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THE BATTLEFIELD
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THE STORY OF ANTIETAM
FROM TABLETS ERECTED BY THE BATTLEFIELD COMMISSION
CONFEDERATE TABLETS
September 14-16, 1862. The Army of Northern Virginia was composed of Longstreet and Jackson's commands, Stuart's cavalry and the reserve artillery. D. R. Jones', Hood's and Evans' brigades of Longstreet's command, also D. H. Hill's division of Jackson's command, were withdrawn from South Mountain during the night of Sept. 14th and concentrated at Sharpsburg. Early next day, Sept. 15th, McLaw's, R. H. Andersons's and Walkers' divisions were detached from Longstreet's command to assist Jackson in the investment of Harper's Ferry. Jackson's command having captured Harper's Ferry, reached Sharpsburg on the 16th and 17th. Stuart's cavalry and a part of the reserve artillery reached the field on the 15th and 16th, and at nightfall of the 16th Hood's division occupying a position in the East Woods and in the field between it and the Hagerstown pike in advance of the left of the Confederate line, encountered the advance of Meade's division of Hooker's corps of the Army of the Potomac. The engagement ended at dark.
September 15 and 16, 1862. D. H. Hill's division led the re- treat from South Mountain on the night of the 14th. Rodes' and Colquitt's brigades, both under command of Rodes' were hastened to Sharpsburg to expel the Union Cavalry which had escaped from Harper's Ferry, the cavalry having moved on in the direction of Hagerstown. Rodes marched through the town and halted near the Potomac. Early on the 15th the three other brigades of the division halted midway between the Antietam and Sharps- burg. Geo. B. Andreson's brigade formed line on either side of the Boonsboro pike near the Bloody Lane, Ripley's brigade formed on Anderson's left rear with its right near the pike. Rodes' brigade marched back through the town and formed line in the field east of the Bloody Lane tower, and Garland's brigade took position in the adjoining field on Rodes' left, the line facing the Antiteam. Artillery was put in position on the hills between the Bloody Lane and Sharpsburg and engaged the Union Artillery bej'ond the Ant'etam. On the 16th Colquitt's brigade was marched from its bivouac southeast of the town and went into line on Garland's left, near the Roulette house and later in the day on advance of Hooker's corps, Ripley's brigade was moved from the right and bivouaced south of Mamma's in support of the right of Elwell's division.
September 17, 1862. Gen. Longstreet's command, including D. H. Hill's division of Jackson's command, temporarily attached, occupied the right and center of the Confederate Line, extending from the Antietam Creek south of Sharpsburg in a northerly di- rection to Mumma's house. Gen. Jackson's command occupied the left of the line, extending from Mumma's house to the Hagers- town pike, north of the Dunkard Church, thence through the West Woods to the open field south of the Nicodemus house. Gen. Stuart's cavalry division covered the extreme left of the Confed- erate army, extending from Jackson's left westerly to the Potomac River. At about 6 a. m. Jackson became heavily engaged in re- sisting an attempt of Hooker's Corps of the Army of the Potomac to turn the left flank of the Confederate army. About 7 a. m. the attempt was renewed by Gen. Mansfield's corps. About 9 a. m.
a third attempt was made by Gen. Sedwick's division of Sumner's corps. Between 9.15 and 11 a. m. French and Richardson's di- visions of Sumner's corps assaulted, and at noon finally carried the Confederate position in the sunken road. Between 9 a. m. and noon, several attacks were made on the Confederate right at Burn- side Bridge, but without success. An attack at 1 p. m. was suc- cessful and the troops of the Ninth corps obtained a lodgment on the plateau overlooking the Burnside bridge. From this position about 3 p. m. an assault was directed against the heights overlook- ing the town, which was checked by the arrival of A. P. Hill's di- vision from Harper's Ferry.
September 17, 1862. Early in the morning Ripley fired the Mumma buildings and passed them in the direction of the south side of the East Woods, then moving by the left flank crossed the Smoketown road and engaged the Union troops in Miller's corn field. Colquitt followed Ripley and formed on his right. Gar- land's brigade, moving from the field north of the present stone tower, followed Colquitt. After a severe engagement involving heavy losses the three brigades were driven by Mansfield's corp, Ripley retiring to the woods at the Dunkard Church, Colquitt and Garland in the direction of Sharpsburg. Rodes was about to join the three brigades north of the Smoketown road, but upon the appearance of Colquitt in the retreat, filed to the left and formed line in the Bloody Lane, portions of the retreating brigades rally- ing on his left. Gen. Geo. B. Anderson, moving from the Boons- boro pike, passed up the ravine east of the Piper farm buildings, and formed in the Lane on Rodes' right, near the present tower. The command was attacked by French's and Richardson's Divis- ions. Five brigades of R. H. Anderson's division came to Hill's assistance, forming line in his rear, but after a bloody struggle of over two hours both Hill and Anderson fell back to Piper's farm lane and to the cover of the stone walls on either side of the Hagerstown pike. Late in the day the Confederates repulsed a charge of the 7th Maine of the 6th Corps on the Piper farm buildings.
UNION TABLETS
September 15, 1862. On the morning of September 15th the Army of the Potomac pursued the retreating Confederates from South Mountain, Pleasanton's cavalry, the First, Second and Twelfth Corps by Turner's Pass, Boonsboro, and Keedysville: Sykes' division of the Fifth Corps, the Reserve Artillery and Ninth Corps by Fox's and the old Sharpsburg road; the Sixth Corps and Couch's division, (attached to the Sixth Corps) remained near Crampton's pass. Pleasanton overtook the Confederate cavalry rear guard at Boonsboro, attacked and cut it off from the main body and pursued it in the direction of Hagerstown. Richardson's division Second Corps in the advance followed closely and skir- mished with the retreating Confederate infantry until it reached the ridge bordering the Antietam, behind which it formed line, north of the Boonsboro pike. Tidball's Battery A, 2nd U. S., and Pittit's Battery B, 1st N. Y. from the crest of the ridge engaged the Confederate artillery posted at and south of the first angle at east end of the sunken and historic part of Bloody Lane. Gens. French and Sedwick's divisions, Second corps halted on either
side of the pike between McClellan's headquarters and the Middle Bridge, the First Corps under Gen. Hooker took position between the Hooker bridge, and Keedysville, the 12th corps halted near Keedysville, Sykes' division. Porter's Fifth corps between the Keedysville pike and the Geeting hospital buildings. Late in the day the 9th corps encamped on Geeting's farm at the west base of Elk Ridge. Amiy headquarters were established at the Pry house.
September 16, 1862. Early in the morning the 201b. Parrolt batteries of Taft, Langner, VonKleiser and Wever, 1st N. Y. Ar- tillery, were in position on the ridge between the Antietam and McClellan's headquarters; Battery E, (Benjamin's) 2nd U. S. and Battery I, (Weeds) 5th U. S. on the ridge south of Porlerstown overlooking the Antietam creek; and all engaged the Confederate artillery on the hills near Sharpsburg, where the National and Town cemeteries are now located. About 8 a. m. four Companies of the 4th U. S. infantry crossed the Antietam by the Middle bridge and late in the day engaged the Confederate infantry between the bridge and Sharpsburg. About noon Morell's division, 5th corps arrived from Frederick, Md. and encamped near Keedysville, the Ninth corps moved to the left on the Miller and Rohrback farms near the Burnside bridge where they had a commanding position. Between 3 and 4 p. m., Hooker's 1st Corps crossed the upper bridge at Pry's ford and moved westerly until it reached the Joe Poffenbcrger farm and lane, then changed direction to the left, moving south and en- countered the Confederate out position near the Smoketown road. His line extended from the Hagerstown pike across the Smoketown road where it entered the East Woods from the north. During the night Mansfield's 12th corps crossed the Antietam by the upper bridge and bivouaced about a mile in Hooker's rear.
September 17, 1862. The Battle opened at daybreak between Hooker's First Corps and the Confederate divisions of Jackson and Ewell, and raged in the East Woods, Mille.'s (now the Bloody Corn- field) and on either side of the Hagerstown pike north of the Dunk- ard Church. Ew-ell's division was relieved by Hood's and Hooker's corps by Mansfield's. Hood was reinforced by the brigades of Ripley, Colquitt and Garland, of D. H. Hill's division. After a sanguinary contest Mansfield's corps forced the entire Confederate line north of the Bloody Lane to retire west of the Hagerstown pike. Sumner's Second Corps crossed the Antietam at Pry's ford about 8 a. m., Sedwick's division advancing to and through the East Woods and across the Hagerstown pike to the western edge of the West Woods. Making this charge they passed Mansfield's corps and were checked in part by the artillery and infantry of Jackson's command, struck on the left by the divisions of McLaws and Walker and driven north and east beyond D. R. Miller's farm build- ings and beyond the old Toll Gate Woods. Confederate efforts to recover ground east of the Hagerstown pike were checked by Hooker, Mansfield and Sumner's artillery. Green's division of Mansfield's corps followed the Confederate repulse by a charge and seized the woods west of the Dunkard Church, which it held until about noon, when it was dislodged and the Confederates made another effort to gain ground east but were repulsed by the fire of the Union artillery and the advance of Franklin's Sixth Corps, which arrived about noon, closing in around the Dunkard Church, French's division following Sedwick's across the Antietam, on reaching the East Woods wheeled to the left, drove the Confederate outposts from the Roulette farm buildings and about 9.30 a. m. en- gaged the Brigades of Rodes, Colquitt and Garland, posted in the
west end of the Bloody Lane. Geo. B. Anderson's brigade, on Rodes' right, endeavored to turn French's left but was forced back by the advance of Gen. Richardson's division, which formed on French's left. Five brigades of R. H. Anderson's Confederate division came to the assistance of the four brigades already engaged. About noon French and Richardson carried the Bloody Lane and the high ground immediately south of it, the Confederates re- treated to and beyond the Henry Piper farm buildings. Meanwhile Pleasanton's cavalry had crossed the Middle bridge to the west banks and lay near the old Newcomer mill. They advanced a short distance, driving in the Confederate skirmishers. Four horse batteries following the cavalry, were put in position on and across the pike where the single mounted cannon stands on White Oak hill, near the east end of the Bloody Lane and engaged the Confederate artillery on Cemetry Hill. The horse batteries were relieved at intervals by two batteries of Sykes' division. After noon, portion of Sykes' regular division crossed the Antietam and in co-operation with the Ninth Corps compelled the Confederate artillery to aban- don Cemetry Hill. About 5 p. m. the 7th Maine infantry charged across the Bloody Lane at a point near the west end and reached the Piper barn, but were soon driven back with heavy loss. The heaviest fighting done by French and Richardson's divisions was where the three lines of fencing now are continued to the stone observation tower. Gen. Richardson was mortally wounded near the tower and died at the Pry House. Gen. Geo. B. Anderson, of T. H. Hill's division, was mortally wounded near the sunken part road of Bloody Lane in the Piper cornfield.
September 17, 1862. The left of the Union line was held by Gen. Burnsides' Ninth Corps. The battle opened there about 10 a. m. by an unsuccessful attempt of the 11th Conn. Infantry, sup- ported by Crook's brigade, to carry the stone bridge over the Antie- tam. Nagle's brigade repeated the attempt and was repulsed. About noon the bridge was carried by a charge of Ferrero's brigade, consisting of the 51st Pa., 51st N. Y., 21st and 35th Mass. About noon Sturgis' entire division and Cook's brigade of the Kanawha division crossed and seized the high ground west of the stream. Rod- man's division and Ewing's brigade of the Kanawha division, moved down the east bank of the Antietam, crossed at Snavely's ford and when the bridge was carried ascended the stream and formed on Sturgis' left. Wilcox's division crossed the bridge and relieved Sturgis, who was put in reserve. At 3 p. m. Wilcox's, Rodman's and the Kanawha division advanced on Sharpsburg, and with the co-operation of portions of the Fifth Corps on the right, had driven the Confederates from the high ground south and east of the town. Gen. A. P. Hill's division had just come on the field by way of Black- ford ford on the Potomac, marching from Harper's Ferry, struck Burnside on the left, near Snavely's ford and Sharpsburg, driving them back under cover of the hills bordering on the creek near the bridge. Upon the repulse of the Ninth Corps, Pleasantin's Cavalry, the horse batteries and the regular infantry, which had advanced on the Keedysville pike nearly to Sharpsburg, were withdrawn across the Antietam. Gen. Lee's batteries had in the meantime been lined up on the hills south and west of Sharpsburg with but little ammunition, remained in this position all day of the 18th, after sending in a flag of truce to bury their dead. Under cover of the night they left the field and by morning of the 19th had crossed the Potomac at Blackford's fording.
