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At 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 17, the men of the
California Regiment were awakened for an inspection of cartridge boxes. An hour
later, each man drew 40 cartridges to supplement the 40 he held in his cartridge
box. They boys stuffed the extra ammunition into pockets and haversacks and
tried to get some more sleep. But little sleep was to be had, for reveille
sounded between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Officers instructed the men to make coffee
and to be ready to march in an hour. Soon the Californians heard the popping of
picket fire from across the Antietam Creek. Between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., the
small arms fire was drowned out by the booming of artillery that probably
heralded the onset of General Joe Hooker’s advance from a woodlot, the North
Woods, toward a small white church, the Dunker Church, about 1,500 yards due
south.
Not long after dawn, Colonel Wistar’s approximately 510 men and
officers were ordered to pile their knapsacks and wait for orders to move out.
By this time, heavy exchanges of both small arms and artillery fire reverberated
from across the Antietam. Brigades of the First Corps had pushed south and by
about 7:00 a.m. had successfully driven Stonewall Jackson’s hard-bitten men
toward the church and beyond. Just when it appeared that General Lee’s left
flank was to be crushed, Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s brigades emerged
from a stand of timber just behind and north of the Dunker Church, the West
Woods, crossed the Hagerstown Turnpike. They reformed in the clover field
between the turnpike and the Smoketown Road, and charged into farmer David
Miller’s cornfield stopping the Union First Corps in its tracks. Fighting Joe
dispatched an urgent call for help from General Mansfield’s Twelfth Corps which
soon began to arrive on the field. The corps chief was mortally wounded as he
deployed his men, and command devolved to Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams.
Meanwhile, a restless Edwin Sumner and his Second Corps troops
sat in their camps near Keedysville waiting to be called. Finally, at 7:20 a.m.,
an order directing the corps commander to hurry his command across the Antietam
Creek arrived at headquarters. General Oliver Howard’s troops of the
Philadelphia Brigade, including the California Regiment, were immediately drawn
up in a line and a number of men from each regiment were detached to guard the
knapsacks. John Sedgwick’s roughly 5,400 men moved by the right flank (west) to
the creek, followed about 20 minutes later by General French’s Third Division.
The three brigades moved cross country in three parallel brigade columns, four
men abreast, approximately 75 yards apart with Howard’s brigade on the right or
north. The brigadier claimed that the four regiments marched "at a rate of at
least three miles an hour."
Generals Sumner (left) and Sedgwick
(right)
Sedgwick’s brigades hurried a short distance through wood stands
and open fields before they descended into the Antietam Creek valley. The
Philadelphia Brigade and the balance of the division headed to a ford perhaps
1,000 feet downstream from the Samuel Pry farm and approximately one-half mile
south of the Upper Bridge, the same location that part of Hooker’s First Corps
had crossed the Antietam last evening. The men waded into the swift-flowing
stream, the depth of which ranged from knee- to waist-deep. Having gained the
west bank of the creek, Isaac Wistar’s dripping troops ascended the valley flank
and marched perhaps one-quarter mile to where the brigade columns filed right
and then fronted thereby forming three brigade-wide battle lines facing to the
west. The three roughly 500-yard-long lines reformed so that they were 60 to 70
paces apart. General Gorman’s brigade occupied the front line and the
Philadelphia Brigade the rear. The Californians held the right flank of the
brigade line. To their left was Turner Morehead’s 106th Pennsylvania,
followed by Joshua Owen’s 69th Pennsylvania and finally the
72nd Pennsylvania. The lines were dressed and the men prepared to
advance to the west. Within minutes, as General Howard later recalled, Edwin
Sumner, "his gray hair streaming in the wind, rode to the leading brigade and
ordered the advance." "Not even a noisy captain or an ambitious file closer
anathematized a protruding stomach or a musket in careless position. The men
were veterans and knew their business," recalled an obviously proud Colonel
Wistar. The order to march was shouted along the lines and the soldiers stepped
off at the quick step carrying their rifles at the right shoulder shift, through
woods and fields without the protection of skirmishers and flankers. The
formation was broken by several fences and a barnyard, perhaps that of the M.
