Part 6

At Upton’s Hill the complete organization of the Regiment was published in the orders. The Lieutenant Colonel was promoted to be Colonel, Captain Prescott to be Lieutenant Colonel, and Captain Stephenson to be Major. The medical staff consisted of Z. Boylston Adams, Surgeon, with the rank of Major; William Lyman Faxon and W. H. Bigelow, Assistant Surgeons, ranking as First Lieutenants; W. T. M. Odiorne, Hospital Steward. The non-commissioned staff consisted of James P. Wade, Sergeant Major; James A. White, Quartermaster Sergeant; Charles E. Madden, Commissary Sergeant; and Freeman Field, Principal Musician.

Dr. Bigelow, Steward Odiorne, and Sergeant Madden, were new appointments. All the rest had been with the Regiment through all its experience in the field.

No chaplain was ever commissioned in the 32d, no application having ever been made on the part of the line officers, to whom belonged the initiative, and none being desired, so far as was known by any officer or man.

In an army composed of men of many different religious beliefs, as was the case in ours, the chaplains should constitute a staff corps, its members proportioned as to faith, in some degree to the requirements of the army, so that from the headquarters of an army or corps details might be made of the proper men for any required duty. Attached to regimental headquarters, they were very generally utterly inefficient for good professionally. It was the rule with us that, when any of the sick were near death, the fact should be reported to the commanding officer, who was often the first to communicate the tidings, and who invariably enquired of the dying man if he desired the service of a chaplain. When this was desired, an orderly was sent with the compliments of the Colonel, to some chaplain near by, to ask his attendance. With only rare exceptions such services were cheerfully and promptly rendered.

The burial service was usually read by the commanding officer over the bodies of our dead; but in one case, where the man had been a Roman Catholic, it was thought better to ask the attendance of a chaplain of that faith. It happened that the orderly could not readily find one, and could find only one, and returned with the unusual reply that the chaplain could not come.

Upon further inquiry it appeared that the orderly had presented the message, with the compliments of the Colonel, to the chaplain, who was reposing after dinner. “Was he a good Catholic?” enquired the priest. The orderly assured him that he was. “My compliments to the Colonel, then, and tell him he can bury him. It is all right.” With which reply the messenger was compelled to return. Failing the orderly’s assurance of the man’s good and regular standing, of course the chaplain would have escaped the duty too.

In November, 1862, our camp hospital offered merely a canvas tent for shelter, and some straw spread upon the frosty ground for bedding. One of the patients, in view of approaching death, expressed to the Adjutant his wish to be baptized, and of course a messenger was sent forth to seek a chaplain, with the customary compliments, and to ask his attendance on a dying man.

A chaplain promptly appeared at our headquarters, was escorted to the hospital tent and left at the side of the sick man. Very soon after, the Colonel, meeting the reverend officer pacing thoughtfully in the open air, stopped and enquired as to the patient’s condition. Evidently considerably embarrassed, the chaplain said “you did not tell me that the man wanted baptism.” “Very true,” was the reply, “but why is that any difficulty?” “Because,” rejoined the clergyman, hesitatingly, “I am of the Baptist persuasion, and this is no case for immersion.”

It was very awkward, but the Colonel, who had thought only of a chaplain as the proper officer for a present duty, apologized for his want of thought, thanked the gentleman, and said that he would try again, or if it became necessary, would himself administer the holy rite. The chaplain, however, requested a few minutes for reflection, at the end of which he decided to officiate himself and did so, first taking the precaution to enquire of the soldier whether he preferred immersion or sprinkling, the latter of which very naturally was elected.

VI.

_THE ANTIETAM CAMPAIGN._

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was after dark when at last we halted for the night, and the Adjutant’s returns showed that one of the new companies then numbered three officers and seven men, and another no officers and one man[1] present for duty. We bivouacked in columns of companies, and that one man executed under his own command the company right wheel, dressed his ranks, stacked his arm (by plunging the bayonet into the ground), called the roll, broke ranks, supped, and slept the sleep of the just.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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