Today in History:

707 Series I Volume XIX-I Serial 27 - Antietam Part I

Page 707 Chapter XXXI. THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN.

believe 50 men were sent with the ten axes to obstruct all the roads they could possibly - the principal roads, and they did obstruct some of them.

Question. State when our pickets were first shelled out of Solomon's Gap.

Answer. Thursday evening, just after supper time.

Question. What time after that did the fighting commence on the crest of the mountain?

Answer. The next afternoon, I believe, skirmishing commenced there. In the evening our pickets and theirs were just 100 yards apart. While I was there in the evening we could hear them talk distinctly. That was on Friday night, I believe.

Question. Will you describe to the court the condition of the troops up on the mountain during all day on Saturday?

Answer. They were running in every direction on Saturday. I was carrying orders to the top of the heights, and I met them running, and saw them in the bushes and behind trees and rocks and every place else. They appeared to be coming from every direction, mostly. The One hundred and twenty-sixth New York were the troops I saw running. I was ordered by Colonel Ford to take some men, and I did take 20 men, and rout them out of the bushes and send them back to their places. I should think there were 200 or 300 of them about headquarters, or within the neighborhood, within 600 or 700 yards around in the ravines coming off the mountain. They were in wild confusion and dismay.

Question. Did that state of things continue up to the time of the evacuation?

Answer. It continued all the time until we left the heights. We tried to rally them. I took a squad of them up to the top of the heights, but we could never get them up to the top of the heights. They scattered in every direction. there were so many paths and by-roads there that there was every opportunity to escape. Nobody could possibly hold them.

Question. State what you know about my making efforts to get re-enforcements on the mountain.

Answer. You made every effort you could. I went twice, by your orders, to get re-enforcements. I went down the morning we evacuated the heights. The evening before, Colonel Miles said we should have re-enforcements at daylight; but they never came. I went down at 8 o'clock in the morning. There was no sign of re-enforcement, I believe, and said if he did not get out in five minutes he would put Colonel Downey under arrest. Colonel Downey said afterward he never ordered him. We did not get re-enforcements until 9 o'clock.

Question. What was said the evening before by Colonel Miles about our being attacked there?

Answer. That was the morning of the fight I went down. He said there was nobody on Maryland Heights but skirmishers, but that there were two brigades on the mountain. I told him there was nobody there, but that there were two brigades on the mountain. He said there was not. I told him he would soon find there was. He ordered me back, and told me to tell Colonel Ford to watch the Rohresville road. We had been scouting that road, but had never found any force out there. I was out there myself 4 miles, and forced in their pickets.

Question. What do you know about the force of the enemy on the mountain?

Answer. We were attacked in front by eight regiments, as I afterward understood. It looked like that by the demonstration they made. I was told by rebel officers that they had there that morning Barksdale's division - two brigades, and there was one brigade in Pleasant Valley, back of us.

Question. What do you know about the enemy trying to flank us on the right or left?

Answer. Captain Crumbecker sent word about 2 o'clock, I think it was, that we were being flanked by a brigade on the eastern slope of the mountain. That is the information he sent to headquarters.


Page 707 Chapter XXXI. THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN.