Jubal Anderson Early, Ruth Hairston Early, Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early , C. S. A.

[143] find the brigades which had been engaged early in the morning, but I found that they had been very badly cut up and had gone to the rear, Hood having taken their place with his two brigades. Jackson's division had also been very badly used, and the whole of it, except the few men rallied by Grigsby and Stafford, had retired from the field.

The facts were, as I subsequently ascertained from the brigade commanders, that, at light, after skirmishing along the front of Lawton's and Trimble's brigades in a piece of woods occupied by him, the enemy had opened a very heavy enfilading fire from the batteries on the opposite side of the Antietam, and then advanced very heavy columns of infantry against them, at the same time pouring a destructive fire of canister and shells into their ranks from the front. Hays' brigade had gone to the support of the others and this terrible assault from the front with the flank fire from the batteries across the Antietam, had been withstood for some time with obstinacy, until General Lawton was severely wounded; Colonel Douglas, commanding his brigade, killed; Colonel Walker, commanding Trimble's brigade, had had his horse killed under him, and himself been disabled by a contusion from a piece of shell; all the regimental commanders in the three brigades except two had been killed or wounded; and Lawton's brigade had sustained a loss of very nearly one-half, Hays' of more than one-half, and Trimble's of more than a third. General Hood then came to their relief and the shattered remnants of these brigades, their ammunition being exhausted, retired to the rear.

Jackson's division in the meantime had been very heavily engaged, and had shared a like fate, all of it that was left being what I found Grigsby and Stafford rallying, after General Jones had retired from the field stunned by the concussion of a shell bursting near him, and General Starke, who had succeeded him, had been killed.