Maryland

Nolan’s Ferry, on the Potomac

September 8, 1862

We waded the Potomac today, the water up to our belts and cold enough to take your wind. Boys held their cartridge boxes up over their heads and their rifles too, hollering and laughing like a fish fry. On the far bank one feller kissed the ground and said, “Howdy, Maryland.”

It looks like home in the shape of it, fields and fences and barns, but it doesn’t feel like home. Folks stand in their doors and watch us with faces that give nothing away. Some bring a dipper of water. Most just stand there stiff, like we’re a storm passing they never asked for.

The best of Maryland is the apples. Corn in the fields and apples on the limbs, and the boys climbed them trees like young’uns. I ate one too fast and it’s lying in my belly like a rock. I don’t regret it.

Loudoun Heights, above Harpers Ferry

September 15, 1862

We dragged cannon up a mountain this week, steeper than a body would believe, rocks and laurel and men pulling on ropes like mules. From the top you can look straight down on Harpers Ferry where the two rivers meet, the whole Yankee garrison sitting in the bottom like corn in a bowl.

Our guns opened on ’em, and Jackson’s and McLaws’s from the other heights, and this morning they ran up a white flag. Thousands of ’em gave up at once. I never saw so many Yankees in one place that wasn’t shooting at me.

No time to crow over it. Word came tonight to march for a town called Sharpsburg, where General Lee is gathering the army. They say McClellan is close behind him with more men than a body can count.

Near Sharpsburg

September 16, 1862, night

We got here like ghosts, wet and hungry, feet torn up, and still marching. Rain off and on, just enough to keep a man miserable without washing the stink off. They say there’s a creek out yonder called the Antietam.

Men laid down without a word. Some didn’t bother with blankets. The ground’s the blanket and the sky’s the roof.

There’s a kind of quiet comes before a big killing. The older boys quit joking. Men count their cartridges like they’re counting their chances. I counted mine twice.

If I live through tomorrow I will be surprised.

Sharpsburg

September 17, 1862, night, written by a poor light

I will set this down as plain as I can, for if I don’t, my mind will try to turn it into a dream.

We were up before day, down by a ford on the creek, and the fight opened off to the north like two doors slamming over and over faster than a man can count. Long about the middle of the morning they ran us up to the left, past a little white church, to plug a hole in the line. They put us and the 3rd Arkansas behind a rail fence in open ground, with woods on one side and nothing but Yankees on the other.

Then we loaded and fired and loaded and fired till it got to be like work. Bite the cartridge. Pour. Ram. Cap. Fire. Smoke. Again. Somebody hollered that General Longstreet his own self said we were to hold that spot no matter what, that it was the key to the whole line. I don’t know if it’s so, but it felt like the whole army was leaning on us.

I saw men I knew go down. Hardy fell. Davis fell. I don’t know if they said a word. It happens too quick for that.

Around noon they ordered us forward. Not a little ways neither. Clean out from the fence and into open ground where the air itself felt sharp. We gave the yell and went, and for a minute it seemed like the Yankees in front of us didn’t expect us to have any teeth left. We pushed them out of the woods by the church and on across the road into the fields.

Then the fire came at us from the sides, from places we couldn’t answer, and men were dropping faster than we could step. We fell back to the fence. We had to.

By the evening the cartridges were running out. Boys crawled amongst the dead hunting for more. When there wasn’t no more, Colonel Cooke had us fix bayonets, and we waved the colors like we were fixing to charge again, a poor hand bluffed like a card game. And Lord help me, the Yankees held off.

It’s dark now. The guns have mostly hushed, but the quiet ain’t quiet. It’s full of moaning, and men calling names into the dark. We tried to count the company and it was like counting what’s missing from a house after a fire. Outlaw was carried back. Rouse too, hurt bad.

New Bern is paid back. God knows it is. I just never figured the price would be so high.

Back across the Potomac

September 19, 1862

We slipped out in the night and crossed back into Virginia. Some boys call it a victory since we held the field. I can’t make my mouth say the word. Not with the empty places in our ranks.

The roads were full of the hurt, wagons creaking, men limping, men staring straight ahead like their souls were walking a few steps out front of their bodies. I looked back once toward Sharpsburg. The smoke had thinned out. What I saw there ain’t.

Whatever we were before that day, we aren’t that anymore.

Maps from the printed book