Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
nearly three hours, and Hooker’s attack had been repulsed. But fresh
troops were coming into action from the north and north-east, and
Lawton’s and Jones’ divisions were in no condition to withstand a
renewed assault. No less than three officers in succession had led the
latter. Not one single brigade in either
division was still commanded by the officer who brought it into action,
and but few regiments. Of 4,200 infantry,[6] 1,700 had already fallen.
Never had Jackson’s soldiers displayed a spirit more akin to that of
their intrepid leader, and their fierce courage was not to be wasted.
Reinforcements were close at hand. Early’s brigade, 1,100 strong,[7]
was moving across from Nicodemus Run into the West Wood. Hood brought
his Texans, 1,800 muskets, to the relief of Lawton; and on Hood’s
right, but facing eastward, for Ricketts was working round Jackson’s
right, three of D. H. Hill’s brigades, hitherto hidden under cover,
came rapidly into line. Lawton’s division, nearly half the command
being killed or wounded, was withdrawn to the Dunkard Church; but on
the skirt of the West Wood the heroic remnant of the Valley regiments
still held fast among the limestone ledges.
The 8,500 infantry which McClellan had sent to Hooker’s assistance
formed the Twelfth Army Corps, commanded by Mansfield; and with those
men, too, Jackson’s soldiers were well acquainted.[8] They were the men
who had followed Banks and Shields from Kernstown to Winchester, from
Port Republic to Cedar Run; and the Valley army had not yet encountered
more determined foes. Their attack was delivered with their wonted
vigour. Several regiments, moving west of the turnpike, bore down on
the West Wood. But coming into action at considerable intervals, they
were roughly handled by Jones’ division, now commanded by Colonel
Grigsby, and protected by the rocks; and Stuart’s artillery taking them
in flank they were rapidly dispersed. East of the highroad the battle
raged with still greater violence. Hood and his Texans, as Lawton’s
brigades passed to the rear, dashed across the corn-field against Meade
and Ricketts, driving back the infantry on the batteries, and shooting
down the
gunners. But the Federal line remained unbroken, and Mansfield’s troops
were already moving forward. Crawford’s brigade, and then Gordon’s,
struck the Texans in front, while Greene, working round the East Wood,
made a resolute onslaught on D. H. Hill. The struggle was long and
bloody. The men stood like duelists, firing and receiving the fire at
fifty or a hundred paces. Crawford lost 1,000 men without gaining a
foot of ground; but Gordon turned the scale, and Hood’s brigades were
gradually forced back through the corn-field to the Dunkard Church. A
great gap had now opened in Jackson’s line. Jones’ division, its flank
uncovered by Hood’s retreat, found itself compelled to seek a new
position. D. H. Hill’s brigades, in the same plight, gave ground
towards Sharpsburg; and Greene, following in pursuit, actually crossed
the turnpike, and penetrated the West Wood; but neither Hooker nor
Mansfield were able to support him, and unassisted he could make no
progress.
9 a.m. At this moment, as if by common consent, the firing ceased on
this flank of the battle; and as McClellan’s Second Army Corps, led by
Sumner, advanced to sustain the First and Twelfth, we may stand by
Jackson near the Dunkard Church, and survey the field after four hours’
fighting.
Assailed in front by superior numbers, and enfiladed by the batteries
beyond the Antietam, the Confederate left had everywhere given back.
The East Wood was in possession of the enemy. Their right occupied the
Miller House; their centre, supported by many batteries, stood across
the corn-field; while the left, thrust forward, was actually
established on the edge of the West Wood, some five hundred yards to
northward of the church. But if Jackson had yielded ground, he had
exacted a fearful price. The space between the woods was a veritable
slaughter-pen, reeking under the hot September sun, where the blue
uniforms lay thicker than the grey. The First Army Corps had been cut
to pieces. It had been beaten in fair fight by Jackson’s two divisions,
counting at the outset less than half its numbers, and aided only by
the cavalry. It had lost in killed and wounded over 100 officers and
2,400 men. Hooker himself had been struck down, and as far as the
Antietam the field was covered with his stragglers. The Twelfth Corps
had suffered hardly less severely; and Mansfield himself, an old man
and a gallant soldier, was dying of his wounds. His batteries indeed
remained in action, pouring shot and shell on the West Wood and the
Dunkard Church; but his infantry, reduced by more than 1,500 rifles,
could do no more than hold their ground.
Nor was the exhaustion of the enemy the only advantage which the
Confederates had gained by the slaughter of 4,000 men. The position to
which Jackson had retired was more favourable than that from which he
had been driven. The line, no longer presenting a weak angle, was
almost straight, and no part of the front was open to enfilade. Stuart
and his artillery, withdrawn to a more favourable position, secured the
left. D. H. Hill on the right, though part of his force had given way,
still held the Roulette House and the sunken road, and the troops in
the West Wood were well protected from the Northern batteries. The one
weak point was the gap occupied by Greene’s Federals, which lay between
Grigsby’s regiments in the northern angle of the West Wood and Hood’s
division at the Dunkard Church. The enemy, however, showed no signs of
making good his opportunity; Early’s brigade was close at hand, and Lee
had promised further reinforcements.
