Chapter 10: Second Manassas-Sharpsburg — Fredericksburg
- Not at Second Manassas or Sharpsburg -- a glimpse of Richmond in the summer of 1862 -- Col. Willis, of the Twelfth Georgia -- Jackson in the Railroad cut at Manassas -- Sharpsburg the hardest fought of Lee's battles, Fredericksburg the easiest won -- the Mississippi brigade Entertains a baby -- a conscript's first fight -- magnificent spectacle when fog curtain rose -- aurora borealis at close of the drama.
I was not with the Army of Northern Virginia from the time it left Richmond moving north after the Seven Days battles until it returned to Virginia after the invasion of Maryland; thus I missed the campaign against Pope and the first Maryland campaign, the great battles of second Manassas and Sharpsburg, or Antietam. No soldier can expect to be present for duty in all the battles of a protracted warsickness, wounds, and capture will naturally prevent. But the fact is, I was that exceptionally fortunate soldier who never experienced either disabling sickness or wounds or captivity until the very end of the struggle, and my absence from the active front is to be accounted for on other grounds. It will be remembered that at Malvern Hill several of the guns of our battery, my gun among them, were so roughly handled by the concentrated fire of the Federal artillery that we were compelled to send them to Richmond to be recast and remounted. This could not be done in time to enable the battery to move with the army when it marched against Pope. One section was equipped a little later and caught up in time to take part in the battle of Sharpsburg. But this was not my section, and the captain would not permit me to leave with the section first ready. Therefore I saw nothing of the campaigns against Pope in Virginia and McClellan in Maryland, and if I am to keep to the general line of reminiscence