SHARPSBURG
The oldest town in Washington County, Md., was laid out on the 9th day of July, 1763, by Joseph Chapline, a gentleman from England, and a lawyer by profession. He first settled in Massa- chusetts, and some time before the French and Indian War was at Fort Frederick, Md., as Colonel in command of a regiment. His muster roll, bearing the seal of England and the date June and July, 1757, is in possession of the Washington County Historical Society in Hagerstown, Md. The town was intended for the county seat but was defeated by Hagerstown by one vote. Historically
Sharpsburg is the foremost town in the county. She furnished a company of men for the Revolutionary War, one company for the War of 1812, and from a population of 1300, two full companies to the Union army during the Civil War. This street scene shows as an object of special interest the large building to the left in which General Lee held Council with his ofTicers on the afternoon of Sep- tember 17, 1862. The town furnished about a dozen soldiers to the Spanish American War, and about 60 from the town and district in the World War, and soldiers to all wars.
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THE SOLDIERS' NATIONAL CEMETERY
In iVIarch, I860, the State of Maryland, by Act of Legislature, appropriated S7,000 and appointed four Trustees to purchase and inclose a suitable lot of ground on the Antielam battlefield as a final resting place for the remains of the brave soldiers who fell in that battle. Appropriations l)y other Northern states whose troops par- ticipated in the battle, together with an additional $8,000 from Maryland, placed at the disposal of the Board of Trustees about $70,000. Under their supervision a lot of ground was purchased
at the edge of Sharpsburg, inclosed by a substantial stone wall and the interior arranged in the beautiful manner as it now appears. The work of removing the dead was commenced October 1866 and finished in August, 1867. The whole number of bodies that are buried in this cemetry is 4,759, of which 1,848 are unknown. In the year 1877 the Cemetery was transferred to the United Stales Government.
THE COMMANDERS' HEADQUARTERS
General McClellan established headquarters in the Philip Pry house on the pike about two miles northeast of Sharpsburg, and from there directed the Battle and remained until the 20th of Sep- tember. It was also used for hosnital purposes. Here the gallant General Israel B. Richardson, who commanded a division of the Second Corps was carried after receiving his mortal wound. Gen- eral Hooker, slightly wounded during the heavy fighting in the vicinity of East Woods, had his wound dressed here and returned to his command.
The view showing General Lee's headquarters is of special interest. It presents a war time view of Main Street, Sharpsburg, and is taken from a point near the present site of the National Cemetry. The Confederate Headquarters tents were pitched in the strip of timber. This street has been changed considerably by the Commission in the grading and constructuon of substantial retaining walls while building the macadem roadway through the town.
THE OLD DUNKARD CHURCH
(Church Destroyed by Windstorm May 23. 1921.)
It Stood one mile from Sharpsburg on the Hagerstown pike. It was built by the German Baptists in the year 1853, and was used by them as a regular place of worship. Some of the most severe fighting of the battle of Antietam occurred about here, and the war- time photo shows hundreds of marks of shot and shell. The plain interior with old fashioned pulpit and unpainted pine benches, made this an interesting stopping place for tourists. The Bible
was taken during the battle by a New York soldier, and after an absence of 41 years was returned and is now at the Washington County Historical Society in Hagerslown. The church was used as a hospital and embalming station after the battle. In the mod- ern view the church is shown in its present setting, the 45-acre tract of timber, the West Woods, has nearly all been removed. De- stroyed by wind storm in 1921.
D. R. MILLER BUILDINGS
Are on the Hagerstown pike, three quarters of a mile north of the Dunkard Church. The Bloody Cornfield was a part of the Miller farm. This was the position of Meade's division of Pennsylvania Reserves of the First Corps, the right of the line extending across the pike into the Locher woods. From the position beyond the
buildings the Confederates were driven back to the Dunkard Church woods. Col. Hawley of the 124th Pa., wounded in the Cornfield, was carried to the Miller house. The present barn was built since the battle.
CONFEDERATE AVENUE
This view on the Confederate Avenue shows prominently in the foreground the monument of the 125th Pennsylvania Regiment, surmounted by the granite figure of the color bearer in the defiant attitude, drawing his sabre. The massive monument of the 34th New York Regiment stands to the left, while between them shows
in the background the Maryland State Monument. Showing be- tween the trees in line with the avenue is the Dunkard Church. This ground was part of the West Woods, which has since been removed in this section, except the scattered oaks that show around the Church.
STARK AVENUE
Showing to the left of the illustration is the monument of the 124th Pa. Regiment. The tall shaft nearer the center was erected by the State of New Jersey in honor of her sons who fought in the battle of Antietam. The spirited bronze figure represents Captain Irish, of the 13th Regiment, who was killed while engaged with the Regiment near this spot. Showing to the right is the Massachu- setts State Monument. In the left background is the Miller Bloody
Cornfield and East Woods, and here the men of parts of the First, Second and Twelfth Corps vied with each other in gallant efforts to dislodge the Confederates from their position. Operating in this section were the brigades of Jackson's Command, and the annals of the Civil War record no more desperate fighting than occurred here. The depression in the avenue shows the crossing of the Hagerstown pike, while the continuation is Cornfield Avenue.
BLOODY LANE
This lane, an old roadway connecting the Hagerstown pike with the Boonsboro pike, was destined to play an important part in the battle of Antietam. From the point at which this photo- graph was taken to the tower, which shows over the right hand tablet, the road, worn by the ravages of time, varies in depth from three to six feet lower than the fields on the sides. Confederates occupied this natural breastw^ork as a line of defense and it was only after tremendous slaughter that they were driven from it. Dead men lay three or four deep from the point where the man is
standing to the tower. The Roulette lane is on the left from the low ground. Beyond the tower the high peak of Elk Ridge was General McClellan's signal station. The 130th Pennsylvania monument is in the foreground. The Sth Ohio monument is in the middle and the 132nd Pennsylvania is in the center background. The observation tower is 75 feet high and was erected by the Govern- ment. It is substantially built of stone and from the elevation it affords, one can view all parts of the Battlefield.
BURNSIDE BRIDGE
This bridge, originally called "Rohrback's," is the lower of the famous stone bridges that spanned the Antietam creek. On the morning of September 17, 1862, it was defended by the Confederate General Robert Toombs with the 2d and 20th Georgia Regiments of his brigade, and the 50th Georgia of Drayton's brigade supported by one company of Jenkin's S. C. sharpshooters and the batteries of Richardson and Eubanks. The artillery on Cemetery Hill also commanded its approaches. It derives its present name from the
desperate efforts of the Ninth Corps, under General Burnside, to force a passage. Beginning at 9 a. m., a series of unsuccessful assaults with almost continuous fighting was kept up until 1 p. m. the bridge was carried by direct assault by Ferrero's brigade con- sisting of the 51st N. Y., 51st Pa., 21st and 35th Mass. Regiments. Monuments to the 21st Mass., 35th Mass., 51st Pa. and 2d Md. Regiments have been erected on the four corners of the bridge.
BRANCH AVENUE
This view is looking north from Sherrick 40-acre cornfield. The 30th Ohio monument shows in the foreground. The stone wall has remained unchanged and was used as a breastwork by the Confederates in resisting the advance of the Ninth Corps, and after coming into possession of Burnside's men was used by them as a line of defense. The bit of woods shown to the left marks the posi-
tion of the National Cemetery. The Burnside Bridge is over the hills to the right where the tree tops show and is the ground over which the 9th corps moved and nearly reached the town on the left and the A. P. Hill Confederate division forced the Burnside Corps back over the hill near the bridge but not across.
McCOMAS AVENUE
The Commission about 1890 built a substantial macadam road- wav from the Cemetery through the town to the Norfolk and West- ern Station. This view shows that portion near the Station and gives some idea of its character. Showing at the left of the picture are the S. P. Grove farm buildings which were used as headquarters
by General Fitz John Porter and also as a hospital after the battle This road, running to Shepherdstown, W. Va., was the line of re- treat of General Lee's army. The Norfolk and Western Railroad, Antietam Station, is one mile from the town of Sharpsburg.
BLACKFORD'S FORDING
General Lee's army crossed the Potomac, on its retreat from Antietam, at the Blackford fording, which is slightly farther down the river than the view shown here, during the night of September 18th and the morning of the 19th. On September 20th the 18th Pennsylvania Regiment crossed to reconnoiter, and encountering
the Confederates in great force at the top of the bluffs, were, after a spirited resistance, driven over the bluffs and across the river, sustaining a very heavy loss. The old cement mill and kilns are familiar landmarks, and the line of the ruins of the old dam is marked by a ripple in the water to the right. - •_
SHEPHERDSTOWN
The original bridge that spanned the Potomac at this point was burned by the Confederates in 1861. The view shown here is of that portion of the Potomac where, in 1781, James Rumsey, a resident of Shepherdstown, constructed the first steamboat that
was successfully operated in the United States. The boat attained a speed of four miles an hour against the current in a trial trip at Harper's Ferry in December, 1786.
PICTURESQUE HARPER'S FERRY
View No. 1 shows Harper's Ferry from London Heights. The town nestles at the foot of Bolivar Heights at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. It as a place of considerable importance during the Civil War, being a recruiting point for the Union Army, but derives its chief historical interest from the mem- orable raid of John Brown in 1859. No. 2 shows the Dr. Kennedy house in the Valley at the foot of Maryland Heights, where, under
guise of mineral prospectors, .John Brown and his Confederates prepared for the "slave insurrection." No. 3, the engine house of the Government arsenal in which Brown and his followers fortified themselves and in which they were captured. No. 4, the monu- ment that has been erected to mark the site of the old fort, and tablets that record military events connected with the Civil War.
National Cemetery
DuNKARD Church
Bloody Lane
PANORAMIC VI
In the upper illustration the National Cemetery shows just abc town Sharpsburg, and in the center the Piper farm buildings. The
In the lower illustration the view is continued from the right of. Lane," the Dunkard Church and Woods just to the right of it; at t; buildings, which were burned, and the Roulette buildings to the rigl
Piper Farm Buildings
IIagerstowx Pike
Miller Corx Field
MuMMA Buildings
Roulette Buildings
W FROM TOWER
the section of Richardson Avenue, farther to the right the : of the Hagerstown pike shows to the right. ; upper. Prominently in the foreground shows the "Bloody :center the position of the Miller Cornfield, the Mumma
SHARPSBURG VIEWS
The big Spring is an interesting landmarl^ in Sliarpsburg. In the center of the group the Memorial Lutheran Church on Main Street, Sharpsburg, contains a number of memorial windows, do- nated by various organizations to the memory of their comrades.
The Jacob H. Grove House in Center Square, in which General Lee held his Council of War, shows the marks of numerous shells that struck it during the battle.
STORIES OF ANTIETAM
AS TOLD TO MR. KBILLY BY VETERANS AND EYE-WITNESSES OF THE BATTLE
During several visits made by ex-Secretary Herbert ot the U. S. Navy to the Antielam Battlefield he related a brave, or foolish act of a soldier, a member of the Irish Brigade of General Richard- son's Division A, N. Y. After they had forced the Confederates back across the Piper Cornfield from Bloody Lane where they had been entrenched in the sunlcen pari of the lane, when they turned on the Union soldiers and were driving them back, one lone man lagged behind and as fast as he could load his gun and fire at the advancing forces he would do so until he fired away his last cart- ridge. He then patted on the part that is concealed under his coat tail and walked stoutly away. Mr. Herbert said he felt for a moment like ordering his entire command to fire at him, but upon second thought he said he was too brave a man to be killed.
Mrs. Daniel S. Mumma said that, when they returned from the country where they had gone before the battle began, as a place of safety, they found at their door one dead Confederate soldier and several others lying nearby in the street. Mrs. Mumma was Miss Gussie Bohrback and resided in the stone house now owned by Mr. John Earley adjoining the New Dunkard Church in Sharps- burg.
