Hood's men have their breakfast interrupted (graphic)

kholland

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Hood's men were preparing breakfast in the West Woods southwest of Dunker Church when they received orders to move at once to the front. The command quickly departed the woods and headed north with Col. William T. Wofford's brigade on the left and Col. Evander M. Law's brigade on the right. Doubleday's and Ricketts' divisions had resumed their advance when they were suddenly attacked by Hood's men. A Union Officer remembered, "A long and steady gray line, unbroken by the fugitives who fly before us, comes sweeping down through the woods around the church. They raise the yell and fire. It is like a scythe running through our line. 'Now save, who can.' It is a race for life that each man runs for the cornfield."

The left of Hood's division drove into the Cornfield, where another round of violence exploded. Hood later wrote, "It was here that I witnessed the most terrible clash of arms, by far, that has occurred during the war." As his men pressed forward, Hood's left flank came under fire from Doubleday's troops, who had fallen back to the west side of Hagerstown Pike. Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery, also west of the pike, opened fire on the Confederates. The guns fired canister at a range of less than twenty-five yards, throwing splintered pieces of fence rails and men alike into the air. The Confederates who survived the blast began shooting down the gunners.

25.jpg

Confederate Dead along the West Side of Hagerstown Pike. The Cornfield is
to the right.

While part of Hood's command fought along the pike, the 1st Texas Infantry pushed through the Cornfield toward the Miller farmhouse, where Magilton's and Anderson's brigades of Meade's division had arrived earlier. The one-sided confrontation resulted in the Texans' suffering over 80 percent casualties and retreating to the Cornfield.

http://www.history.army.mil/StaffRide/Antietam/Overview.htm#battle
 
Many a brave TEXAN fell!
RIP Boys.

“To the Texans in the ranks the sound of battle was deafening: the boom of artillery; the loud reports of dozens of nearby rifles and the steady popping of thousands more distant; the explosions of shells and the whine and hiss of lead balls and steel fragments. Men whooped and yelled; others screamed to be heard by their comrades. File closers and company commanders bellowed orders and encouragement until they were hoarse-or shot. Dead and dangerously wounded Texans lay among the living and unhurt. Walking wounded dribbled from the line. Like a funeral pall, thick clouds of smoke drifted over the corn and at times obscured the sun.”
From “First Texas in the Cornfield.” by George E. Otott

“They always take the Texans to the hottest part of the field.”

“Just as fast as one man would pick it up, he would be shot down. Eight men were killed or wounded trying to bring it off the field. I can’t say we were whipped, but we were overwhelmed.”
H. Watters Berryman of Co I, 1st Tex

“Whole ranks of brave men…were mowed down in heaps to the right and left. Never before was I so consciously troubled with fear that my horse would further injure some wounded fellow soldier, lying helpless on the ground. This most deadly combat raged until our last round of ammunition was expended.”
John B. Hood describing the attack of his division at Antietam

“the hottest place I ever saw on this earth or want to see hereafter. There were shot, shells, and Minie balls sweeping the face of the earth; legs, arms, and other parts of human bodies were flying in the air like straw in a whirlwind. The dogs of war were loose, and ‘havoc’ was their cry

From “First Texas in the Cornfield.” by George E. Otott.
 
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Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery, also west of the pike, opened fire on the Confederates. The guns fired canister at a range of less than twenty-five yards, throwing splintered pieces of fence rails and men alike into the air. The Confederates who survived the blast began shooting down the gunners.
Brig. Gen. John Gibbon, formerly captain of Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery, noticed the guns' elevation screws were not tightened enough and the canister was over shooting. He jumped off his horse and ran up to the guns, yelling out to the battery crew to tighten the screws. They couldn't hear him above the gunfire, so Gibbon did it himself. Later he remarked that the dead were "piled in heaps" in front of that battery.

Run up the Elevation Screw by Rick Reeves 1.jpg

Run Up the Elevation Screw by Rick Reeves.

1st Lt. James L. Lemon in Co. A, 18th Georgia Infantry, Wofford's (Hood's Texas) Brigade was in Miller's Cornfield on the receiving end of Battery B during Hood's counterattack. In his reminiscences he says:

After entering the corn for some distance, which was already choked with bodies both blue & gray, we perceived several regiments of the enemy, about 200 yards distant on the far side of the pike, moving by the flank towards our left with the intention of turning our flank. At this point Col Ruff & everyone else, also became aware of a battery of guns [Battery B] placed obliquely in the road [Hagerstown Pike] ahead & to our left which, if we had advanced as planned, would have taken our left flank in enfilade fire. Ruff accordingly obliqued us, to the left (along with the gallant Hampton Legion) directly towards the guns & their infantry supports. As we advanced, these guns began to do terrible work among us. With guns double-shotted with canister, they blew gaps in our lines.
We halted by sheer necessity by the fence among the pike & began to concentrate our fire on the gunners, whose guns were now about 70 yards away. When at one point we had momentarily silenced the guns by shooting down every man who approached them, we quickly formed & made at them at the double-quick. In the intervening moments, however, more men had manned the guns & when we approached within about 40 yards the most horrible blasts belched forth from the pieces which killed and maimed dozens of our boys. It was on this first charge that my beloved friends & brothers in law, my wife's only dear brothers, Wm & Marcus Davenport were cut down while running side by side, united in death as in life.
We reluctantly fell back to the dubious shelter of the fence, where we continued our fire on the gunners. We had killed at least 4 complete crews it seemed to me, yet more men, perhaps artillery men, or from the infantry supports, had stepped up to replace them. Twice more we attacked each time coming closer than before, & each time taking horrific casualties before being forced back for lack of support. At this point we were decimated. Fully half our men were down, yet we were forming for another go at the guns, whose fire had slackened somewhat. Before we set forth on what surely would have been a forlorn hope, we were ordered by Col Ruff, who had been so ordered by Gen'l Wofford, to disengage & withdraw, as we were receiving front & left flank fire & were in danger of being cut to pieces & annihilated.
We formed & moved at a trot, but in fairly good order by the left flank down the fence-line to the Dunker church, being shot at all the way back. I had the queer notion that we were human participants in a "shooting gallery". Bullets kicked up dust & splintered fence rails as we ran. At length, we reached the area of the church & formed in defensive positions nearby, where we replenished our cartridge boxes & prepared for another fight. We were mere shadows of our former strength, & due to lack of support at the most crucial moment of our victory, we were almost completely destroyed.