Miller farm, but the lines were quickly reorganized.
Just as the division neared a stand of timber more than one mile
northeast of the Dunker Church, a single artillery shell probably fired by Jeb
Stuart’s Horse Artillery commanded by Captain John Pelham posted on Nicodemus
Hill approximately one mile to the front, whizzed over all three brigade lines
and exploded harmlessly in the rear of the formation. Within moments, another
shell, this one better aimed, struck in the center of the division. Still, most
of these long distance artillery rounds did little damage. General Sumner rode
out in front of the three lines to scout the grove, the East Woods, which he
observed was clear of the enemy. The corps commander did encounter a group of
soldiers carrying the wounded Joe Hooker to the rear. Sumner rode a short
distance into David Miller’s cornfield immediately west of the woods and
returned to the East Woods where Sedgwick’s division was just arriving.
Bull Sumner met with his lieutenant in the woods and ordered
Sedgwick to put his lines in motion. Gorman’s brigade, followed by Dana’s and
then Howard’s, each at intervals of 50 to 60 yards, were to move toward the
Hagerstown Turnpike, about 1,200 feet to the west of the woods. Between 8:40 and
9:00 a.m., a fence on the east boundary of the cornfield was torn down and the
division started forward. With this, Pelham’s artillery on Nicodemus Hill and
Colonel Stephen D. Lee’s artillery battalion deployed on an rise perhaps 900
yards to the south of the East Woods began shelling Gorman’s regiments emerging
from the timber. The brigadier’s men, accompanied by Sumner riding in the
advance, put their heads down and started across the cornfield and the open
pasture directly south, both of which were littered with bodies in blue and
gray. Unaccountably, skirmishers had not been deployed so the men could expect
no warning of unseen dangers. Indeed, one participant of this movement observed
that "The total disregard of all ordinary military precaution in their swift and
solitary advance was so manifest that it was observed and criticised as the
devoted band moved on."
General Oliver Otis Howard, commander
of the Philadelphia Brigade at Antietam
When Napoleon Dana’s regiments issued from the East Woods, they
encountered Brigadier General George H. Gordon’s Twelfth Corps brigade recently
arrived in position and lying on the ground. Believing the prone men to be
Gorman’s line, Dana ordered his soldiers to lie down. This caused the
Philadelphia Brigade, still in the woods, to stop its forward movement.
Presently the identity of Gordon’s men was established and Dana got his boys to
their feet and advancing at the double-quick. While all of this was taking
place, Willis Gorman’s regiments had reached and clambered over the post and
six-rail fences along the Hagerstown Pike, crossed a clover field and were about
to enter the West Woods just north of the Dunker Church.
Before his brigade line entered the cornfield, Howard was
ordered by one of General Sumner’s aids to detach a regiment to the support of
some Twelfth Corps units a short distance to the north. The brigade commander
assigned this duty to the California Regiment and Isaac Wistar led his men away
from the line. Just at that moment, however, heavy musketry, probably from
Gorman’s line pushing into the West Woods, echoed across the farmland. Sumner
immediately called for Howard to bring his regiments up. The brigadier delayed
this movement just long enough to enable the Californians to return to the
line.
Lieutenant Benjamin Hibbs of Company D was stunned by the sights
he saw in what remained of farmer Miller’s cornfield. "The rebels lay
everywhere. Many were in their last agony, and only asked us not to tread on
them. Some asked for water, but we had not the time, for we were advancing in
line of battle." Private George Beidelman of Company C also noted the "good many
dead bodies, both our men and the rebels," that littered the field. Indeed,
"death and mutilation in shocking form covered the ground on every side," Isaac
Wistar wrote two decades later. General Howard, riding behind the
106th Pennsylvania, instructed the men to take care to avoid stepping
on any of "those poor men" of the Union First and Twelfth Corps who lay all
about. Twenty years failed to dim Second Lieutenant John Rogers’ (Company G)
memory of the awful scenes witnessed by him and his comrades as they crossed the
fields over which Hooker’s men had recently battled: "Whole windrows of the
rebel dead lay behind demolished rail fences, stumps, clumps of bushes, or any
object which offered the least protection as they made the most desperate and
determined fight and were shot down in their tracks and our brave boys rushed
over them in hot pursuit after the living foe."
