This text is part of:
[131]
along, the ration of forage bobbed first to one side of the horse and then to the other.
All this was fun for the infantry and the usual badinage broke out.
‘Say—give us that for a pillow.’
‘See here, I want to set a hen.’
‘Well, set her and be d—.’
‘Why don't you set on it?’
‘Why don't you keep a pig?’
‘Say—Your tail's on fire.’
“Well, yours ain't. Why don't you go ahead?
What are you afraid of?”
‘Where are you goina with that kite bobbina?’
‘Come on and see.’
This is but a sample of the good natured jollying that was carried on.
When the column finally halted, the regiment rested on the side of the hill along the Sharpsburg road, as well as it could during the rest of the day, watched the artillery duel and the constant arrival of troops, and drew rations of food and ammunition.
The enemy seemed to know that the men were there and sent leaden messengers over the hill every few minutes to find them, but although these made a great deal of noise, they did no harm to the Nineteenth.
There was a sharp skirmish between Hooker's left and the enemy during the afternoon, but without result except that Hooker established his lines to attack the enemy in the morning.
Gen. Mansfield's Corps was sent across Antietam Creek during the night to join him.
On the night of Sept. 16, 1862, while the destiny of a nation remained undecided, and while the fate of a multitude of soldiers was obviously pending, it is not strange that the minds of the combatants were imbued with unusual solemnity.
Lossing remarks that ‘the night of the 16th was passed by both armies with the expectation of a heavy battle in the morning.
Few officers found relief from anxiety, for it was believed by many that it might be the turning point of the war.’
Capt. George W. Bachelder and Second Lieut. Edgar M.
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
Tufts University. provided support for entering this 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.