The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-27
CHAPTER XIX.

point of numbers. Still under the leader
ship of sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Gibbon.
the brigade has trudged away to South
mountain, conscious that IL is now the OBJ
served of many observers, and feeling not
a little cocky in its new name. Manfully
again has it grasped the hot end of the
poker. being sent into the very jaws of
Turner'S gap, with Colquitt and his Georg-
ians directly confronting it, and Evans
raking the doubled line from the hill on the
right. Again does the Seventh catch it
hard from the flank. losing more than a
third Of it's men. Again do the Black Hats
sail in with their accustomed saucy vim
and vigor, tying the Hoosiers in the total
of losses. Again are the big "Napoleons,"
the pets of Battery 3D." lugged into line,
side by side with the Foot" and nightly
do they below and roar in this resounding
ampitheater-the eastwar slope of the
ridge. 1t is the second fierce fight in which
these powerful guns. manned by picked
men from the brigade, take their share of
hard knocks with the four battalions; but
a fiercer fight is yet to follow-only three
days away-one which YIELDS the battery
still more firmly to its supports. On the
far right flank. in front of Sharpsburg,
across the sleepy Antietam, it comes in for
its hardest pounding of all the stirring cam
paign.
But by this time, mid September, as Lees
daring, determined followers halt on the
heights of the old Maryland town, with the
Potomac encircling them from northwest
to south, the winding Antietam protecting
their front, how cruelty are they, too. re-
duced in numbers! Our old opponents, the
'~Stonewalls,' in their entire array can
barely muster five hundred men. Regi-
ments are commanded by captains. COM
panies by sergeants, and as it is with jack
son so is it with Longstreet, whose bril-
gades, like those of Kemper and Pickett,
are cut to shreds, while some battalions
are reduced 70 the front of a platoon. Yet
these are the fellows, less than forty thou
sand all told, who. backed up to the great
river, with all their trains and all their
wounded to care for. still confidently look
to Lee and serenely face Mcclellan, whose
force in men and guns is more than twice
their own.
With what intensity of interest and anxi-
ETY. do we in Washington await the result
of that inevitable grapple beyond the Blue
Ridge. Hopeful tales we hear of captured
dispatches that betray the plans of those
confederates OF CONFERENCE.-The army
and corps commanders of the South-yet it
has cost Mcclellan heavily to force a way
through the gaps. What may it not cost
to assault in a chosen position so plucky
an adversary? The old division, now first
in the new First Corps, goes in under its
third commander in three weeks, for Fred's
old general has been sent home on sick
leave. Hatch, his gallant second, is severe
~ wounded at South Mountain. Doubleday
it is who now takes the lead, and. crossing
the Antietam on the afternoon of the 18th,
bears down from the extreme flank upon
the silent, waiting foe.
First in column as it circles the front, the
old division moves in to the morning attack
at the right of Hooker's embattled line. and
right of the line of the old division is the
doubled rank OF the old-the Iron-brigade
1t is the dawn of a dreadful day.
In their front as they issue from the shell
tering wood, not a mile away and to the
west Of the broad turnpike, CLEAN, at the
crest of a gradual rise, the white walls of
the old bunker Church, outlined against
the foliage OF a thick grove-the West
wood. Over that gentle slope extends a
great broad cornfield, its ungarnered crop
ripe and following, the brown tassels stir
ring in the morning breeze that drifts
downward from the lofty heights across
the Maryland stream. Another cornfeld,
not so large, stretches westward from the
highway opposite the n%orthward end OF
the first A farmhouse in a shaded inclo-
sure stands on the east of the pike between
the advancing blue lines and the yellow
green Of the waving corn. A barn and out.
buildings face 1t on the opposite side of the
pike. Other groves bound the cornfields
toward the Potomac, backed by a ridge
where Stuarts restless horsemen and Pei
hams ready guns are lurking, hidden from
our view. So are the crouching guardians
of the groves and fields to the south. Again
is the great organizer showing his infantry
in to the attack of an army in position
over ground unsearched by cavalry, though
cavalry are with him in abundance, eager
to be of service, but he knows not how t
use them. East of the big cornfeld, tC
their left front as they march, is still an.
other grove, the east wood, and in long
thin Inc, at right angles to the pike
stretching through the woods, through tn,
cornfeld, silently awaiting their comm,
foe. are aligned the very men they Tough
so savagely at sunset of that August even
ing barely three weeks back. Then. as tn,
sun went down behind the Bull Run range
Badger and Hoosier were clinched in dead
ly grapple with Virginia, Louisiana anC
Georgia. Now, ere the sun comes peepins
over the Blue Ridge to the east. Badge,
and Hoosier. side by side, are stridin,
straight up to the waiting lines of the sam,
old commands. Ewell and Taliaferro. a.
we have seen, were shot out of saddle 1,
the previous clinch. Lawton and lone,
now lead in their stead, destined furthe
to follow their lead ere half the day II
done. Strange fatality it is, indeed, that O
all the fifty brigades of McClellan's fight
ing force within range at the dawn of tn
day, it is the Iron Brigade, the one exclu
sively Western brigade, that is to agai,
encounter the flower of the Southern array
the "Stonewall" and its comrade brigade
of Jackson's heroic corps.
And, just as before, not a man of the hos
tile line Is seen when the guns begin tn
battle. OF to the left front, near the cas-
wood, a Southern battery spies the blu
battalions issuing from the skirt of tn
northward wood, nearly a mile away
dressed on their waving colors, the Skin
mishers trotting well out to the front. The
, loud below the guns and shrek the shell