THESE ARE ARCHIVED PAGES OF THE OLD EHISTORY SITE click here for the NEW eHistory site These pages are not actively maintained and may have errors in content and functionality
At 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 17, the men of the
California Regiment were awakened for an inspection of cartridge boxes. An hour
later, each man drew 40 cartridges to supplement the 40 he held in his cartridge
box. They boys stuffed the extra ammunition into pockets and haversacks and
tried to get some more sleep. But little sleep was to be had, for reveille
sounded between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Officers instructed the men to make coffee
and to be ready to march in an hour. Soon the Californians heard the popping of
picket fire from across the Antietam Creek. Between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., the
small arms fire was drowned out by the booming of artillery that probably
heralded the onset of General Joe Hooker’s advance from a woodlot, the North
Woods, toward a small white church, the Dunker Church, about 1,500 yards due
south.
Not long after dawn, Colonel Wistar’s approximately 510 men and
officers were ordered to pile their knapsacks and wait for orders to move out.
By this time, heavy exchanges of both small arms and artillery fire reverberated
from across the Antietam. Brigades of the First Corps had pushed south and by
about 7:00 a.m. had successfully driven Stonewall Jackson’s hard-bitten men
toward the church and beyond. Just when it appeared that General Lee’s left
flank was to be crushed, Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s brigades emerged
from a stand of timber just behind and north of the Dunker Church, the West
Woods, crossed the Hagerstown Turnpike. They reformed in the clover field
between the turnpike and the Smoketown Road, and charged into farmer David
Miller’s cornfield stopping the Union First Corps in its tracks. Fighting Joe
dispatched an urgent call for help from General Mansfield’s Twelfth Corps which
soon began to arrive on the field. The corps chief was mortally wounded as he
deployed his men, and command devolved to Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams.
Meanwhile, a restless Edwin Sumner and his Second Corps troops
sat in their camps near Keedysville waiting to be called. Finally, at 7:20 a.m.,
an order directing the corps commander to hurry his command across the Antietam
Creek arrived at headquarters. General Oliver Howard’s troops of the
Philadelphia Brigade, including the California Regiment, were immediately drawn
up in a line and a number of men from each regiment were detached to guard the
knapsacks. John Sedgwick’s roughly 5,400 men moved by the right flank (west) to
the creek, followed about 20 min
THESE ARE ARCHIVED PAGES OF THE OLD EHISTORY SITE click here for the NEW eHistory site These pages are not actively maintained and may have errors in content and functionality
At 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 17, the men of the
California Regiment were awakened for an inspection of cartridge boxes. An hour
later, each man drew 40 cartridges to supplement the 40 he held in his cartridge
box. They boys stuffed the extra ammunition into pockets and haversacks and
tried to get some more sleep. But little sleep was to be had, for reveille
sounded between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Officers instructed the men to make coffee
and to be ready to march in an hour. Soon the Californians heard the popping of
picket fire from across the Antietam Creek. Between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., the
small arms fire was drowned out by the booming of artillery that probably
heralded the onset of General Joe Hooker’s advance from a woodlot, the North
Woods, toward a small white church, the Dunker Church, about 1,500 yards due
south.
Not long after dawn, Colonel Wistar’s approximately 510 men and
officers were ordered to pile their knapsacks and wait for orders to move out.
By this time, heavy exchanges of both small arms and artillery fire reverberated
from across the Antietam. Brigades of the First Corps had pushed south and by
about 7:00 a.m. had successfully driven Stonewall Jackson’s hard-bitten men
toward the church and beyond. Just when it appeared that General Lee’s left
flank was to be crushed, Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s brigades emerged
from a stand of timber just behind and north of the Dunker Church, the West
Woods, crossed the Hagerstown Turnpike. They reformed in the clover field
between the turnpike and the Smoketown Road, and charged into farmer David
Miller’s cornfield stopping the Union First Corps in its tracks. Fighting Joe
dispatched an urgent call for help from General Mansfield’s Twelfth Corps which
soon began to arrive on the field. The corps chief was mortally wounded as he
deployed his men, and command devolved to Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams.
