The National tribune., 1881-11-12

was gone Every man unueT HlIh IcftllHou biio
and every confederate strung his nerves for des-
perate fighting. Jackson had the advantage OF
| being attacked but Hooker had three men to his
one, and was determined to crush him before
renforcements could arrive from the centre. For
| two hours the woods echoed screams and shrleks
and shouts and groans and Hooker had not
| driven Jackson rod. Then Mansfield arrived
and threw his whole Corps into the struggle, and
the confederates were pressed back TOR more than
mile to point of woods within quarter OF a
mile of Jackson's head quarters, which We're in
| the Bunker Church. mile or so above the village.
| Shot and shell rained down about this building
until the field seemed to have been plowed, and
as sat on the grass and looked up to see the
scars Oh the walls my hand touched fragment
of shell thrown there from Hooker's batteries.
ave will die here." was the quiet order of
Jackson, as his forces were pushed to the edge of
the woods To retreat further was to be without
cover. Right there in that bit of forest was hell
on earth for the next half hour. Every stump
and rail, and tree, and stone, prove it to-day.
Here, after the armies had left, farmers collected
shot and shell by the wagon-load and hauled
them down to a sink or morasS near the church
and dumped them in to have them out ofthe way.
Not two or three wagon-loads, but fifteen or
twenty, and every year the plough turns up
grape and canister by the bushel
Bravery in an enemy can be admitted and
admired without detracting from the bravery of
friends Stonewall Jackson, with a mile and a
half of woods filled with the dead and wounded
from his six thousand men, turned at bay
and held the full eighteen THOUSAND men under
Hooker and Mansfield. History admits it, and
General Sumner proved it before the Committee
on the Conduct of the War General Mansfield
was fatally wounded Hooker wounded, scores of
minor officers killed, and the limbs of the trees
barely outnumbered the dead and dying. / tore
up sods in that hell yesterday and found bullets
and grapeshot imbedded in the roots. / counted
fifty different scars on tree no larger than my
body. / pushed through the underground and
my boots crushed skulls and bones and struck
against solid shot which time had buried al
most out of sight. In one open glade, hardly
an acre in extent, fell 322 Federals and 1877
confederates. A Union soldier who helped bury
them made the count That fierce grapple so
broke Rockers Corps that Sumner could not
find five hundred of them in any organized
body.
ReinforcementS came to Jackson Just in time
to prevent his utter humiliation. As soon as
they wheeled into line the whole force walked
over the disOrganized Federals and stopped not
until they rested once more on the battle-lne of
the morning That ended the fl ght on Lees left.
We retraced our steps toward the bunker
Church, and turned into what people here call
Bloody Lane. In some histories it is spoken of as
Al ic iol,vr -c,,+4I
hills for a. distance of mile or so, and troops
pas lg Owe il would not even sl0R their heads
10 20. ansrue forty rods away. IL this ~unkea
Roast g brigade al uo1t5le.ares were Inaased
F.. n-ssey. Lees centre. The were there when
Bur who lad ---- ----.o>. i o.o-o -
Antetam at eight o'clock and attack Longstreet
finally moved at noon. His advance compelled
the withdrawal of several batteries on Lees
centre, and half-rgh Of a portion
of the troops there, and Mcclellan now pushed
forward some of his batteries until they had the
range Of this Sunken Road. Grape and canister
went screaming and shrieking through the
massed confederates, and not one-half of them
escaped from the trap. Citizens here who looked
down into that sunken road the day after the
fight, and before a corpse of all those thousands
ou tlltti bteu tcll HE
that it was the most awful sight men had ever
looked upon.
1t was a slaughter pen, and worse yet. Heads,
arms, legs, feet hands, and bloody trunks of
mangled humanity filled the road from bank to
bank, and old soldiers looked down from the
banks and turned away sick at heart.
Burnsde's Bridge, They call it by that name to
this day 1t is stone bridge over the Antietam
and in crossing it from McClellans battle line to
Lees position there is deep cut in the hills as
the road rises to surmount the range McClellan's
right and centre had moved forward and fought
At noon Hooker had pushed Jackson a mile and
a half, and the centre had advanced mile fore
ing Lee to change his headquarters to a brick
house half mile back of the town. Had Burn
side advanced at eight o'clock in the morning
Lee would have been driven at every point. His
right was terribly weak as Longstreets men
were strung out all the way from the bridge to
HarperS Ferry. The order to carry the
bridge, but there is no point for quarter of a
mile up or down that soldier could not ford and
keep his cartridge-bOX dry. A skirmsh line was
sent forward, few shots were fired, and that was
Burnsde's effort to carry out orders. At nine
Hooker had lost 1000 men, and Burnside had
not killed a confederate. At eleven he was
where daylight found him. At noOn 5000 Fed
erals lay dead, and Burnside had not lost a man.
He is dead now, but he lived to have historians
ask him if he was not cOWardIy seek inU q now