This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[281]
It was now night, and my division was formed in line, a little nearer the base of the mountain, so as to cover our trains that were packed on its side and at its base.
In this position my men lay on their arms all night without molestation from the enemy.
At light on the morning of the 6th, the trains moved forward, and General Rodes, whose division was to constitute the rear guard that day, relieved my skirmishers in front, his division being formed in line just at the base of the mountain, and I moved past him to take the front of the corps; when, pursuing the road over South Mountain past Monterey Springs, I descended to the western base near Waynesboro, and bivouacked a little beyond the town, covering it on the north and west with my brigades.
The other corps were found already on this side near the base of the mountain, and the rest of Ewell's corps reached the same vicinity with mine.
The force following us proved to be the 6th corps under Sedgwick, acting as a corps of observation.
It gave Rodes no trouble and did not come beyond Fairfield.
A body of the enemy's cavalry had previously come upon that part of our trains that had preceded the army in the retreat, but was repulsed by a few guards accompanying the trains without being able to accomplish any damage of consequence.
Early on the morning of the 7th we moved towards Hagerstown by the way of Leitersburg, my division following Rodes' and Johnson's bringing up the rear.
The corps was established on the north and northeast of Hagerstown, and my division took position on the Chambersburg pike about a mile north of Hagerstown.
In this position we remained until the 10th, when the corps was moved to the south of Hagerstown, the other corps being already there.
The enemy's troops had now commenced arriving on the western side of the mountain, and we took position on the south and southeast of Hagerstown to await his attack-Longstreet's corps being on the right, Ewell's on the left and Hill in the centre, and our line covering the road to the Potomac at Williamsport and Falling
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.