Meanwhile, a restless Edwin Sumner and his Second Corps troops
sat in their camps near Keedysville waiting to be called. Finally, at 7:20 a.m.,
an order directing the corps commander to hurry his command across the Antietam
Creek arrived at headquarters. General Oliver Howard’s troops of the
Philadelphia Brigade, including the California Regiment, were immediately drawn
up in a line and a number of men from each regiment were detached to guard the
knapsacks. John Sedgwick’s roughly 5,400 men moved by the right flank (west) to
the creek, followed about 20 minutes later by General French’s Third Division.
The three brigades moved cross country in three parallel brigade columns, four
men abreast, approximately 75 yards apart with Howard’s brigade on the right or
north. The brigadier claimed that the four regiments marched "at a rate of at
least three miles an hour."
Generals Sumner (left) and Sedgwick
(right)
Sedgwick’s brigades hurried a short distance through wood stands
and open fields before they descended into the Antietam Creek valley. The
Philadelphia Brigade and the balance of the division headed to a ford perhaps
1,000 feet downstream from the Samuel Pry farm and approximately one-half mile
south of the Upper Bridge, the same location that part of Hooker’s First Corps
had crossed the Antietam last evening. The men waded into the swift-flowing
stream, the depth of which ranged from knee- to waist-deep. Having gained the
west bank of the creek, Isaac Wistar’s dripping troops ascended the valley flank
and marched perhaps one-quarter mile to where the brigade columns filed right
and then fronted thereby forming three brigade-wide battle lines facing to the
west. The three roughly 500-yard-long lines reformed so that they were 60 to 70
paces apart. General Gorman’s brigade occupied the front line and the
Philadelphia Brigade the rear. The Californians held the right flank of the
brigade line. To their left was Turner Morehead’s 106th Pennsylvania,
followed by Joshua Owen’s 69th Pennsylvania and finally the
72nd Pennsylvania. The lines were dressed and the men prepared to
advance to the west. Within minutes, as General Howard later recalled, Edwin
Sumner, "his gray hair streaming in the wind, rode to the leading brigade and
ordered the advance." "Not even a noisy captain or an ambitious file closer
anathematized a protruding stomach or a musket in careless position. The men
were veterans and knew their business," recalled an obviously proud Colonel
Wistar. The order to march was shouted along the lines and the soldiers stepped
off at the quick step carrying their rifles at the right shoulder shift, through
woods and fields without the protection of skirmishers and flankers. The
formation was broken by several fences and a barnyard, perhaps that of the M.
Miller farm, but the lines were quickly reorganized.
Just as the division neared a stand of timber more than one mile
northeast of the Dunker Church, a single artillery shell probably fired by Jeb
Stuart’s Horse Artillery commanded by Captain John Pelham posted on Nicodemus
Hill approximately one mile to the front, whizzed over all three brigade lines
and exploded harmlessly in the rear of the formation. Within moments, another
shell, this one better aimed, struck in the center of the division. Still, most
of these long distance artillery rounds did little damage. General Sumner rode
out in front of the three lines to scout the grove, the East Woods, which he
observed was clear of the enemy. The corps commander did encounter a group of
soldiers carrying the wounded Joe Hooker to the rear. Sumner rode a short
distance into David Miller’s cornfield immediately west of the woods and
returned to the East Woods where Sedgwick’s division was just arriving.