A glance southward showed that there was no reason for despair. Over
all the field lay the heavy smoke of a great artillery battle. From
near the Dunkard Church to the bluff overhanging the Antietam, a
distance of two miles, battery on battery was in line. Here were
Longstreet’s artillery under Stephen Lee, together with the
six-and-twenty guns of Cutts’ reserve battalion, forty-eight guns in
all; the divisional batteries of D. H. Hill, and the Washington
artillery of New Orleans,[9] and in addition to these eighty guns
others were in action above the Burnside Bridge. An array even more
formidable crowned the opposite
crest; but although the Confederate batteries, opposed by larger
numbers and heavier metal, had suffered terribly, both in men and in
_matériel,_ yet the infantry, the main strength of the defence, was
still intact.[10] The cliffs of the Red Hill, replying to the rolling
thunder of near 800 guns, gave back no echo to the sharper crack of
musketry. Save a few skirmishers, who had crossed the Sharpsburg
Bridge, not one company of McClellan’s infantry had been sent into
action south of the Dunkard Church. Beyond the Antietam, covering the
whole space between the river and the hills, the blue masses were
plainly to be seen through the drifting smoke; some so far in the
distance that only the flash of steel in the bright sunshine
distinguished them from the surrounding woods; others moving in dense
columns towards the battle:
Standards on standards, men on men;
In slow succession still.
But neither by the Sharpsburg nor yet by the Burnside Bridge had a
single Federal regiment crossed the stream; Lee’s centre and right were
not even threatened, and it was evident his reserves might be
concentrated without risk at whatever point he pleased.
Walker’s division was therefore withdrawn from the right, and McLaws,
who had reached Sharpsburg shortly after sunrise, was ordered to the
front. G. T. Anderson’s brigade was detached from D. H. Hill; and the
whole force was placed at Jackson’s disposal. These fresh troops,
together with Early’s regiments, not yet engaged, gave 10,000 muskets
for the counterstroke, and had Hooker and Mansfield been alone upon the
field the Federal right wing would have been annihilated. But as the
Confederate reserves approached the Dunkard Church, Sumner, whom
McClellan
had ordered to cross Pry’s Bridge with the Second Army Corps, threw
three divisions against the West Wood and the Roulette House. In three
lines, up the slope from the Antietam, at sixty yards distance and
covering a wide front, came Sedgwick on the right, French on the left,
and Richardson to the left rear. So orderly was the advance of those
18,000 Northerners, and so imposing their array, that even the
Confederate officers watched their march with admiration, and terrible
was the shock with which they renewed the conflict.
Sedgwick, emerging from the East Wood, moved directly over the
corn-field, crossed the turnpike, and entering the West Wood to
northward of the point still held by Greene, swept through the timber,
and with a portion of his advanced brigade reached the further edge.
Greene, at the same moment, moved upon the Dunkard Church, and Early,
who with the fragments of Jones’ division was alone within the wood,
marched rapidly in the same direction. Attacked suddenly in flank from
behind a ridge of rock Greene’s regiments were driven back; and then
Early, observing Sedgwick’s third line pushing across the turnpike,
reformed his troops for further action. Greene, for the moment, had
been disposed of, but a more formidable attack was threatening.
Sedgwick’s 6,000 muskets, confronted only by some 600[11] of the Valley
soldiers under Grigsby, were thronging through the wood, and a change
of front southward would have sent them sweeping down the Confederate
line. Early could hardly have withstood their onset; Hood was incapable
of further effort, and D. H. Hill was heavily pressed by French. But
Jackson’s hand still held the reins of battle. During the fierce
struggle of the morning he had remained on the edge of the West Wood,
leaving, as was his wont, the conduct of the divisions to his
subordinates, but watching his enemy with a glance that saw beyond the
numbers arrayed against him. He had already demanded reinforcements
from General Lee; and in anticipation of their speedy arrival
their orders had been already framed. They had not been called for to
sustain his front, or to occupy a new position. Despite the thronging
masses of the Federals, despite the fact that his line was already
broken, attack, and attack only, was in Jackson’s mind, and the
reserves and the opportunity arrived together. A staff officer was
dispatched to direct Walker, on the left, to sustain the Texans, to
clear the West Wood, and to place a detachment in the gap between the
Dunkard Church and the batteries of Colonel Lee;[12] while Jackson
himself, riding to meet McLaws, ordered him “to drive the enemy back
and turn his right.” Anderson’s brigade was sent to support McLaws, and
Semmes’ brigade of McLaws’ division was detached to strengthen Stuart.
Forming into line as they advanced, McLaws and Walker, leaving the
Dunkard Church on their right, and moving swiftly through the wood,
fell suddenly on Sedgwick’s flank. Early joined in the _mêlée,_ and
“the result,” says Palfrey, a Northern general who was present on the
field, “was not long doubtful. Sedgwick’s fine division was at the
mercy of their enemy. Change of front was impossible. In less time than
it takes to tell it the ground was strewn with the bodies of the dead
and wounded, while the unwounded were moving off rapidly to the north.
Nearly 2,000 men were disabled in a moment.”[13] And the impetus of the
counterstroke was not yet spent. Gordon’s brigade of the Twelfth Corps
had been dispatched to Sedgwick’s help, but McLaws had reformed his