Mr. Emory Thomas, a retired farmer who resided near Porters Town, Md., said that several days after the battle he with others visited the Ijattlefield. The dead not yet being buried, they made a very close examination of a dead Confederate that hung across the fence in the Bloody Lane and that they counted 17 bullet wounds and holes in him.
Several hundred persons took shelter for several days at and in Killinsburg Cave, about two miles west of this town, on the day of the battle, and the day after some were on very short rations and when they returned they found most of their homes had been entered and edibles had been taken by the hungry soldiers.
Mr. Chas. G. Biggs, now deceased, said he and some others with him saw a cannon ball come bounding up Main Street by the public Square and hit a Confederate soldier, disabling him, and he made a feeble outcry from pain and another round 12-lb. solid shot came bounding up the street and hit the sill of the cellar door of Dr. A. A. Biggs, imbedding itself and it was cut out by Chas. and Edward Biggs and was in the doctor's collection of shot and shell sold at the sale after his death, the axe marks showing plainly. It was bought from 0. T. Reilly by an ex-governor of Ohio some years after.
Mrs. Emory Smith, who lived in the frame house on the south- west corner of the alley on Main Street, opposite the old Lutheran graveyard, said when they came to their home after the battle tw'o Confederate soldiers la>' in their kitchen where they w'ere killed by an exploding shell that came through the building. The shell killed one at the well near by while in the act of drawing a bucket of water. One of the men in the kitchen was holding in one of his hands a bunch of onions and was literally torn to pieces. There have been Union soldiers who visited the battlefield since the battle who remembered seeing the sight just mentioned.
Many of the houses in this town were hit by the shot and shell from the Union cannon during the battle, the Jacob H. Grove building, the Antietam Hotel, now known in history as the General Lee Council of War Building. The writer counted years ago
eleven shell holes in this building, five of them remaining in the walls yet, as they were then; one in the Dr. Biggs stone house nearly opposite, and the old Mr. John Hill house on the northwest corner of Antietam and Mechanic Streets opposite the old Antietam Hotel has a piece of shell and eight bullet and shell holes in it yet and is one of the historic houses pointed out by the guide to the many visitors.
Colonel Eshelman, who had command of one of the batteries that stood on the site now used as the National Cemetery Hill, said when they were forced to vacate, they by a special order from General Lee, were lined up in the fields southwest of the Harper's Ferry road. Colonel Eshelman said to General Lee that it was almost useless to do this, as they were nearly out of ammunition. General Lee said to line us and leave the Yanks under the impres- sion that we were ready for them and as the Union forces had their General Signal Station on top of Elk Ridge, east of the Burn- side Bridge, they could see all of the movements of both armies and acted accordingly. This was about the state of affairs on the 18th, giving a bluff "getting ready to leave the battlefield, which they did on the night of the 18th, and by noon of the 19th every- thing except their wounded was across the Potomac river. A flag of truce was sent up at the Dunkard Church by the Confederates asking for time to bury their dead and care for their wounded, but trusted them to the Union soldiers to care for and bury.
When the Antietam Battlefield Commission were locating the different positions of both armies and marking them, among the many who were brought from nearly every state from North and South (as each State that was represented in the battle sent a Com- mittee of from three to eight or ten) was Gen. James Longstreet, and the writer asked the General what his men on the left of their line in the rear of the Dunkard Church were doing on the 18th, the next day after the battle. His answer was they were cooking coffee and getting something to eat, unconcerned about anything. He was asked where he and others of their officers were when his horse was shot from under him and he said, by a board fence near the town. Tell me where that was and I can tell you in the writing of some history, they speak of this as being Gen. D. H. Hill, but when the question was asked of General Longstreet he didn't say it wasn't him. Where this occurred was on the hill near the Citizens' Ceme- tery. A number of the officers were riding up looking across the Antietam when one said to the General that he was exposing himself and they would make a target of him. This was hardly spoken when a shell hit near him and the next minute one hit his horse's front legs, and the General went over the horse's head. One other question was asked, if he and the other commanding officers con- sidered this a forced fight and he laughed and said, "My young man, we had more time to get away before the battle than we did after it."
Col. Henry Hebb, an early war officer of this town who lived in what is now" known as the McGraw Hotel House at the Public Square, was standing at the cellar door at the rear of his house when a 12-pound solid shot came and went through the door near-by and if he had been a few seconds later in moving he would have been hit by it. It went through the building and lodged on the inside and is now in Reilly's War Museum.
Where the Iron Bridge now stands over the Antietam was a
stone bridge. This bridge was called the Lee or Middle Bridge after the battle and by the piers getting undermined by washes, it went to the bottom in 1891. The water was a depth that the entire structure was hidden. The Rev. B. R. Carnaham, of Keedys- ville had just crossed a few minutes before and heard the crash and looking back he realized what he had just escaped. He was on his way to this place to preach. Near by stood the old mill erected by the Orndorfs in 1768. This was just five years after the town of Sharpsburg was laid out. This mill had been and is known by many as the Orndorf, Mumma, Newcomer, and the Jacob A. Myers Mill, and to reach this mill in the early days the Old Bloody Lane road w'as made and its depth at places was caused by its many years of usage. From the Hagerstown Pike to the Observation Tower a good portion of it remains nearly the same and from the tower to the left is Richardson Avenue. It follows the ravine from the east end of the Piper Farm lane to the pike. The Hagerstown Pike was built about the year 1856 and was nearly a new pike when the battle of Antietam was fought. The immense army going backward and forward over it nearly ruined it, but the Company received pay for its damages from the Government.
Where the National Cemetery now stands was a large rock on the south side near where Mrs. Bryant's monument stands. This rock was called General Lee's rock and it is said he stood on this rock and gave orders on the day of the battle, but when the Cemetery was established in 1866 it was partly taken out and graded over; if it had been left it would have been one of the his- toric marks for visitors, for many would take pride in saying they stood on Lee's Rock at Antietam.
Mr. Elias Spong, a Civil War veteran and father-in-law of the writer, said after the battle he was one of the burial corps mem- bers who assisted in taking up the dead Union soldiers in 1866, and near the East Woods on the David R. Miller farm he unearthed one soldier that he thought was rather heavy for his size and when he turned him over a 12-pound shot was in him. It had just force enough to go in but not through him.
Mr. John Shay, an old resident of this place now dead, said where he lived at the edge of the town as you go out the Harper's Ferry Road, when the eleven hundred Union Cavalry were retreat- ing from Harper's Ferry where they had refused to surrender when Colonel Miles was captured, that when they were entering the town at night they would ask for water and he carried many buckets full to them. Finally the bucket was let fall and the next morning he found it at the Public Square w'here the horses had kicked it. This cavalry went by way of Williamsport, Md., and were then in the rear of the Confederate lines, which were along South Moun- tain and captured near Williamsport a part of General Longstreet's wagon train.
Mr. Samuel Poffenberger, who owns the Poffenberger farm buildings in the rear of the East Woods, had his eight horses hidden in his large cellar to keep them from being stolen during the battle. Wm. Unger on the Kennedy farm near the Antietam had his in his cellar and those who didn't do this lost theirs. The horses' feet were muffed to keep them from making a noise.
All of the churches of this town, many of the private dwellings, barns, and all buildings for miles around were used to shelter the many wounded of both North and South. For some weeks after the battle many persons came from the North, and some from the South, to look after and care for their friends. Many of the wounded remained here until they recovered, but many of them died. Some were taken to the regular established hospitals, and at many
of the hospitals arms and legs that had been amputated were piled several feet high. At the Michael Miller farm near the East Woods, Mr. Wilham Miller, a son, told the writer that on the porch where the amputating tables were the blood was thick against the walls for weeks after. This building was known in history as the General Franklin Hospital and hundreds were taken there to be cared for until they could be taken elsewhere.
Mr. Henry F. Neikirk's farm buildings were just a short dis- tance east of Bloody Lane. Quite a number of the wounded from the Bloody Lane engagement were taken there and among the number was a member of the 14th Indiana Regiment. One of his legs were taken off in the barnyard, where with others he lay on the straw. On a recent visit here he told 0. T. Reilly that while he lay in the barnyard a Confederate soldier lay badly wounded, and he was swearing and cursing the Union doctors, saving thev were caring for all the Union soldiers and neglecting him, but the 'Indiana man said that he was treated as others when his turn came.
Many years ago a Capt. A. H. Vandusean, a member of the 97th N. Y. Volunteers, paid a visit to the battlefield and was in search of a certain spring which he said was south of the town. He was first taken to the Belinda Springs at Snavely's Ford, but this he said was not the one. He was taken to all of the springs on the battlefield by the guide, but he could not recognize any of them, so the guide told him there was but one more and that was nearly five miles away, so he was driven to the David Coffman farm spring and as soon as he saw this one he said, "This is the place I am looking for. Now up on that hill while encamped here I cut in an oak tree the letters 'N. Y. S. Vols.' " We went there and found the tree with the letters cut in it and this oak tree is standing yet. The Captain said they were encamped there for six weeks after the battle and would almost daily go to the canal for bathing and to wash some clothes.
A member of the 53rd Pennsylvania Regiment, who fought at Bloody Lane September 17th and was doing picket duty on the 18th near the Observation Tower in Bloody Lane, said they were so much exposed to the Confederate sharp-shooters that they gathered together the dead soldiers and piled them four and five high and used them as breastworks. This misled many persons who visited the battlefield before they were buried and said they were shot where they lay, to that depth, but there were a few places where they lay a couple deep.
Mrs. Mary Carter and sister, who resided near the battlefield, told the writer that several weeks after the battle as they were coming up from the Roulette farm they would slip at places in Bloody Lane where the blood was the thickest from the dead and wounded. This story is vouched for by many other residents and soldiers, for at the time of the battle there was blood that pushed its way through the dust for some distance.
Mr. John W. Fisher, a Civil War veteran and resident of this town, picked up after the battle a large shell and put in it the snout of a soldier's cap with the brains on and sealed it up and put it in the relic room or cabinet at the National Cemetery, but by a recent order issued by the War Department, the cabinet was taken out of the room and stored in the garret. The important relics should be returned to the doners.
0. T. Reilly got one rail from the fence at the Sunken road that had 23 bullet holes and marks in, some years after the battle. This, with many other rails from parts of the battlefield, was burned when his stable burned down. Dr. S. F. McFarland of the 78th N. Y. Regiment on a visit to the battlefield purchased
from Reilly one rail that had several bullets in it and about a dozen marks, that came from the post fence that stood on the Hagerstown Pike near the Bloody Cornfield.
On the day of the battle, during the hardest fighting at Bloody Lane, a man with a two-horse spring wagon came to the Roulette farm and drove nearly to where the tower stands and gave to a number of the Union soldiers bread, ham, cakes, and pies that had been sent by some good ladies, but no one today knows who he was or where he came from. In 1910 the War Department made an effort, through Gen. Ezra A. Carman, who was at the head of the Antietam Battlefield Commission, to locate him; the county papers were used to find out who he was, but with no success. The War Department's aim was to reward him with a medal for his bravery in coming on the field when the bullets were flying fast.
During the summer of 1911 a party of Confederate veterans came here to visit the field and among them were several who had been detailed by Gen. Stonewall Jackson to deliver a message from him at the Dunkard Church to Gen. A. P. Hill, who was approach- ing the Confederate right from the Blackford Ford by way of the Miller sawmill road south of the town. The man said that before he left General Jackson he gave him a drink of milk out of his can- teen that he had just a short time before milked from a cow back of the Dunkard Church woods. He also said there had been five detailed to go through with the message and of the five who started one was killed, two were wounded and only two got through. When they reached the General he was eating green corn from the cob which he had just gotten in a field near by.