Bull Sumner met with his lieutenant in the woods and ordered
Sedgwick to put his lines in motion. Gorman’s brigade, followed by Dana’s and
then Howard’s, each at intervals of 50 to 60 yards, were to move toward the
Hagerstown Turnpike, about 1,200 feet to the west of the woods. Between 8:40 and
9:00 a.m., a fence on the east boundary of the cornfield was torn down and the
division started forward. With this, Pelham’s artillery on Nicodemus Hill and
Colonel Stephen D. Lee’s artillery battalion deployed on an rise perhaps 900
yards to the south of the East Woods began shelling Gorman’s regiments emerging
from the timber. The brigadier’s men, accompanied by Sumner riding in the
advance, put their heads down and started across the cornfield and the open
pasture directly south, both of which were littered with bodies in blue and
gray. Unaccountably, skirmishers had not been deployed so the men could expect
no warning of unseen dangers. Indeed, one participant of this movement observed
that "The total disregard of all ordinary military precaution in their swift and
solitary advance was so manifest that it was observed and criticised as the
devoted band moved on."
General Oliver Otis Howard, commander
of the Philadelphia Brigade at Antietam
When Napoleon Dana’s regiments issued from the East Woods, they
encountered Brigadier General George H. Gordon’s Twelfth Corps brigade recently
arrived in position and lying on the ground. Believing the prone men to be
Gorman’s line, Dana ordered his soldiers to lie down. This caused the
Philadelphia Brigade, still in the woods, to stop its forward movement.
Presently the identity of Gordon’s men was established and Dana got his boys to
their feet and advancing at the double-quick. While all of this was taking
place, Willis Gorman’s regiments had reached and clambered over the post and
six-rail fences along the Hagerstown Pike, crossed a clover field and were about
to enter the West Woods just north of the Dunker Church.
Before his brigade line entered the cornfield, Howard was
ordered by one of General Sumner’s aids to detach a regiment to the support of
some Twelfth Corps units a short distance to the north. The brigade commander
assigned this duty to the California Regiment and Isaac Wistar led his men away
from the line. Just at that moment, however, heavy musketry, probably from
Gorman’s line pushing into the West Woods, echoed across the farmland. Sumner
immediately called for Howard to bring his regiments up. The brigadier delayed
this movement just long enough to enable the Californians to return to the
line.
Lieutenant Benjamin Hibbs of Company D was stunned by the sights
he saw in what remained of farmer Miller’s cornfield. "The rebels lay
everywhere. Many were in their last agony, and only asked us not to tread on
them. Some asked for water, but we had not the time, for we were advancing in
line of battle." Private George Beidelman of Company C also noted the "good many
dead bodies, both our men and the rebels," that littered the field. Indeed,
"death and mutilation in shocking form covered the ground on every side," Isaac
Wistar wrote two decades later. General Howard, riding behind the
106th Pennsylvania, instructed the men to take care to avoid stepping
on any of "those poor men" of the Union First and Twelfth Corps who lay all
about. Twenty years failed to dim Second Lieutenant John Rogers’ (Company G)
memory of the awful scenes witnessed by him and his comrades as they crossed the
fields over which Hooker’s men had recently battled: "Whole windrows of the
rebel dead lay behind demolished rail fences, stumps, clumps of bushes, or any
object which offered the least protection as they made the most desperate and
determined fight and were shot down in their tracks and our brave boys rushed
over them in hot pursuit after the living foe."
THESE ARE ARCHIVED PAGES OF THE OLD EHISTORY SITE click here for the NEW eHistory site These pages are not actively maintained and may have errors in content and functionality
At 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 17, the men of the
California Regiment were awakened for an inspection of cartridge boxes. An hour
later, each man drew 40 cartridges to supplement the 40 he held in his cartridge
box. They boys stuffed the extra ammunition into pockets and haversacks and
tried to get some more sleep. But little sleep was to be had, for reveille
sounded between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Officers instructed the men to make coffee
and to be ready to march in an hour. Soon the Californians heard the popping of
picket fire from across the Antietam Creek. Between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., the
small arms fire was drowned out by the booming of artillery that probably
heralded the onset of General Joe Hooker’s advance from a woodlot, the North
Woods, toward a small white church, the Dunker Church, about 1,500 yards due
south.
