“Where were they not on that gory field?”: The Chesapeake Artillery and the Battle of Sharpsburg

Civil Discourse encourages guest submissions from academic and popular historians alike.  Today's guest author is Rick Richter, author of Three Cheers for the Chesapeake!: History of the 4th Maryland Light Artillery Battery in the Civil War.

Captain Joseph Forrest organized the Chesapeake Artillery on January 1, 1862. He was the only individual slaveholder in the unit. Courtesy of Debi Burt.

Captain Joseph Forrest organized the Chesapeake Artillery on January 1, 1862. He was the only individual slaveholder in the unit. Courtesy of Debi Burt.

Many accounts by Civil War veterans, both postwar and contemporary, contain errors, omissions, and outright fabrications driven by dynamics that range from simple memory lapses to protecting or enlarging reputations.  One such case involves the participation of the Chesapeake Artillery (4th Maryland Light Artillery, CSA) in the battle of Sharpsburg, called Antietam by the Federals.  Numerous postwar and even contemporary accounts, including the battery’s most oft-cited contemporary unit history as well as that of at least one modern historian, place the Chesapeake on the field during the battle of September 17, 1862.  However, a careful examination of the contemporary historical record clearly indicates that the company was miles away from the fighting that day.

At the start of the Maryland Campaign in early September, the Chesapeake Artillery had been organized for eight months, but had only experienced their first battle at Cedar Mountain three weeks prior.  There it had performed gallantly and been praised in official reports by its battalion commander, division commander, and Stonewall Jackson.  It had subsequently fought through the battle of Kettle Run and all three days of battle at Second Manassas before moving with the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland. [1]

Compared to other units in the Army of Northern Virginia, in many ways the Chesapeake Artillery was unique.  Composed largely of men from the Maryland counties with shoreline on Chesapeake Bay, the average age of the men in the battery was only twenty-three and a half at the start of the campaign, a full eighteen months younger than the average age of their compatriots in the rest of the Army; nearly a quarter were teenaged. While 44% of the soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia came from slaveholding households, only 22% of the Chesapeake’s members shared the same characteristic.  When Captain Joseph Forrest organized it on January 1, 1862, he was the only individual slaveholder in the battery; Forrest was dropped at the unit’s re-organization that Spring, and it fought until the Appomattox surrender without a single individual slaveholder in its ranks.  A large urban contingent, over 30% of the men, hailed from the city of Baltimore, versus the Army’s portion of urban dwellers of less than 6%. The company also had far higher literacy rates, representation in white collar jobs and skilled trades, and a far lower desertion rate than other units in the Army.  This was a young, sophisticated, and hard-fighting unit that would pay for their high spirits with much higher casualty rates during the course of the war compared to other artillery units in Lee’s army. [2]

William W. Goldsborough, author of The Maryland Line in the Confederate Army. Courtesy of “Company E,” 2nd Maryland Infantry.

William W. Goldsborough, author of The Maryland Line in the Confederate Army. Courtesy of “Company E,” 2nd Maryland Infantry.

In his seminal contemporary unit history The Maryland Line in the Confederate Army, William W. Goldsborough gives a stirring account of the Chesapeake Artillery’s action at the battle of Sharpsburg on September 17, 1862:

“And where were the Chesapeakes? Where were they not on that gory field? First here, then there, those self-same Parrotts…dealt death and destruction to the enemy, and perhaps never before were those guns so savagely handled.  The occasion required that they should be on that dreadful day of the 17th of September.”

However, the battery had been ordered to stay behind at Harper’s Ferry following the battle there of September 15 to replace its equipment and horses from the captured stores, while the bulk of Jackson’s command marched to Sharpsburg.  It appears that Goldsborough filled a gap in his narrative with hyperbole, as contemporary official records state that the company did not participate in the conflict of September 17. But several accounts by members of the unit, both contemporaneous and postwar, do place the Chesapeake on the field at the battle of Sharpsburg. [3]

A month after the Maryland campaign, Sgt. Thomas LeCompte wrote a letter to his mother in which he briefly outlined the company’s battles, including Sharpsburg:

“I felt it my duty to try and let you know that I am still in the land of the living, that notwithstanding the iron hail that has fallen around me for the last three or four months (at Richmond, Cedar Mountain, Manassas and Sharpsburg Md) I have escaped almost entirely unhurt, with the exception of a slight scratch on the head by a piece of spent shell, which however did not prevent my helping to make the yankees position to hot for them to hold.”