About the year 1895 Major Parker, who commanded a bat- tery, one of the five that belonged to Gen. S. D. Lee's command, posted near the big walnut trees east of the Dunkard Church on the Mumma farm, at daybreak with four others, one a Captain Brown of the Wise Virginia Battery, visited the battlefield and when they came down the main street from Antietam Station on the Norfolk and Western Railroad they spied the old rough casted house that belonged to Mr. Moses Poffenberger, now the property of Mrs. Jennie Benner, Major Parker remarked to Captain Brown, "Look, Brown, there is the house where we got the white bread and apple butter." When this party reached the Dunkard Church they went to where their batteries were located, all knelt down in the shade of the big walnut trees and had prayer, and this is the only time the like was done by any parties during the guide's 35 year's experience.
A one-armed veteran, a member of one of the Pennsylvania Reserve Regiments, his wife and daughter, all from Harrisburg, Pa. — the veteran said he way a toll collector at a bridge at that city about the year 1885 and after going over the battlefield he was taken to Keedysville, by way of the Hooker Bridge and Pry's mill, and when they reached the wagon shed the party stopped and went to the shed. The veteran remarked that he was the first soldier to have a limb amputated and Mr. Thomas Hickman, the aged barrel maker, stood near by and he said to the veteran, "If you are the first one to be operated on I can show you where your arm is buried," and they went across the road near the old Pry stable and showed him the place.
The day of the battle a solid shot was fired that went into the house on Antietam Street, then owned by Mr. Aaron Fry, now owned by his son Samuel Fry. This shell came through the build- ing, passed through a door and into a chest of bed clothes and among the articles was a bed sheet and when it was unfolded a hole was
through every fold. It was given to a Western man, but the door still hangs there.
During the summer of 1911 Mr. A. H. Osborne and a friend, of Anderson, S. C, visited the battlefield. As they came in sight of the little mill and house he remarked that during a lull in the battle he and a comrade went to the house to get something to eat and when they entered it they discovered the house to be on fire from a bursting shell. He remarked that it wasn't the General's rules to try to save burning property, but being very hungry they got water and put the fire out, hunted and found something to eat. Later in the day they were sent in the neighborhood of the Burn- side bridge and after being forced back they discovered that water had been running but nearly dried up, so they started to follow this up, and when nearing Caleb Michael spring the grape shot and shell pieces from the Union batteries were dropping around them. The comrade with him, getting scared, made this remark: "Say, John, I don't believe I want a drink," and they pulled for shelter. Mr. Osborne belongs to the 1st S. C. Sharpshooters of Jenkins' Brigade.
During a visit to the battlefield by Gen. Jos. Hooker, 1st Corps Commander at this battle, he located the place where he was slightly wounded in the heel, near where the big walnut trees stood, about 75 yards from the Smith house that now stands along the Smoketown Road. The East Woods extended at the time of the battle near where the 1st N. J. Brigade Monument now stands. General Hooker was taken back to the Philip Pry house where General Mc- Clellan's headquarters were and his wound was dressed. Mrs. Pry said to the writer many years after, that they sent an ambulance to the headquarters twice for General Hooker to take him back to the field before General McClellan had eaten his breakfast. He then ordered an ambulance to take Mrs. Pry and her children to Mr. Jacob Keedy's farm near Keedysville and that was the last she saw of him that day. Some time after the war Mr. and Mrs. Pry sold their farm, etc., and moved by wagon to Johnson City, E. Tenn. Before the war they were in good circumstances, but for some reasons forgotten by the writer they lost nearly all they had. They both died in Tennessee, but were brought back and buried in the cemetery at Keedysville.
The Federal soldiers call this the Antietam Battle, naming it after the Antietam Creek, and the Confederates after the town of Sharpsburg. The creek was first called by an Indian name, Antie- a-tam. The Battle of South Mountain by the Confederates was named after the town of Boonsboro.
This immediate section of the county has been made very historic for nearly 200 years when it was inhabited by the Delaware Indian tribe. They had many fights and during the Revolution- ary War and the War of 1812 it was in an uproar, also during the John Brown raid, thence the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. There isn't a crossroad for many miles around that isn't credited with an engagement of some kind.
Dr. A. A. Biggs informed the writer many years ago that about 50 yards beyond the northwest corner of the National Cemetery and about 25 yards from the Keedysville pike, he after the battle scraped up the remains of a Confederate soldier who had been lit- erally torn to pieces and buried him in a hole about two feet deep and that he was never taken up.
The stone house on the northeast corner of the Public Square Sharpsburg, now owned by the writer, was built by Col. Joseph Chapline, the founder of the town and it has Indian portholes in it.
It was an Indian trading post, and is one of the first large build- ings erected at that time.
The now famous bridge called the Burnside Bridge, since the battle, was built during the years 1836 and 1837, and was known as the Rohrback's Bridge. It was built by money furnished by Wash- ington County. The cost of this bridge by contract was S2,300 and was contracted for and built by Mr. John Howard.
Mr. Martin E. Snavely of the John Snavely Belinda Springs Farm said that after the battle he hauled a six-horse load of coffins containing dead soldiers to Hagerstown, all of which had been embalmed at the Old Dunkard Church, to be shipped home by friends who had come to look after them. Hagerstown was then the nearest railroad station for the North. Mr. Snavely said that arms and legs were piled up several feet high at the Dunkard Church window where the amputating tables sat. A visiting veteran since the war said that he was passing by the church and an officer hailed him to assist a man in loading them on a cart to haul them away and bury them.
The writer, who lived nearby the old stone schoolhouse in Keedysville, Md., remembers well of the wounded soldiers being in the German Reformed Church only a short distance away, of hearing the moaning of the wounded, of the arms and legs piled outside of one of the windows, of carrying meals to some that lay in the school- house and of covering some who were buried in their garden with flat stones to keep the chickens from them, they being buried so shallow.
While working near Mr. George Poffenberger's farm build- ings when the Government was building the avenues, six Confed- erates were dug up near by; five of them lay side by side and the sixth one was laid across the others. Several had bullets in them and one had a large-size grape shot in his skull. One was dug up when the Massachusetts State Monument was put up, besides many others in different places since, which is proof that manj' others of the unaccounted for lie buried in the fields, some never to be found.
Chas. Smith, who resided at the East Woods, was digging some dirt along the Smoketown road in June, 1910, and he dug out the remains of a Union soldier supposed to be a member of the 12th or 13th Massachusetts Regiment, on the east side of the hill north of the Mansfield monument. The man had fallen against the bank with out-stretched arms and that is the way he was found, and on the finger bone was found a ladies 'gold ring, and old daguerreotype, brass picture frame, a padlock, and some Massachusetts State coat of arms buttons were with the bones. Mr. Smith reported to the Superintendent of the National Cemetery and the body was taken there and buried as unknown.
The Antietam National Cemetery was established in 1866 and 1867 by money donated by the different loyal states. It con- tains ten acres of land and was kept up by these States until about 1880, the States being anxious to have the Government take charge of it, therefore was purposely neglected, and before the United States Government took charge the grass and weeds grew up high in it. Then a superintendent was given charge of it by the Govern- ment and it w'as properly cared for. Old Simon, the big "soldier" on the monument in the center, was given his name by an unknown lady of this town when he was being rolled in from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, on heavy planks, and was erected about 1878. It was designed and made at James G. Batterson's quarries near Providence, R. I. It was first sent to the Centennial in 1876 at Philadelphia and stood to the right of the main entrance. After
the close of the Centennial it was taken down and sent to Washing- ton, D. C. It was then loaded on a canal boat and brought to Snyder's landing and rolled on planks for a distance of nearly two miles on small rollers, the rollers running on oak planks, through the town and erected. The entire monument stands 47 feet high, the man is 21 feet 6 inches high, composed of two pieces, being put together at the belt. Entire monument contains 28 pieces and weighs 250 tons and cost 530,000.
The Geeting farm buildings that stand at the foot of Red Hill, or known in history as Elk Ridge south of Keedysville, Md., were used as a hospital for months after the battle, many soldiers were cared for there and so many died that they formed a graveyard across the road from the big spring; this hospital was known to the soldiers as the Geeting, Russell and Locust Spring. The writer has heard many sad messages related by some of the doctors and nurses who helped care for the dying boys; sad messages to be sent to their homes, people they would never see again.
The Smoketown Hospital was built north of the Hoffman farm buildings at the edge of the woods on the south side of the road and was there for months after the battle in charge of Dr. Vander- kief. During the fall of 1911 a couple of veterans who had been in the Antietam Battle and were wounded and carried to the Hoff- man farm and then to this hospital later, said after they got well enough to hobble to the place where they were burying the dead, that he went nearly every day and sang over the graves of those being buried. Some of the wounded lay in the Hoffman yard under the trees for a week after the battle, the doctors going their daily rounds caring for the wounded. Mr. Edward S. Past, a Gov- ernment National Cemetery Superintendent, being one of those who died. He was a member of the first Minnesota Regiment.
Mr. Jeptha Taylor, w'ho resided in the Stone Mill House in Keedysville, told the writer that on the evening of Sept. 16, 1862, while the Union Army was near Keedysville, Gen. Geo. B. Mc- Clellan gave Mr. Taylor orders to have supper gotten for him- self and his staff officers, and for this he gave Mr. Taylor a two dol- lar and a half gold piece.
Gen. Jesse B. Reno, who commanded the 9th army corps Union at the South Mountain Battle, was killed near the old Wise house Sunday, Sept. 14, 1862, and General Garland of the Confederate army was killed near by. General Garland's remains were taken charge of by Mr. John C. Brining, an undertaker at Boonsboro, Md., and embalmed and sent home. Ex-President Rutherford B. Hays, who was a member of the 23rd Ohio of the "Kanawha Division" was badly wounded near the Wise house, and carried back to the Koogle house at the foot of the mountain, where he was cared for. This 23rd Ohio Regiment had some noted men in it, ex-President Wm. McKinley and Gov. J. B. Foraker of Ohio since the war.
Brig. -Gen. Israel B. Richardson, who commanded the 1st divis- ion of the 2nd corps under Gen. E. V. Sumner, was mortally wound- ed by a minnie ball, northeast of the Observation Tower east end Bloody Lane and was carried back to the Pry house. General Mc- Clellans' headquarters, where he died November 3rd. Mrs. Pry said that his sisters, who were with him wanted to be too kind and gave him things to eat against the doctor's orders and caused his death.
Gen. Jos. K. F. Mansfield, who commanded the 12th corps, Union, came onto the Line farm about midnight of the 16th, and at daybreak on the morning of the 17th, before his men had time to get something to eat, a message was sent to come to the relief of
General Hooker, then hotly engaged in and near the East Woods. Just as General Mansfield "was entering the woods near where his monument stands he received his mortal wound, in the breast, by a minnie ball. He was carried back to the George Line house, where they had advanced from and died the same day. The house that General Mansfield died in isn't the house standing there now. Mr. Line sold the old house which was log, rough-casted, to Mr. Daniel R. Bovey, who removed it and rebuilt it for his dwelling on the hill near the Hooker Bridge and it is now cased with brick.
Brig. -Gen. Isaac P. Rodman, whose division crossed at Snave- ly's Ford, belonged to the 9th corps under Gen. Ambrose Burnside, and a portion ot them advanced to where the 9th N. Y. Hawkins Zouave Regiment monument stands overlooking the town from the south. General Rodman received his mortal wound nearby and was taken back to the Rohrback farmhouse, where he died early in November. Colonel Kingsbury of the llth Com., 9th corps, received his mortal wound while making a charge with his command across the Antietam Creek near the Burnside Bridge. He was car- ried to the Rohrback house, where he died. Mrs. Ada Thomas in Sharpsburg has the large couch that General Rodman died on, also a table with bullet holes in it that was used for an amputating table.
Mr. Nathan Gilpin ot Philadelphia, Pa., a member of the 118th Penn., Com., Exchange Regiment, who belonged to Gen. Fitz John Porter's 5th Corps and after General Lee's army retreated across the Potomac River at Blackford's Ford, and the 5th Corps was ordered to cross at the Ford, the 118th Penn., was doing picket duty on the Maryland side on the night of the 19th of September, he . heard something that sounded like zip-zip-zip going through the bushes and he asked the Captain what it was and he told him, bul- lets from the Confederate sharp-shooters on the opposite side of the river. Mr. Gilpin said he thought they were some kind of bugs and when he was told this he said he imagined his hair was raising his hat up. Mr. Gilpin, before he died, was a member of the City Council of Philadelphia, and with that body of councilmen came here on a visit.