Not long after dawn, Colonel Wistar’s approximately 510 men and
officers were ordered to pile their knapsacks and wait for orders to move out.
By this time, heavy exchanges of both small arms and artillery fire reverberated
from across the Antietam. Brigades of the First Corps had pushed south and by
about 7:00 a.m. had successfully driven Stonewall Jackson’s hard-bitten men
toward the church and beyond. Just when it appeared that General Lee’s left
flank was to be crushed, Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s brigades emerged
from a stand of timber just behind and north of the Dunker Church, the West
Woods, crossed the Hagerstown Turnpike. They reformed in the clover field
between the turnpike and the Smoketown Road, and charged into farmer David
Miller’s cornfield stopping the Union First Corps in its tracks. Fighting Joe
dispatched an urgent call for help from General Mansfield’s Twelfth Corps which
soon began to arrive on the field. The corps chief was mortally wounded as he
deployed his men, and command devolved to Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams.
Meanwhile, a restless Edwin Sumner and his Second Corps troops
sat in their camps near Keedysville waiting to be called. Finally, at 7:20 a.m.,
an order directing the corps commander to hurry his command across the Antietam
Creek arrived at headquarters. General Oliver Howard’s troops of the
Philadelphia Brigade, including the California Regiment, were immediately drawn
up in a line and a number of men from each regiment were detached to guard the
knapsacks. John Sedgwick’s roughly 5,400 men moved by the right flank (west) to
the creek, fo
THESE ARE ARCHIVED PAGES OF THE OLD EHISTORY SITE click here for the NEW eHistory site These pages are not actively maintained and may have errors in content and functionality
At 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 17, the men of the
California Regiment were awakened for an inspection of cartridge boxes. An hour
later, each man drew 40 cartridges to supplement the 40 he held in his cartridge
box. They boys stuffed the extra ammunition into pockets and haversacks and
tried to get some more sleep. But little sleep was to be had, for reveille
sounded between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Officers instructed the men to make coffee
and to be ready to march in an hour. Soon the Californians heard the popping of
picket fire from across the Antietam Creek. Between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., the
small arms fire was drowned out by the booming of artillery that probably
heralded the onset of General Joe Hooker’s advance from a woodlot, the North
Woods, toward a small white church, the Dunker Church, about 1,500 yards due
south.
Not long after dawn, Colonel Wistar’s approximately 510 men and
officers were ordered to pile their knapsacks and wait for orders to move out.
By this time, heavy exchanges of both small arms and artillery fire reverberated
from across the Antietam. Brigades of the First Corps had pushed south and by
about 7:00 a.m. had successfully driven Stonewall Jackson’s hard-bitten men
toward the church and beyond. Just when it appeared that General Lee’s left
flank was to be crushed, Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s brigades emerged
from a stand of timber just behind and north of the Dunker Church, the West
Woods, crossed the Hagerstown Turnpike. They reformed in the clover field
between the turnpike and the Smoketown Road, and charged into farmer David
Miller’s cornfield stopping the Union First Corps in its tracks. Fighting Joe
dispatched an urgent call for help from General Mansfield’s Twelfth Corps which
soon began to arrive on the field. The corps chief was mortally wounded as he
deployed his men, and command devolved to Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams.
Meanwhile, a restless Edwin Sumner and his Second Corps troops
sat in their camps near Keedysville waiting to be called. Finally, at 7:20 a.m.,
an order directing the corps commander to hurry his command across the Antietam
Creek arrived at headquarters. General Oliver Howard’s troops of the
Philadelphia Brigade, including the California Regiment, were immediately drawn
up in a line and a number of men from each regiment were detached to guard the
knapsacks. John Sedgwick’s roughly 5,400 men moved by the right flank (west) to
the creek, followed about 20 minutes later by General French’s Third Division.
The three brigades moved cross country in three parallel brigade columns, four
men abreast, approximately 75 yards apart with Howard’s brigade on the right or
north. The brigadier claimed that the four regiments marched "at a rate of at
least three miles an hour."