- Feed Them the Steel! ed. by Mark Lemon, pp. 8, 12.

The 18th Georgia had 176 engaged and suffered 101 losses.

This is a photo I took last time I was at Antietam, standing on the Hagerstown Pike, right where Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery was, facing east into the Cornfield. The 4th Texas, 18th Georgia, and Hampton's SC Legion fought on the other side of the pike. The 1st Texas charged down the slope farther back, from right to left.
gettysburg 167.jpg
 
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How many times did the CSA get hung up on fences where they didn't expect them? I forget where I read this, but Southerners hardly ever fenced their fields when almost everyone in the North did. So the CSA assumed clear fields when they weren't. The same thing happened at Gettysburg; Pickett or Lee didn't see the fences and got hung up on them as sitting targets.
 
How many times did the CSA get hung up on fences where they didn't expect them? I forget where I read this, but Southerners hardly ever fenced their fields when almost everyone in the North did. So the CSA assumed clear fields when they weren't. The same thing happened at Gettysburg; Pickett or Lee didn't see the fences and got hung up on them as sitting targets.
Smaller, snake-rail fences were probably torn down, but larger fences like those along the Hagerstown Pike at Antietam were more sturdier. The troops didn't always have time to tear them down and so had to climb over. The fences alongside the Hagerstown Pike did seem to slow the advance or act as an obstacle to a number units, including the Texas Brigade.
 
It is simply incredible to believe that while we Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghan vets had either flack jackets or body armor, these guys went thru all that with shell jackets and frock coats.
 
Ike Turner's 5th Texas lost 86 out of 185.
View attachment 25450

Ike Turner enlisted in my hometown of Livingston,TX.

Isaac Newton Turner
Expired Image Removed

A Southern Homecoming

By Randy Hill



It was April 14, 1863, in Virginia, and the youngest company commander in Hood's Texas Brigade, Captain (brevet major) Ike Turner, age 24, lay mortally wounded. With his troops gathered around him, he made a final request.
"Men," Turner asked, "if you can, please take me home to my mother, for I fear she will worry so about me."
But there was a war on. And the best that could be managed for the time being was to bury him on his family's old plantation in Georgia. Later, perhaps after it was all over, he could be carried back to his kinfolk in Polk County, Texas.
The war ended and men of Turner's command were known to have stopped by and paid their respects to their former leader. However, possibly because no feasible means of transportation existed in the war-torn South, "Cap'm Ike" was left to rest beneath the red soil of Georgia.
The century ended. The decades rolled on. Over 125 years passed. In Polk County, a local camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans took his name . . . and the obligation to carry out his dying wish. To that end, the men of the Ike Turner Camp No. 1275 assembled around the grave of his mother and made a solemn pledge to bring her son home.
They were faithful to the trust. Exactly 132 years after his death in battle, Captain Ike Turner was brought back for the funeral he never had. It was an event symbolic of honoring all the Confederate soldiers listed as missing in action.
And dedicated to all the mothers of the South whose boys never came home.
http://iketurner.scv.org/

 
Ike Turner enlisted in my hometown of Livingston,TX.

Isaac Newton Turner
Expired Image Removed

A Southern Homecoming

By Randy Hill



It was April 14, 1863, in Virginia, and the youngest company commander in Hood's Texas Brigade, Captain (brevet major) Ike Turner, age 24, lay mortally wounded. With his troops gathered around him, he made a final request.
"Men," Turner asked, "if you can, please take me home to my mother, for I fear she will worry so about me."
But there was a war on. And the best that could be managed for the time being was to bury him on his family's old plantation in Georgia. Later, perhaps after it was all over, he could be carried back to his kinfolk in Polk County, Texas.
The war ended and men of Turner's command were known to have stopped by and paid their respects to their former leader. However, possibly because no feasible means of transportation existed in the war-torn South, "Cap'm Ike" was left to rest beneath the red soil of Georgia.
The century ended. The decades rolled on. Over 125 years passed. In Polk County, a local camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans took his name . . . and the obligation to carry out his dying wish. To that end, the men of the Ike Turner Camp No. 1275 assembled around the grave of his mother and made a solemn pledge to bring her son home.
They were faithful to the trust. Exactly 132 years after his death in battle, Captain Ike Turner was brought back for the funeral he never had. It was an event symbolic of honoring all the Confederate soldiers listed as missing in action.
And dedicated to all the mothers of the South whose boys never came home.
http://iketurner.scv.org/

Here is Capt. Ike N. M. Turner's after battle report of the Antietam
http://antietam.aotw.org/exhibit.php?exhibit_id=173

Thanks for posting, I wonder how many of the Texas boys who fell ever made it back home.
 
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