Squire Miller's family had a poll parrot that hung in a cage on the back porch and on the day of the battle a shell burst in the air near by and one of the pieces cut the strap that held the cage, and when she went down she said, "0-Poor-PolIyl" This parrot lived to be nearly 100 years old.
Brigadier-General Woffood's Brigade of Hood's Division C. S. A. Longstreet's Command, while engaged in the 50-acre field on the David R. Miller farm between the East Woods and Hagerstow'n turnpike, numbered 550 and of this number they lost 323. Brigadier-General Hays' Brigade of Ewell's Division, C. S. A., numbered 854 and of this number they lost 560. The 1st Texas Regiment of this brigade numbered 226 and their loss in this charge into Bloody Cornfield was 186 and was rarely equalled in warfare. The Bloody Cornfield was a portion of the 50-acre field and con- tained about 12 acres. Nearly every charge made struck this field either in going in or returning and the corn was fully matured, but when night came it was nearly trampled to pieces, nothing but the stubs of the stalks standing. Wheat had been in the middle and clover in the south side of this 50-acre field, with no fencing between. This ground was about the hardest fought over of any on the battlefield; the dead lay so thick from the Dunkard Church to the East Woods that one could have stepped from man to man without stepping on the ground. Between 1200 and 1500 were buried in this one field.
The 15th Mass. Regiment numbering 606 men, lost 330 in 20 minutes, 255 killed, 75 wounded and 43 died of wounds when this regiment left camp on the morning of the battle. The order was given first for 40 rounds of ammunition, second order 60 and so on until they had 120 rounds in their cartridge boxes and pockets. This regiment belonged to Sumner's 2nd Corps, Sedgwick's Divi- sion, composed of the 1st Minn. Reg., their loss being 90, the 34th N. Y. losing 225 and the 82nd N. Y. 2nd Militia 140. 1st Com. Mass., Sharpshooters loss was 26, 2nd Minn. Sharpshooters loss 24; this brigade lost nearly 900 and advanced the farthest through the West Woods of any Union troops and was commanded by Brig. -Gen. John W. Kimball and fought Semmes, Early and Barkdale's Confederate Brigades, who were concealed behind the trees and rocky ledges, they losing very heavily. Sedgwick's Divi- sion was composed of Gorman, Danna, and Gen. 0. 0. Howard's brigades. After their very heavy losses they were obliged to re- treat. General Howard's, the Phil. Brigade 3rd line lost 545 and were not actively engaged, they waiting to relieve the 1st and 2nd lines.
The 12th Mass. Reg. troops numbered 334 and while engaged at the Bloody Cornfield lost 224 out of this 334. The brigade they belonged to numbered 1200 and they lost over 600 of this number.
The 35th Mass. Reg. known here as Col. Albert A. Pope's, while crossing the Burnside Bridge and advancing up the hills to the Otto Lane lost 214 of their officers and men. The Colonel erected a monument on one corner of the Burnside Bridge to the memory of his dead comrades. Mr. Pope was a private at the time of the Antietam Battle, but was made Colonel later in the war. Colonel Pope is known as the bicycle man and at one time owned and operated a large factory at Hagerstown, Md.
Mr. Elias Spong, who was a veteran and assisted in taking up the Union dead to be interred in the Antietam National Cemetery, said that they unearthed one man among the dead that was buried near the Burnside Bridge, this being about four years after the battle. One man's beard had grown to be nearly a foot long and his hair was down over his shoulders and he looked almost as when he was buried, while the others were only bones. They had all been buried in their blankets.
Doubleday's, Mead's and Rickett's Divisions of General Hook- er's 1st Corps were encamped for weeks after the battle on the Jacob C. Grove, Lafayette Miller, Rowe and Hebb farms and Presi- dent Lincoln visited the battlefield and reviewed about 25,000 of the soldiers on the Moses Cox farm, near the Norfolk and 'ft'es- tern Railroad now, on the hills northwest of the Roulette crossing. The President failed to get here the day he had first arranged for. He reviewed the whole army in this section. Dr. S. F. McFarland of the 78th N. Y. Regt. informed the writer of the above. The doctor was a frequent visitor to this field after the battle and re- sided at Binghamlon, N. Y.
Some weeks after the battle a man came from the North trying to find his brother whom he received word had been killed and buried by his comrades near the Burnside Bridge with his sword in the grave with him. Mr. Aaron Fry, an old resident who assisted in locating many dead ones for friends, overheard the Northern man describe who his brother was and how he was buried. The man said he would give ten dollars to anyone who would find him and Mr. Fry happened to hear the offer and as he had seen the man when they were burying him, he took them to the place and dug him up and they sent him home like hundreds of others did their friends.
Mr. Mayberry Beeler, a former resident of this town, told
of Maj. Jos. C. Ashbrook, 118th Penn. Regt., Corn Exchange man of Philadelphia, the Major being wounded on the cliffs below Shep- herdstown on September 20th, after Lee retreated. Mr. Ashbrook was wounded four times and was brought to the home of Dr. G. Finley -Smith, a former dru.^gist of our town, where he lay for some time and then Mr. Beeler was hired to take him in a wagon to Hagerstown. Some time after this Mr. Ashbrook was passing through this town with a number of convalescent soldiers and at night he remembering Mr. Beeler, went to his house and asked per- mission to sleep in Mr. Beeler's barn that stood in the rear of the Methodist Church and Mr. Beeler said, "No, you cannot stay in my barn, but you can stay in my house." But Major Ashbrook said, "No, 1 have a number of soldiers with me and we want to lie in your barn," and while they were in the barn at night some men residents of the town knocked on the barn door and said they were going to burn the barn, that Beeler was a rebel sympathizer, but the Major said to them, "A man that does for the Union soldier as Mr. Beeler has done for me is no rebel," and interceded for Mr. Beeler and saved his barn.
Mr. James DeLauney said to the writer in 1914 that Mrs. Cramer, the mother of Martin Cramer, Sr., was living in the brick house at the extreme west end of Sharpsburg and on the day of the battle was asked to leave and go to a place of safety. So they started for the Miller sawmill near the Blackford Ford, and they had hardly left the house when a shell went into the building and exploded, tearing things to pieces. This building is now owned and occu- pied by Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Grove.
Mr. Chas. Rohrer of Columbus, Ohio, a former resident of the battlefield, said when he was a boy he with a penknife dug into a hole in the big tree in front of the Dunkard Church and came to a shell that was imbedded in the tree, was left there and the wood grew over it completely hiding it. It is there yet. Many bullet and shell marks show in the few remaining trees that stancl near the church, one of the number has the entire top cut off by a shell. The few remaining trees that stand on the Antietam Battle- field can easily be pointed out, the limljs being very short and stubby caused by the ends being cut off by the shells and missies of various kinds during the battle.
A shell is imbedded in the north side of the Burnside Bridge and is pointed out by many persons. This shell was not fired in here on the day of the battle, but was ploughed out of a field near by, by Mr. Chas. Dorsey, and placed in this hole that had been made by a shell or solid shot on the day of the battle, by Mr. Josiah Hill and Mr. Benjamin Painter, while repointing the stone work
During a raid made by Confederate scouts through this sec- tion about the tiine of the Antietam Battle, an effort was made to get Mr. Henry F. Neikirk's eleven head of horses which he had hidden away along the Antietam Creek, behind some large rock cliffs. Mr. Neikirk was taken, after an attempt was made to burn his barn to compel him to tell where his horses were and this fail- ing they then followed him to the house to get his money. They got a small amount of silver, but a purse containing severel hun- dred dollars was concealed by Miss Lizzie, his daughter. Finally Mr. Neikirk was taken by them and hung up by a leather halter until he was black, trying to force him to tell, but he would not tell. His son George cut him down just in time to save his life. The horses were taken on another occasion.
The publisher of this book remembers well of the retreat of the Confederate Army from the South Mountain Battle, he being
then a resident of Keedysville, Md., then known by some soldiers as Centerville. At the age of five and one-half years he stood for hours looking at the Confederates passing through and before they all got by some of the officers rode through the village and tolS the women and children that they had better leave, as it looked like a battle would be fought over the town, so the mothers and children left, some going to the Samuel Pry mill and while there seven Confederates forded the creek near the mill and asked Mrs. Pry to give them something to eat. A dinner was put on a table on the little porch in front of the house, six sat down and one was lying in the corn crib sick. A small number of the Union Cavalry- men came riding down the road and ordered them to surrender. Five walked out, but the sixth one refused to surrender; one man walked in with revolver in hand and said, "Come out or I will shoot you down." Mrs. Pry threw up her hands and said, "For God's sake don't kill him on the porch!" The Confederate, who was sitting in front of the writer, crossed his knife and fork, picked up his slouch hat and walked out. They were ordered ahead of the horsemen and that was the last seen of them. After the Con- federates had fallen back across the Middle Bridge on the Boons- boro and Sharpsburg Pike the Union soldiers advanced and when the mothers and children were returning they met the Union sol- diers at the pike and General McClellan and staff were just passing. The writer remembers well the little brown horse of General Mc- Clellan's, Dan, as he was called. The women and children had to make way for the horsemen and the road was completely blocked with soldiers, some lying down, some sitting down, others resting on their guns, cheering little Mack, as he was called. All seemed as though they were awaiting orders to move. When the writer reached their home, near the stone school house, the soldiers were digging the potatoes with their bayonets on their guns, and not a grape was left on the arbor that had been laden with delicious fruit when they left home. The father of the writer, Edward Reilly, and one son, George W. Reilly, who was an enlisted Union soldier, but home on a furlough, was hidden during that day in their cellar, the son under the potato bin. This is about the condition of the town's populace; they were hidden and sheltered in many ways be- fore and during the battle. The day of the battle, September 17th, many persons went to the top of Elk Ridge where the Union Signal Station was, and a good view of the entire battle lines could be had. The writer was one of that number, with his brother, and remembers well of the Sedgwick charge near the Dunkard Church, but only the great columns of smoke and dust could be seen as they advanced and then retreated. Days after the battle was over the writer, with his father, went to the battlefield and remembers of the dead soldiers that had crawled into the bushes died there and had not been buried yet. Some of those that were buried had their feet out, some their hands, and some were buried so shallow that their heads could be seen.
Mr. C. M. Keedy, a well-known man of Keedysville, said weeks after the battle he and friends visited the battlefield, and remembers the soldiers that had been laid together on top of the ground, rails put around and dirt thrown over them, and the hogs had rooted the shoes off with the feet in them and it was a common thing to see human bones lying loose in gutters and fence corners tor several years, and frequently hogs would be seen with limbs in their mouths.
The old Lutheran Church that stood in their old graveyard with a square cupola on was used by General Lee's army as their
signal station. It was built in the year 1768, was badly knocked to pieces and used as a hospital and afterwards sold, torn down and rebuilt as a dwelling near the little stone mill east of town.
The writer remembers well of raids made by Confederate sol- diers, taking horses, breaking into the John Cost store in Keedys- ville, loading the store goods into wagons, knocking the heads of the molasses and oil barrels in and running it over the floor. Mr. Aaron Cost was ordered and did lead his five horses out of his stable, at the point of a pistol and handed them over either to Confederate soldiers or sympathizers. This all came under the writer's notice and is well remembered by him.
Mr. John Cost's gray horse, old Sam, was taken by a Union soldier and ridden to Frederick city. Mr. Cost found out where the horse was and got an order from Union headquarters to get him back and to prove that it was his horse when he was returned he told the man to take the bridle off in front of his store and if he did not go to his stable he could take him again; old Sam ran direct to his stable, kicking up his heels.
Mr. Millard F. Rohrer of Council Bluffs, Iowa, says his father, Mr. George C. Rohrer, who lived in Keedysville during the battle of Antietam, was called on by Gen. George B. McClellan to act as guide. A horse with saddle and bridle on was sent to Mr. Rohrer's home and he accompanied the rider to General McClellan's quarters, in a tent at that time. A large map was shown Mr. Rohrer and whenever they would see puffs of smoke Mr. Rohrer would locate them on the map for the General; after they were through Mr. Rohrer was taken back to his home. He was also sent for by Gen- eral Meade when they were on their way to Gettysburg, Pa., in 1863. Mr. M. F. Rohrer was aged 12 years at the time of the battle. He said on Sunday, September 14th, in the evening a long line of wagons were in Keedysville and about one o'clock a. m. of the loth Mr. Rohrer heard the wagons ratthng. He looked out of the window and saw they were retreating and he knew McClellan had been victorious in the mountain fight. George C. and Capt. J. \V. Rohrer were in the mercantile business in Keedysville before going west 40 years ago.
