Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[162] force of 600 men, and captured four guns of General Pendleton's artillery. Early on the 20th, A. P. Hill was sent with his division to drive Porter's force back and hold the crossing. In executing this command General Hill fought the battle of Shepherdstown.

General Porter in his report represents the attack of General Hill to have been made upon two of his brigades, and a part of a third, who, by his order, recrossed the river, under the cover of his batteries, with little injury, except to the One Hundred and Eighteenth Pennsylvania regiment. He gives as the reason for his retrograde movement that the enemy (Hill) was reported as advancing in force. Reading the Federal general's report, one not conversant with the facts would naturally suppose that Hill's division met the Pennsylvania regiment alone in actual battle, and as Porter says that this regiment became ‘confused’ early in the action, and their arms were ineffective, it would appear that Hill had little to do.

General Hill, after stating that the brigades on the Virginia side were making preparations to hold their position, thus describes the situation: ‘I formed my division in two lines—in the first, Pender, Gregg and Thomas, under Gregg; in the second, Lane, Archer and Brockenbrough, under Archer. The enemy had lined the opposite hills with some 70 pieces of artillery, and the infantry who had crossed lined the crest of the high banks on the Virginia shore. . . . The advance was made in the face of the most tremendous fire of artillery I ever saw.’ Mr. Caldwell, in his history, says: ‘We were under the fire of their batteries the whole time, though they did not open heavily upon us until we cleared the cornfield; then their fire was terrific! Shot, shell and canister swept the whole surface of the earth. Yet the advance was beautifully executed. It excelled even the marching of the enemy at Sharpsburg. . . . The roar of the pieces and the howl and explosion of shells were awful. Sometimes ’