Generals Sumner (left) and Sedgwick
(right)
Sedgwick’s brigades hurried a short distance through wood stands
and open fields before they descended into the Antietam Creek valley. The
Philadelphia Brigade and the balance of the division headed to a ford perhaps
1,000 feet downstream from the Samuel Pry farm and approximately one-half mile
south of the Upper Bridge, the same location that part of Hooker’s First Corps
had crossed the Antietam last evening. The men waded into the swift-flowing
stream, the depth of which ranged from knee- to waist-deep. Having gained the
west bank of the creek, Isaac Wistar’s dripping troops ascended the valley flank
and marched perhaps one-quarter mile to where the brigade columns filed right
and then fronted thereby forming three brigade-wide battle lines facing to the
west. The three roughly 500-yard-long lines reformed so that they were 60 to 70
paces apart. General Gorman’s brigade occupied the front line and the
Philadelphia Brigade the rear. The Californians held the right flank of the
brigade line. To their left was Turner Morehead’s 106th Pennsylvania,
followed by Joshua Owen’s 69th Pennsylvania and finally the
72nd Pennsylvania. The lines were dressed and the men prepared to
advance to the west. Within minutes, as General Howard later recalled, Edwin
Sumner, "his gray hair streaming in the wind, rode to the leading brigade and
ordered the advance." "Not even a noisy captain or an ambitious file closer
anathematized a protruding stomach or a musket in careless position. The men
were veterans and knew their business," recalled an obviously proud Colonel
Wistar. The order to march was shouted along the lines and the soldiers stepped
off at the quick step carrying their rifles at the right shoulder shift, through
woods and fields without the protection of skirmishers and flankers. The
formation was broken by several fences and a barnyard, perhaps that of the M.
Miller farm, but the lines were quickly reorganized.
Just as the division neared a stand of timber more than one mile
northeast of the Dunker Church, a single artillery shell probably fired by Jeb
Stuart’s Horse Artillery commanded by Captain John Pelham posted on Nicodemus
Hill approximately one mile to the front, whizzed over all three brigade lines
and exploded harmlessly in the rear of the formation. Within moments, another
shell, this one better aimed, struck in the center of the division. Still, most
of these long distance artillery rounds did little damage. General Sumner rode
out in front of the three lines to scout the grove, the East Woods, which he
observed was clear of the enemy. The corps commander did encounter a group of
soldiers carrying the wounded Joe Hooker to the rear. Sumner rode a short
distance into David Miller’s cornfield immediately west of the woods and
returned to the East Woods where Sedgwick’s division was just arriving.
Bull Sumner met with his lieutenant in the woods and ordered
Sedgwick to put his lines in motion. Gorman’s brigade, followed by Dana’s and
then Howard’s, each at intervals of 50 to 60 yards, were to move toward the
Hagerstown Turnpike, about 1,200 feet to the west of the woods. Between 8:40 and
9:00 a.m., a fence on the east boundary of the cornfield was torn down and the
division started forward. With this, Pelham’s artillery on Nicodemus Hill and
Colonel Stephen D. Lee’s artillery battalion deployed on an rise perhaps 900
yards to the south of the East Woods began shelling Gorman’s regiments emerging
from the timber. The brigadier’s men, accompanied by Sumner riding in the
advance, put their heads down and started across the cornfield and the open
pasture directly south, both of which were littered with bodies in blue and
gray. Unaccountably, skirmishers had not been deployed so the men could expect
no warning of unseen dangers. Indeed, one participant of this movement observed
that "The total disregard of all ordinary military precaution in their swift and
solitary advance was so manifest that it was observed and criticised as the
devoted band moved on."
General Oliver Otis Howard, commander
of the Philadelphia Brigade at Antietam
When Napoleon Dana’s regiments issued from the East Woods, they
encountered Brigadier General George H. Gordon’s Twelfth Corps brigade recently
arrived in position and lying on the ground. Believing the prone men to be
Gorman’s line, Dana ordered his soldiers to lie down. This caused the
Philadelphia Brigade, still in the woods, to stop its forward movement.