The F. Wyand store building in Keedysville was a new one when the Antietam battle was fought and Mr. Wyand had just moved his stock of goods into it. the shutters show the bayonet marks on them yet where they were pried open by the Confed- erates after the Battle of South Mountain and the stock of goods taken, and after the Battle of Antietam the store building was com- verted into a hospital, the entire house being used, and in the rear of the lot many boxes containing amputated limbs are buried yet.
Mr. Frisby Smith, a resident of our town and a son of Judge David Smith, who resided at the time of the battle in the stone house now owned by Lawrence Easterday, said that while his mother and three sisters and brother, Mr. M. F. Smith, were in the basement on the day of the battle a shell exploded in front of their house, a portion passed through the front door, hit the floor, on through the back door, into a closet, broke a jar of honey, struck the side of the closet, and lay on the shelf and he has it in his pos- session yet. A 20-pound parrot shell strruck in their yard and lodged there and his sister Sue went out, got it and carried it into the basement. A Confederate soldier told them that it might explode and kill them and they carried it out and poured water on it. One Confederate soldier was killed near by in the street. Other soldiers were killed on the streets and also some horses. The horses were burned where they fell. Mr. Smith said he and other boys, while hunting in the ruins of the David Reel barn, found
lumps of lead of several pounds where bullets had been melted that were carried by soldiers who were supposed to have been burned in the barn. They also found portions of bones of human beings in the ashes.
Mr. William Roulette, owner of the Roulette farm at Bloody Lane, during the battle September 17th was hiding in his cellar and Capt. Samuel Wright of a Company of the 29th Mass. saw Mr. Roulette come out of the cellar and for a short while stand and look at them. Mr. Roulette and Captain Wright made frequent visits to each other's homes until their last call was made. Mr. Wright resided in Boston, Mass. He was awarded a medal of honor by the War Department for bravery while charging up the hill to- ward the Bloody Lane. Captain Wright lost one eye during the war and carried the bullet on his watch chain as a fob encased in a frame.
The Old Reformed Church in Keedysville that was remodeled was used as a hospital after the battle. On every seat in the church a wounded soldier lay for a time and arms and legs were piled up outside of the windows. The writer remembers of hearing the moans of the wounded some distance away where he lived at the time.
Mr. Samuel Mumma, Jr., a son of Samuel Mumma, Sr., re- sided in the Mumma buildings near the Dunkard Church that were burned by the Confederates after they had been driven from them to keep the Union sharp-shooters from using them. Mr. Mumma said everything except a few small trinkets they took with them was burned. Some of the daughters, Mrs. Lizzie Grove of this place and Miss Allie Mumma, said when they were told to leave, a Confederate soldier that wanted to be gallant offered his assistance in helping them over the fence, but they were too angry because they had to leave and refused his assistance. They went to the Hoffman farm and then near the Manor Church. A report was circulated that the Confederates put salt in the spring at the farm, but Mr. Mumma said his father had been to Hagerstown the day before and brought several sacks of salt home and put them on a floor above the spring and when the building burned the salt fell into the spring. Mr. Mumma's family went to the Sherrick farm after the battle to live, Mr. Sherrick moving to Boons- boro. Md.
Judge Clark of the State of North Carolina, who was a member of the 36th N. C. Regiment of Ransome Brigade, Hood's Division, Jackson's Command, during a visit here in 1913 related a little occurence of the day of the Antietam Battle while Stonewall Jack- son's Command was in the Dunkard Church woods. General Jackson asked General Hood to select a good climber to go up a tree and ascertain the strength of the Union Army by the North and East Woods. The man went up the tree, looked down and said there were oceans of them. General Jackson said, "Never mind the oceans, count the battle flags." He began to count and when he got to 37 the General said, "That will do; come down and we will get out of here." Judge Clark said he was only 16 years old and as his parents were in fairly good circumstances he had been given a horse to ride and when night came, after the battle he fastened his horse to a bush on the south side of the Dunkard Church woods and lay down to sleep. He awoke several times during the night, and he thought the odor was not very pleasant and when he got up the next morning he found he had been lying near an old hog that had been dead for a week or so. While he was walking to his horse he found a five dollar gold piece. He held up his hand and said, "Here it is." It was on his finger, hav-
ing been made into a wedding ring. He said, "My wife lias been dead for some time, but 1 am wearing the ring." The Judge in company with Reilly the guide was going over the field and when nearing the Harper's Ferrv road the guide, in speaking of A. P. Hill's division crossing at Blackford's Ford, the Judge said, "Hold on, you're wrong there; he crossed at Harper's Ferry." The guide said, "All right. Judge," and drove to the Harper's Ferry road. "Now, Judge, I have occasion to drive to the Snavelv or Belinda lane where one of the three A. P. Hill's Division tablets stands." The guide said, "Now Judge, read this one." He read it and said nothing, then lie read the second one, he began to scratch his head. The guide said, "What's the matter, judge, one moreto read," and he read that one. He looked up and said, "Reilly, you're right and I am wrong, and I have been telling this to my people for over fifty years." The guide said, "Now Judge, after fifty years of arguing in this case you must decide in favor of Reilly."
As to the many makes of Civil War cartridges, there are but few persons that know the true history of the one called the Con- federate Poison Bullet. This one was long and no rings on it, and a cork plug in the end and a deep cavity in it that contained a poisonous grease or like a salve. These bullets, we are informed by one who claims to know, were made in London, England and, instead of the point being foremost in the cartridge the big end was foremost; this was done so that the poison would scatter through the wound. There were a good many of them used at the Antietam Battle. It's an old saying that the North used the three-ring and the South the two-ring, but the two-ring was used by the South and the bulk of the three-ring was used by the North. On opening a package containing ten cartridges and ten gun caps that had been made and stamped Richmond, Va., Arsenal, three-ring bul- lets were found in them, so that knocks out the three-ring business.
The largest ammunition used at the Battle of Antietam was the 20-pound long parrot shell and the smallest was the buckshot, the size of a cherry seed. Three buckshot and a 1-ounce round ball made the buck and ball cartridge, .\bout .35 different shaped bullets or minnie balls and about 30 different makes and weights of shell and solid shot were used at this battle, .\bout .500 cannon were used liy the two armies, about equally divided. The cavalry were not engaged, only a few as escort and reconnoitering. About 1860 when the war fever was coming, a large flag pole was planted in the Public Square and a flag was put up; some of the town citi- zens who were not in sympathy with the Stars and Stripes took the rope from it, and an arrest was made, but no proof was furnished and another was put up on it. It stood for some time, but fianllv the pole was bored full of holes with an auger and sawed off. It had been planted in a hole seven feet deep and from the decaying of that portion left in the ground the depression can be seen from the solid road sinking yet. The Big Spring of our town became noted after the battle and while the thousands of Union soldiers were encamped near-by there was almost a continuous line of men, horses and mules going to the spring for water. It's an old saying among the townspeople that if you drink of this spring once you are sure to come back again.
Mr. Jos. Sherrick, who owned and lived on the Sherrick farm near Burnside Bridge, said that when the Confederates came into Maryland he had S.3000 in gold in his house and fearing it would be taken he hid it in the stone wall around his yard and saved it. Mr. Jacob C. Grove, who lived on the Grove farm at the now Snyde landing, hid his money at the time of the battle and forgot the hiding place and never did find it.
A Mr. Davis of Gardner, Mass., after the battle, received a message that his brother, Mr. Geo. W. Davis, who belonged to the 21st Aiass. Regt. and fought with Ferrero's brigade of the 9th corps at Burnside Bridge, was mortallv wounded on the 17th, and he came here at once and went to the Burnside Bridge on the hunt for his brother. Sitting up against the big oak tree below the bridge at the mouth of the Rohrback lane he found his brother. He walked up and spoke to him, but received no answer, for he was dead. Mr. Davis on his first visit with the guide related this. He visited the battlefield every year after being at the National G. A. R. en- campment for a number of years, but he has made his last visit, going with the others never to return.
The 16th Conn. Regt. of infantrv that belonged to Rodman's Division of the 9th Corns and forded the creek at Snavely's Ford was a new regiment. They had been enlisted in the service just three weeks and had their guns only three days; they fought in the Sherrick 40-acre cornfield and lost 226 of their members. They were all college boys and of the best families of Hartford, Conn., and near by. A member who made a recent visit here said when the news reached Hartford of the loss it cast a gloom over the city; the flags were put at half-mast and all of the bells in the city were rung in memoriam of the sad news.
The old Antietam Iron Works is now all gone nearly a hun- dred years. Several hundred men were at one time working at the furnace, sheet-iron mill, nail mill, grist mill, ore mines and stone quarries, the shipments then being all made via Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. It is known by older persons as the John Brin Fur- nace. Quite a number of the old log and a few of the other build- ings are standing, some of the old race and building walls and the ruins of the broken dam. The furnace was better known to the younger people as the John S. All Furnace.
The Belinda Springs or John Suavely farm buildings near Snavely's Ford were used nearly a hundred years ago as a summer resort.' The sulphur water from the spring \vas known in a number of cities as being very beneficial to one's health. Many guests came there during the summer in stage coaches, as there were no railroads near. History says in those days pleasure boats were used between Harper's Ferry and Belinda Springs by way of the Potomac River and Antietam Creek. Capt. Wm. M. Cronise, an old resident of Sharpsburg, Md., said when he was a boy his parents would send him to the hotel to sell fruit and vegetables to the proprietor and guests. Many kegs and jugs of the sulphur water were sent away to persons for drinking purposes.
The Stephen P." Grove buildings near .Antietam Station was Gen. Fitz John Porter's headquarters for some time after the battle and the buildings were used as a hospital. The Capt. David Smith farm buildings, near the new railroad station, northwest were used as a Confederate hospital.
Mr. Jacob Lair, a member of the 20th N. Y. Turner Rifle Regiment, who was a member of Gen. Wm. B. Franklin's 6th Corps, "Baldy" Wm. Smith's Division, while engaged near the Dunkard Church had one of his arras shot off by a grape shot and was taken back the the Hoffman barn where he lay for several weeks. He said the barn fioor had two rows of men and daily one or more would be taken out and buried. Mr. Lair, on a recent visit here, said he remembered well of the good ladies of the Hoffman family bringing fruits, cakes, pies, etc., to the wounded. Mr. Lair shed many tears while on his visits here since the war. During one visit he found a large grape shot near where he lost his arm; Mr. Lair said it might be the one that hit him.
While the wounded soldiers were being hauled in ambulances after the battle to Keedysville by way of the Sam'l Pry rnill, near the dam was a steep hill in the road and while going up it with a load of wounded soldiers the horses or mules refused to pull, and the wagon and team backed down over a steep wall. Eye wit- nesses said it was a terrible sight to witness.
Some of the Confederate ofTicers were trying to find the dif- ferent fords or crossing along the Potomac River before the An- tietam battle; they ordered Mr. John Hebb, Mr. Joe Hoffmaster and Mr. Moses Cox to assist them. Mr. W'm. Logan, who resided in a small house that stood near Confederate Avenue south of the Locher farm buildin.gs, was in his house when the Confederates came in and to hide himself his wife stood in a corner of the room and Mr. Logan hid under her skirts and wasn't found.
