[300] Sharpsburg with his brigade about 2:30 in the afternoon, just in time to meet an advance of the enemy which had broken the line of Jones' division and captured a battery. ‘With a yell of defiance,’ A. P. Hill reported, ‘Archer charged them, retook McIntosh's guns, and drove them back pellmell. Branch and Gregg, with their old veterans, sternly held their ground, and pouring in destructive volleys, the tide of the enemy surged back, and breaking in confusion, passed out of sight The three brigades of my division actively engaged did not number over 2,000 men, and these, with the help of my splendid batteries, drove back Burnside's corps of 15,000 men.’ Soon after, as Hill and the three brigadiers were consulting, some sharpshooter sent a bullet into the group, which crashed through the brain of General Branch, and he fell, dying, into the arms of his staff-officer, Major Engelhard. In noticing this sad event, General Hill wrote: ‘The Confederacy has to mourn the loss of a gallant soldier and accomplished gentleman. He was my senior brigadier, and one to whom I could have intrusted the command of the division, with all confidence.’ General Branch left one son, W. A. B. Branch, who has served in Congress from the First district.
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[300] Sharpsburg with his brigade about 2:30 in the afternoon, just in time to meet an advance of the enemy which had broken the line of Jones' division and captured a battery. ‘With a yell of defiance,’ A. P. Hill reported, ‘Archer charged them, retook McIntosh's guns, and drove them back pellmell. Branch and Gregg, with their old veterans, sternly held their ground, and pouring in destructive volleys, the tide of the enemy surged back, and breaking in confusion, passed out of sight The three brigades of my division actively engaged did not number over 2,000 men, and these, with the help of my splendid batteries, drove back Burnside's corps of 15,000 men.’ Soon after, as Hill and the three brigadiers were consulting, some sharpshooter sent a bullet into the group, which crashed through the brain of General Branch, and he fell, dying, into the arms of his staff-officer, Major Engelhard. In noticing this sad event, General Hill wrote: ‘The Confederacy has to mourn the loss of a gallant soldier and accomplished gentleman. He was my senior brigadier, and one to whom I could have intrusted the command of the division, with all confidence.’ General Branch left one son, W. A. B. Branch, who has served in Congress from the First district.
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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