; age 18; born Boston; clerk; KIA Sept. 17, 1862, Antietam.

N. Stanley Everett; age 19, born Milton, Mass.; clerk; died Sept. 21, 1862 at Alexandria. (The Roster and Mass. Adjt. General's Report lists N. Stanley Everett in Co. A but he is not on Fox's report.  Everetts of Co. H, is listed wounded.  There was a Shepard Everett in Co. H but it does not list him as wounded at Antietam.  Either Fox's casualty list is wrong and Everett was in Co. H, or the Mass. Adjt. Genl's Report incorrectly lists him in company A).

Samuel S. Gould; age 19; Boston; student; KIA Sept. 17 1862, Antietam.  

Charles R. Nelson; age 29; born Brooklyn, NY; mariner;   KIA Sept. 17, 1862, Antietam.

John P. Shelton; age 18; Boston; student; died of wounds Sept 18, 1862.

Company B
Charles T. Linfied; age 21, born South Weymouth, Mass., conductor, died of wounds Aug. 30, 1862, 2nd Bull Run.

 George F. Wakefield; age 19; born Boston; machinist; KIA Sept. 17, 1862, Antietam.

 Company D
     Sam Webster of Co. D wrote in his journal Aug. 31, after the battle of 2nd Bull Run, :  “Find Peck and others to be killed, among them some of the late recruits.”  Here are three recruits assigned to Webster's company killed soon after joining the regiment:

Ira Bowman, age 32, born Littleton, NH; silversmith; died of wounds Oct. 6, 1862.

William D. Dorey, age 21, born Boston; stevedore; wounded at Manassas, Aug. 30, 1862, died of wounds October 2, 1862 at Philadelphia.

Albert A. Hazeltine (Hazleton); age 24; born Springfield, Mass.; painter; died of wounds Nov. 15, 1862.

Company H
William H. Baker; age 20, born Weymouth, Mass.; student; KIA Aug. 30, 1862, 2nd Bull Run. (I think Baker was the brother of  Major Elliot C. Pierce's fiancee.)

Company K
Hollis Holden; age 44, born Newfane, VT; farmer; KIA Sept. 17, 1862, Antietam.  See Westboro Transcript on this page; " One of the three reported killed was H. Holden, of Shrewsbury; he was a new recruit, having just gone out with Messrs. Hartwell ( who was wounded), Chapman and Edmands of this town. He leaves a wife and two children."

*NOTE:  Names of men from the Adjt. General’s report were checked against the revised roster of the regiment in the 13th Mass. Association Circulars.

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The Massachusetts Monument at Antietam National Battlefield.  The two tablets list the Massachusetts Regiments engaged in the battle.  A tablet on the other side of the monument shows a map of the battlefield.

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© Bradley M. Forbush, 2011.

Page Updated  September 22, 2012.