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Uouser lived in the old Houser buildings near Mrs. John D. Roulette's farm buildings. Now the old Houser buildings are all torn down. The day before the l)attle they were ordered to vacate their buildings, as there was going to be a battle next day. They started for the Timothy Coin Lock, now known as Kerfoot's. Mr. Wm. Houser, who keeps the toll gate on the Hagerstown pike, was one of the children, he lieing aged about 9 years, and remembered of a shell hilling the fence near by and bullets flying close to them. Mr. Jacol) Houser, the father, remained at home and on the day of the battle was hidden in his cellar and with him were eight Confederates who were sheltering there, and a shell came in, burst and killed four of them wounding the others. A number of shells and solid shot hit the buildings. Mr. Houser said nothing has been disturbed by the soldiers during the battle, but when the Union soldiers got possession they were told by a near-by farmer that Mr. Houser had gone in the Con- federate Army. They destroyed lots of their household goods and what was left was hauled away by their neighbors and kept. Mrs. Houser was taken suddenly ill from fright and could not be moved for weeks after the battle. Their home had to be remodeled before they could return and they lost everything in the eating line — about 800 bushels of wheat, threshed and lying on the barn floor. This the soldiers while in camp fed to their horses and mules. They put a drove of fat cattle in the cornfield and cleaned up all their ha>' and corn. Mr. Houser said the only thing the parents had left was five hungry children. Mr. Jacob Houser was a Union man. His property loss was estiinated at nearly S3, 000 and the Government after many years of litigation paid him a little over $800. Mr. Wm. Houser remembers well of the soldiers being buried very shallow, often were ploughed into, and of others in gutters being covered with brush and leaves, on the farm where they resided.
Mr. Solomon Lumm, a former resident of the town and who operated the little mill near Sharpsburg, was at his home or in the mill on the day of the battle. He was taken in charge by some members of the 45th Penn. Regt. as assisting the Confederate sharpshooters in the mdl at the time. They were going to use rough means with him, but several of the citizens of this town interceded in his behalf and he was let go free again.
Mr. Chas. Lakin, a saddler by trade and a son of Mr. Jacob Lakin, said his mother and Mrs. Eliza Bowers with their children went to the Canal Company's boarding house where Aunt Polly Moore, Mr. Wm. Moore and Mr. Frank Moore's mother lived, for shelter. The Confederate soldiers were all around them and one had hung a fine brass mounted revolver on the fence and Mr. Moore got it and one Confederate came after it and accused the boys of taking it and said if they didn't tell where it was that he
would cut their d — heads off, and William soon returned it badly frightened.
At the time of the battle and for some time after, the post- office was kept in the Mrs. Kuhn house near the Big Spring, by Mr. Jeremiah Kuhn, and many a sad letter was sent and received by the soldiers who were encamped in this vicinity for months after the battle. The mail was then carried by stage coach from Kearneysville, W. Va., the nearset railroad station, by Mr. James Snyder of Sharpsburg, Md.
About 1885 William B. Mades of Keedysville, Md., now of Polo, 111., and 0. T. Reilly of Keedysville, now of Sharpsburg, went to the home of Mr. Joseph Thomas. Mr. Mades 'uncle, near Porterstown, Md., and took several shells from Mr. Thomas' spring that had been in the water for 18 years and went to the rear of the farm where they built a fire in a stump and placed the shells in and just twenty minutes after, one exploded and the pieces went buzzing over the heads of both and one didn't explode and the fence took fire and the danger was that the other might explode while they were so near putting out the fire.
Prof. William J. McDermot, of Baltimore, Md., resided at Porterstown, Md., a number of years ago and one morning before his mother was out of bed he placed a shell in their cook stove and the result was an explosion blowing the stove to pieces and the doors and windows out of the building. His eye was torn out, one arm off and all the fingers off the other hand, with the exception of one finger and the thumb, and his body was bruised all over. Dr. A. A. Biggs fixed him up as best he could. The young man started to peddling small articles and made good use of his money by at- tending college and received a good education. He is now residing in Baltimore, Md. He married one of Mrs. Mdlard Snavely's daughters of Sharpsburg, Md.
Mr. John Keplinger, who resided in a house that stood near the east end of the Bloody Lane, had gathered after the battle quite a number of shells and had broken 99 without any serious damage, but the 100th one exploded and tore him up so badly that he died from it. A Miss Newcomer, who resided with her parents at the mdl near-by, now in the West, on a recent visit said she assisted Dr. Biggs in dressing his wounds at the time and he was terribly torn from the explosion.
After the battle of Antietam, George W. Reilly of Keedysville put a round shell in some wood and set fire to it, along the creek near the old stone schoolhouse in Keedysville, Md. Mr. Samuel Cost, Sr., Mr. Joseph Cresswell, the old broom-maker, and the Rev. Robert Douglass, who was the minister who preached in the Reformed Church, w^ere standing near the Big Spring of Mr. Cost when this shell exploded; one large piece passed between them, but touched niether one. Rev. Mr. Douglass resided at the Douglas farm near Shepherdstown, W. Va., and was the father of Gen. Henry Kyd Douglass of General Lee's staff during the Civil War.
After the battle Mr. Samuel Mumma said his father had dragged 55 dead horses from their farm to the East woods, where they burned them. One battery alone had 26 horses killed near the Dundard Church.
Near where the old Nicodemus farm buildings stood was an unused well and Mr. Alex Davis said that after the battle they hauled cartloads of all kinds of old relics consisting of broken guns, swords, cartridge boxes, shells, old canteens, etc., and threw them into this well and they are there yet, the well being filled with dirt and stones.
All of the stone walls that were left standing along the Govern- ment Avenues were used at the time of the battle as breastworks by both armies as the grounds were taken by both armies by dif- ferent divisions.
Mr. and Mrs. .John Kretzer and the following children: Mrs, Jacob McGraw, Mrs. Chas. \V. Adams, Miss Theressa Kretzer and Stephen Kretzer, were among the number that were sheltered in the basement and cellar of the old Kretzer building on the day of the battle. About 200 citizens were sheltered in this cellar. Mrs. Jacob McGraw said that Mrs. Henry Ward, the mother of a newly born babe, was placed in the basement, but they all thought it was too damp for her in her delicate health or condition, so she and the babe were taken up into the kitchen and she had been there but a short time when a shell came into the building, nearly blinding her with dust and smoke. She became badly frightened and wanted to be taken back to the basement or cellar, so they put her in a big arm chair and carried her back down. They didn't want to take her back, but she said she would rather take her chances on taking cold and dying than to be killed wdth a shell or cannon ball. Mrs. McGraw said while they were in the cellar a Confed- erate officer came in and asked if he could stay there with them, for he was wounded. The ladies offered to assist him, but he said all had been done that could l)e done at present, as his wound had been dressed. After being there for a short time he asked some of the citizens to look if their men were not retreating, as he thought he heard walking. After remaining for a couple of hours he finally left.
Mrs. Maggie Hoffmaster, a resident of Sharpsburg, Md., and who, during the war, resided near the Lutheran graveyard on the west side, said that the day before the battle there was a short, stout man with curly hair who came up the main street telling all the people that they should vacate their homes, as there would be fighting going on around the town the next day. Therefore they packed up some provisions and put them on old Logan, a faithful family horse, and they went to Killingsburg Cave, along the Chesa- peake and Ohio Canal. After their return from the cave after the battle the faithful old horse was stolen five different times — several times by residents to get money for his return — each time having to pay to get him back. Once it cost Miss Hoffmaster's father thir- ty dollars to get him back, and the last time that they got him back Mrs. Hoffmaster put him in the building formerly used as a wagon-maker's shop and put carpet under his feet to prevent him from making any noise. A Confederate by the name of Green- wood, who carried messages from Bedington, W. Va., to Mary Grice, for her brother, Jacob Carnie, who was in Ashby's Cavalry, when the Union soldiers came so close to Greenwood, was hid in a pile of threshed wheat so that he would not be captured. When coming home from the cave after the battle with old Logan the horse, the dead lay so thick that old Logan would be very careful not to step on any of the dead. This sight was so terrible that Miss Hoffmaster, said her father would faint and fall off the horse, but her mother, a thoroughbred Irish woman of pluck, would shake her father and cause him to recover, and make fun of him and tell him to get back on the horse and continue the trip. The donner of this item who was young during the battle was carried from the cave to her home by Robert Lakins, a colored barber
for many years, known by every citizen of the town. At this time there were only three horses left in the town; one was old Logan, the second one was a little sorrel named Ben and owned by Uncle David Myers, and which was hid in the cellar of the Kennedy property, the third one was owned by Uncle Henry Piper. His name was Diamond a pet horse, and when the soldier was about to take the horse Mrs. Piper pled with the soldier to let the horse go, as he was a pet, and the soldier, politely tipped his hat and with the horse bid her adieu. After the battle there were on our return from the cave three soldiers lying dead in the hou.se and two in the yard. My mother had set a hen whose time to hatch had expired on our return home and when she went to the haymow to see about the hen she stepped on a man lying under the hay, and she called to us and said that there was a dead man in the hay- mow, but the man raised up and said, "For God's sake don't make this known, as I have a wife and eight children which I surely want to see." Now my mother, who was a good provider, and who had the cupboard always full of jellies, preserves, butters and every- thing we children wanted to eat, but upon our return home all that we had to eat was bread, and to put on this all we had was beef tallow, like we used to make candles with, but finally along came an old friend who was a Union man by the name of Levin Benton, with a basket full of provisions. On the site now occupied by the Myers heirs on the Cemetery hill, north side, during the battle stood a little log cabin owned by Peter Marrow, and then used for temporary quarters for hospital and while standing here there were brought from the field somewhere two soldiers, who told us their names were Yankee Blue and Johnny Reb. These are the names that they gave to us children, and while they were in this house and being treated there was a shell came along and went straight through the body of both of them and they were buried by John Grice, John Spong and John Davis in the Lutheran grave- yard, under the old locust tree near the old Lutheran Church, which was practically destroyed by shells, etc. A peculiar incident which occurred after services — upon leaving this church you had to go down several steps, and at this time it was the fashion for women to wear hoops and the larger they were the better, so one young man and his sweetheart while coming down these steps happened to make a misstep and stepped in his lady friend's hoop, and to conceal the accident they walked almost two blocks before he had a chance to clear himself of the disadvantage fearing the sneers of the younger set. The lady and gentleman are both living yet and well remember the incident, taking a hearty laugh about it. When Gen. Robert E. Lee's army retreated from South Moun- tain to Sharpsburg, Md., Generals James Longstreet and D. H. Hill took possession of the Henry Piper farm dwelling near the Bloody Lane and established their headquarters there. The young daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Piper being Union ladies and badly frightened wanted to show their kindness to the officers so they offered them some wine they had in the house. Gen. Longstreet being very cautious and fearing it might be a bait for them refused, but Gen. Hill accepted and drank some. So Gen. Longstreet after seeing that it didn't kill Gen. Hill said, "Ladies, I will thank you for a little of that wine." Mrs. Sue Miller, who resides in Washing- ton, D. C, says she remembers the occurrence well.
HISTORY OF SHARPSBURG
BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF SHARPSBURG, WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND. SHARPSBURG LAID OUT BY JOSEPH CHAPLINE, JULY 9, 1763
By John P. Smith
Joseph Chapline, born Sept. 5, 1707, in Prince George's County, Md. He married Ruhamah Williams in 1742. Died in 1769. Is now buried in Mountain View Cemetery. Sharpsburg was laid out by him and named in honor of Governor Horatio Sharpe. The public square was personally laid out by Joseph Chapline and Sharpsburg was designed to be the county seat, but in a vote iHagerstown beat Ijy one vote.
1 Joseph Chapline served as Justice of the Peace from 1748 to 1749. Fleeted to the General Assembly 13 times in succession. He served as Colonel of a regiment of the French and Indian War and stationed at Fort Frederick in June and July, 1757. Children of Joseph Chapline and his wife Ruhamah Williams were William Williams Chapline, born 1743, died single; Joseph and Deborah, twins, born 1746, Joseph died August 31, 1821, Deborah died 1799; Ruhamah, born 1752, married a Mr, Thompson; Sarah Chapline, born 1754, died 1834, single; Jeremiah Chapline, born 17.56, mar- ried Elizalieth Nourse; Jane Chapline, born 1758, died single 1837; Theodosia, born 1760 and married Dr. Nathan Hays and died in 1844. Deborah Chapline married Capt. Alexander Thompson, of the Revolutionary War and died in 1797. Joseph Chapline's three sons, Joseph, James and Jeremiah, all served in the Revolu- tionary War with honor and are buried in the old Lutheran grave- yard and Mountain View Cemetery. Joseph Chapline, Sr., died in the fall of 1769.
