[
133]
Chapter 18: the battle of Antietam.
On the morning of Sept. 17 at 2 A. M. Reveille was sounded and breakfast was at once prepared.
Soon after, heavy firing was heard in front and it was known that
Hooker was ‘at them’ with the gallant First and Twelfth Corps.
At 7.30 o'clock the regiment fell in and learned that it was going with
Sumner's Corp to the support of
Hooker and
Mansfield.
Upon
Burnside had been imposed the task of carrying the
Stone Bridge opposite
Lee's right flank and of intruding his Corps between
Lee's right wing and the river.
He failed.
The work that should have been done at 9 o'clock in the morning was not done until 2.30 o'clock in the afternoon and the fruits of victory were lost.
Sumner, in his position at the centre of the line, received orders from
Gen. McClellan at 7.20 A. M. to cross the
Antietam with his Corps, but instead of crossing at the bridge, went to the right, through a barnyard and past a number of haystacks, then around the hill upon which he had been encamped, and crossed the quiet, silent creek about a mile above the bridge, at a ford where the water was waist deep.
He had been on the eastern bank for 36 hours and might have opened the attack on the previous day, but no orders had come to him. His Corps was now two miles from the battlefield.
Hooker and
Mansfield had encountered the enemy and driven them across the
Sunken Road, near the Dunker Church, but in the engagement
Mansfield had been killed and
Hooker disabled.
Sumner by this time, held the right of the army, the object of the whole plan being to turn
Lee's left.
Sumner, never hesitating to obey orders, at once put his men into the affray and learned that
Mansfield's and
Hooker's commands were being exhausted.
Heavy firing was heard on the left as the regiment advanced across the creek, but
Burnside,