Presently the identity of Gordon’s men was established and Dana got his boys to
their feet and advancing at the double-quick. While all of this was taking
place, Willis Gorman’s regiments had reached and clambered over the post and
six-rail fences along the Hagerstown Pike, crossed a clover field and were about
to enter the West Woods just north of the Dunker Church.
Before his brigade line entered the cornfield, Howard was
ordered by one of General Sumner’s aids to detach a regiment to the support of
some Twelfth Corps units a short distance to the north. The brigade commander
assigned this duty to the California Regiment and Isaac Wistar led his men away
from the line. Just at that moment, however, heavy musketry, probably from
Gorman’s line pushing into the West Woods, echoed across the farmland. Sumner
immediately called for Howard to bring his regiments up. The brigadier delayed
this movement just long enough to enable the Californians to return to the
line.
Lieutenant Benjamin Hibbs of Company D was stunned by the sights
he saw in what remained of farmer Miller’s cornfield. "The rebels lay
everywhere. Many were in their last agony, and only asked us not to tread on
them. Some asked for water, but we had not the time, for we were advancing in
line of battle." Private George Beidelman of Company C also noted the "good many
dead bodies, both our men and the rebels," that littered the field. Indeed,
"death and mutilation in shocking form covered the ground on every side," Isaac
Wistar wrote two decades later. General Howard, riding behind the
106th Pennsylvania, instructed the men to take care to avoid stepping
on any of "those poor men" of the Union First and Twelfth Corps who lay all
about. Twenty years failed to dim Second Lieutenant John Rogers’ (Company G)
memory of the awful scenes witnessed by him and his comrades as they crossed the
fields over which Hooker’s men had recently battled: "Whole windrows of the
rebel dead lay behind demolished rail fences, stumps, clumps of bushes, or any
object which offered the least protection as they made the most desperate and
determined fight and were shot down in their tracks and our brave boys rushed
over them in hot pursuit after the living foe."
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At 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 17, the men of the
California Regiment were awakened for an inspection of cartridge boxes. An hour
later, each man drew 40 cartridges to supplement the 40 he held in his cartridge
box. They boys stuffed the extra ammunition into pockets and haversacks and
tried to get some more sleep. But little sleep was to be had, for reveille
sounded between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Officers instructed the men to make coffee
and to be ready to march in an hour. Soon the Californians heard the popping of
picket fire from across the Antietam Creek. Between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., the
small arms fire was drowned out by the booming of artillery that probably
heralded the onset of General Joe Hooker’s advance from a woodlot, the North
Woods, toward a small white church, the Dunker Church, about 1,500 yards due
south.
Not long after dawn, Colonel Wistar’s approximately 510 men and
officers were ordered to pile their knapsacks and wait for orders to move out.
By this time, heavy exchanges of both small arms and artillery fire reverberated
from across the Antietam. Brigades of the First Corps had pushed south and by
about 7:00 a.m. had successfully driven Stonewall Jackson’s hard-bitten men
toward the church and beyond. Just when it appeared that General Lee’s left
flank was to be crushed, Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s brigades emerged
from a stand of timber just behind and north of the Dunker Church, the West
Woods, crossed the Hagerstown Turnpike. They reformed in the clover field
between the turnpike and the Smoketown Road, and charged into farmer David
Miller’s cornfield stopping the Union First Corps in its tracks. Fighting Joe
dispatched an urgent call for help from General Mansfield’s Twelfth Corps which
soon began to arrive on the field. The corps chief was mortally wounded as he
deployed his men, and command devolved to Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams.
Meanwhile, a restless Edwin Sumner and his Second Corps troops
sat in their camps near Keedysville waiting to be called. Finally, at 7:20 a.m.,
an order directing the corps commander to hurry his command across the Antietam
Creek arrived at headquarters. General Oliver Howard’s troops of the
Philadelphia Brigade, including the California Regiment, were immediately drawn
up in a line and a number of men from each regiment were detached to guard the
knapsacks. John Sedgwick’s roughly 5,400 men moved by the right flank (west) to
the creek, followe