Edgar H. Chapline, son of James Nourse Chapline and Cath- erine Hebb Chaphne, was born October, 1831, died October 26, 1913. He was a grandson of Col. Joseph Chapline, the founder of Sharpsburg. He married Hannah E. Boyd, daughter of Henry Boyd, she dying many years ago. Mr. Chapline was the last sur- viving one of the Chapline name. He was a highly respected citizen and always resided in Sharpsburg, Md., and is interred in Mountain View Cemetery beside his wife.
A site for a Lutheran Church and Burial Ground was deeded by Joseph Chapline to Dr. Christopher Cruss, Mathias Need, Nicholas Sam, and William Hawker, vestrymen of the Lutheran Church, March 5, 1768. Deed for Reformed Burial Ground given by Joseph Chapline. Bell on St. Paul's Episcopal Church presented to the Church by Mary Ann Christian Abigail Ferguson, wife of Joseph Chapline, Jr., who had it brought from England in the year 1821. Ground rents on Sharpsburg land still in force. 39 cents on every quarter of an acre, 78 cents on every half acre to limits of Sharpsburg as first laid out. On Chapline land outlying the town SI. 10 on every five acres, ground rents, due July 9th of every year.
Removed from the old Chapline Burial Ground in the year 1889 to Mountain View Cemetery are the following who no doubt were relatives of the Chaplines:
To the memory of the Rev. Samuel Thompson, born 1687 and died April 29th, 1787, aged 100 years; his wife, Mary Thomp- son, born, A. D. 1724, died March 6th, 1801, aged 77 years. Their son. Captain Alexander Thompson, an officer of the Revolution, born A. D. 1753, departed this life Dec. 24th, 1815, aged 62 years.
The Reverend Samuel Thompson was a Presbyterian minister who preached at Emmittsburg, Md., in the months of April, June, September, and October 1763. These liodies were removed by Messrs. Henry Burgan, Noah Kretzer and John P. Smith.
Agreement between Samuel Beall, David Ross, Richard Hen- derson and Joseph Chapline for Antietam Iron Works, October 31, 1765. Deed for Lutheran Burial Grounds and site for church March 5, 1768. One grain of "pepper corn" was to be paid ever year on the 9th day of July as ground rent on both lots.
Deed for Reformed Burial Ground and site for a church March 16, 1769. Both lots presented by Col. Joseph Chapline. The two oldest church organizations in Sharpsburg, Md.
Battle fought between the Catawba and Delaware Indians at the mouth of Antietam Creek in the year 1736. Bones, arrow points and fragments of pottery still to be found.
German Lutheran Church at Sharpsburg in 1768. The ex- cavation of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was begun in 1828, it was built to dam No. 6 and work was stopped for some years. In 1850 it was completed to Cumberland, Md.
The site on which Sharpsburg was built was called "Absalom's Forest" and was a dense woods, inhabited by the Delaware tribe of Indians, who were always at war w^ith neighboring tribes.
James Rumsey, the inventor of the steamboat, once lived in Sharpsburg and had some parts of his vessel made at Catoctin Furnace and Antietam Iron Works. In September of the year 1781 he removed to Shepherdstown, W. Va., Dr. Christopher Cruss, a vestryman of the Lutheran Church of Sharpsburg, furnished the funds. Among the number who witnessed the first trial of the steamboat on the Potomac River at Shepherdstown, were the in- ventor, James Rumsey, Gen. George Washington, General Gates, Henry Bedinger, Dr. Alexander of Baltimore, and Mrs. Ann Baker, mother-in-law of Governor Gilmer, and Mr. Fitch Rumsey, who died in 1793.
' Indian outrages on the people of Sharpsburg. In 1758 Col. Joseph Chapline was ordered with his regiment to defend them, and Colonel Dagwurthy was placed on command at Fort Frederick. Capt. Evans Shelby of Colonel Chapline's Regiment killed one of the leading Indian chiefs with his own hand. This was in the year 1758.
In 1756 Fort Frederick was built by order of Gov. Horatio Sharpe. During the war 1812-1814 Captain John Miller marched to Baltimore with 73 men who had enlisted from the town of Sharps- burg. Captain Miller was afterward promoted to the rank of Colonel for gallant conduct. Captain Miller's Company was part of the regiment commanded by Lieut. -Col. Richard K. Heath which was attached to Gen. Henry Miller's Brigade. Captain Miller's Company entered the service on the 28th of April, 1813, and was discharged July 3, 1813, of same year. Officers of Captain Miller's Company were John Miller, Captain; Ignatius Drury and Jacob Rohrbaek, lieutenants; William Rohrback, ensign; Nalhat Williams Hays, William Carr, T. Nicholson and John Beckley, sergeants; J. Clayton, drummer. Attached to this brigade was
an Artillery Company consisting of two guns, one a 12 and the other a 24 pounder, commanded by Capt. David Smith, father of our former druggist, Dr. G. Finley Smith. Potomac Dragoons of Sharpsburg commanded by Capt. Thomas G. Harris in 1840.
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, October 16, 1859. At the time of the raid John Brown was living on Mrs. R. F. Kennedy's farm, near Samples Manor, Md. Early in the month of July, 1859, Capt. John Brown rented the farm anci moved there with the pre- tended idea of prospecting for minerals, and at the same time was gathering together arms for the raid — pikes, arms, etc., to arm the negroes whom he expected to come to his aid. Brown formerly resided in Kansas. Few persons know that he had out private subscriptions soliciting funds to help sustain the cause of Free- dom. Capt. John Brown was hanged at Charles Town, W. Va., December 2, 1859. He was buried at North Elba, N. Y., with imposing ceremonies. John E. Cook and Coppee and two negroes. Green and Copeland, accomplices, were hanged December 16, 1859, and Stevens and Haslett, March 16, 1860.
Battle of Antietam fought Wednesday, September 17, 1862, between the Federal and Confederate Armies, under the leader- ship of Mai .-Gen. George B. McClellan and Maj.-Gen. Robert E. Lee. When Lee entered Maryland his intentions were a raid into Pennsylvania, but at the Battle of South Mountain he was defeated and retreated to Sharpsburg or Antietam.
Strength of Federal forces at the Battle of Antietam, accord- ing to General McClellan's report, 87,164. Strength of Confederate forces at Antietam 60,000. Killed, wounded and missing, Federal troops Battle of Antietam: Killed, 2,010; wounded, 9,416; missing, 1,043; total loss, 12,469. Sedwick's division of the second corps were the principal sufferers in his army, their total loss being 2,255, of whom 355 were killed. The Confederate loss was not known with accuracy. McClellan reported that 2,700 of their dead were counted and buried by his ofTicers, and that a portion had been previously buried by their comrades. Their loss there- fore must have equaled the Federal loss in the Battle of Antietam. McClellan captured a good many prisioners and colors and a few guns. General McClellan decided not to renew the attack on the 18th. Orders were given by McClellan for a renewal of the attack at daylight on the 19th, but at daylight on the 19th Lee was gone. On the 19th the Fifth Corps was ordered to support the cavalry. The Confederates beyond the river at Reynolds dam had artil- lery well posted to cover the fords. Porter determined to clear the fords and try to capture some guns. He lined the eastern bank of the Potomac with skirmishers and sharpshooters, supported them by the divisions of Morell and Sykes and by guns so posted as to command the opposite bank. Volunteres from the fourth Michigan, 118th Pennsylvania (Corn Exchange Regiment). It lost in all 282 out of 800 of whom 64 were killed; it had been in the service just three weeks. It was known as the Corn Exchange Regiment and was composed mostly of clerks and college students. The 18th and 22nd Massachusetts crossed the river under the charge of Gen. GrifTin Sykes, who was ordered to advance a similar
party, but by some misunderstanding the orders did not reach him seasonably. Our troops were attacked sharply and driven back across the river with considerable loss, the loss falhng prin- cipally upon the 118th Pennsylvania. Nine or ten Confederate brigades took part in this affair. Colonel Jackson said, "Then commenced the most terrible slaughter that this war has yet wit- nessed. The broad surface of the Potomac was blue with the floating bodies of our foe. But few escaped to tell the tale. By their own account they lost many men killed and drowned."
Many of the inhabitants of Sharpsburg during the Battle of Antietam took refuge in their cellars, one cellar under the house of the late John Kretzer afforded a shelter for 200 inhabitants. Two hundred or more of the citizens wended their way to a place known as "Kilhngsburg Cave," two miles west of town on the cliff bordering the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and there remained during the battle. It was a fearful time; the streets were strewn with debris and dead and wounded men and horses were found all through the town. The houses and barns were riddled with shot and shell. The churches and many private houses were filled with wounded and sick of both armies and the entire neighborhood wore a gloomy aspect.
The points of interest to be seen are the Dunkard Church, Bloody Lane, Burnside Bridge, Antietam Creek, ten miles of Govern- ment Avenues, Antietam National Cemetery, where over 4,768 of our brave boys in Blue are buried, McKinley monument, Mans- field monument. Memorial Lutheran Church, Memorial Reformed Church, The Grove house, where Lee held a Council of War, and nearly 100 other monuments, an Observation Tower, 85 feet high, where you can see the entire battlefield of Antietam, a portion of South Mountain battlefield, Boonsboro, and four states, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The panoramic view from the tower is classed by tourists as the finest view they ever saw and a historic country around.
When the New Jersey State monument was being erected Charles Crowl of Sharpsburg was assisting and while he was climb- ing up on a derrick he and the derrick fell, injuring Mr. Crowl so that he died from it, and a short time after this Mr. and Mrs. Aaron K. McGraw were driving over the battlefield and they had just driven past the monument when Mrs. McGraw asked her husband where it was that Mr. Crowl was killed, and just as they turned around the horse they were driving shied at a couple of tablets on Starke Avenue near the pike, throwing Mrs. McGraw and her little babe out and breaking Mrs. McGraw's neck. She was quickly taken to the house near by and a doctor sent for, but death had been instantaneous. Another sad death occurred at the entrance to the Observation Tower. One workman was on the top putting on the bronze coping and one of the bronze plates above the main entrance. This man was standing on a swinging scaffold and he must have gotten overbalanced and fell down on the big step breaking his neck. The man on the top wasn't aware of the man below being dead until Mr. Henry Smith, a farmer, called him down.
The Neighing Troop, the flashing blade, The Bugles stirring blast;
The Charge, the dreadful Cannonade, The dim and shout are past.
The muffled drums sad roll has beat,
The Soldiers last tattoo. No more on lifes parade shall meet,
That brave and fallen few.
On fames Eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread;
And glory guards with solemn round The Bivouac of the dead.
Rest on Embalmed and Sainted dead, Dear as the Blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread. The Herbage of your grave.
Your own proud lands heroic Soil, Must be your bitter grave;
She claims from war his richest soil, The ashes of the brave.
No rumor of the foes advance. Now sweeps upon the wind;
No troubled thought at midnight haunts, Of loved ones left behind.
No vision of the morrows strife. The warriors dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife. At dawn shall call to arms.
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN AT THE DEDICATION
OF THE GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY
November 19th, 1863.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers Ijrought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or anv nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long en- dure.' We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot conse- crate— we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long re- member what we sav here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (An accurate version of the Gettysburg Address as revised by Mr. Lincoln and printed in "Autographs of Our Country's Authors," Baltimore, 1864.)
Mr. 0. T. Reilly is the official guide for Antietam and South Mountain battlefields, having 50 years' experience. Residence and souvenir store, northwest corner Public Square, Sharpsburg, Md. Persons desirous of any information concerning the battle- field, hotel or boarding house, carriage or auto line, train service or any arrangements for excursion parties, write, telegraph or tele- phone and a prompt answer will be given. Services as guide, .SI. 50 to .S2.00 for an auto or carriage load making a ten-mile run that takes in about all of the historic points of interest; about one hour and a quarter time, to autos.
PUBLISHED BY
OLIVER T. REILLY
sharpsburg, iid.
2nd corner public square
COPYRIGHTKD 1906
By R. C. MILLER
Transferred to 0. T. Reilly
PHESS
HAGEllSTOWN BOOKBINDING i PHINTI.NG CO.
HAGERSTOWN, MD.
2M-a-15-30
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