In an interview during the early 1900’s at the Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home, Pvt. Bedney Spencer of the Chesapeake summarized his war record, stating that he “participated in both battles of Fredericksburg, Sharpsburg, Harpers Ferry, Gettysburg, and all other actions in which my command was engaged.” [4]

One modern historian also places the Chesapeake Artillery on the battlefield at Sharpsburg on September 17. In his superbly researched annotation of Ezra Carman’s manuscript The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, Thomas G. Clemons states that the company arrived there late in the day on September 17.  Clemons based this conclusion on the postwar recollection of Pvt. Charles A. Dallam.  In an October 18, 1899 letter to Carman, then the Historical Expert of the Antietam Battlefield Board and a participant in the battle, Dallam wrote:

“Your communication of the 14th to hand.  Our Battery, Chesapeake 4th Md Artillery, Capt. Wm. Brown, commanding, was enroute to Antietam, from Harper’s Ferry, the morning of Sept. 17th 1862.  Arriving there, the afternoon of same date, & went into position.”

Unfortunately, Dallam’s postwar recollections are unreliable. [5]

Dallam was a 28-year old resident of Baltimore when he enlisted as a private in the 4th Maryland Artillery on August 25, 1862, at Gordonsville, VA.  He participated in all the subsequent campaigns of the company, and was wounded at the battles of 2nd Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. Dallam was captured at Fort Gregg on April 2, 1865, and sent to Point Lookout prisoner of war camp, where he served as acting sergeant major.   He took the Oath of Allegiance on June 26, 1865, was released, and provided with transportation to Baltimore. After the war he was a wine merchant and the Baltimore city clerk, married and had two children, and was active in veterans’ affairs.  He later lived in the Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home, where he died in February, 1913. [6]

Dallam’s postwar statements are divergent from his war record. In his 1898 application for admission to the Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home, a 1902 Certificate of Eligibility for a Southern Cross of Honor, and in an interview at the Soldiers’ Home in the early 1900’s, Dallam variously gives his enlistment date as “spring of 1862” and September 11, 1862, and his enlistment location as Richmond, VA.  He stated that he was in all the unit’s battles starting with 1st Fredericksburg, but leaves out Harper’s Ferry, Sharpsburg, and the Maryland Campaign altogether, irrespective of his letter to Carman.  He correctly stated that he was captured on April 2, 1865, but gives his release date from Point Lookout as June 28. [7]

The contemporary historical record of the Chesapeake Artillery’s operations in the Maryland Campaign is more definitive. As background, the battery served as part of Major Alfred R. Courtney’s battalion, attached to Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s division in Stonewall Jackson’s wing.  Ewell was recovering from the loss of a leg at Second Manassas, so the division was temporarily commanded by Brig. Gen. Alexander R. Lawton.  Courtney had organized the Courtney Light Artillery in Richmond in June, 1861. Serving as its captain, he had led it through Jackson’s Valley Campaign and the Seven Days battles before his promotion to major and Chief of Artillery of Ewell’s Division in July, 1862. Although the Courtney Artillery had performed well, Courtney’s service was described by one of Ewell’s staff officers as, “1st Lieut. Latimer…being oftener in command than Courtney – a capable but lazy man.” [8]

Captain Billy Brown commanded the Chesapeake Artillery during the Maryland Campaign. Author.

Captain Billy Brown commanded the Chesapeake Artillery during the Maryland Campaign. Author.

Courtney’s Battalion was composed of seven batteries, six of which participated in the Maryland campaign: the Chesapeake Artillery under Capt. Billy Brown; Capt. William F. Dement’s 1st Maryland Artillery; the Courtney Artillery, now under the command of Capt. Joseph W. Latimer; Capt. John R. Johnson’s Bedford Artillery; Capt. Louis D’Aquin’s Louisiana Guard Artillery; and one two-gun section of Capt. William L. Balthis’ Staunton Artillery, temporarily under the command of Lt. Asher W. Garber while Balthis was absent, sick (Balthis was at home in Staunton, VA, suffering from an acute affliction of hemorrhoids, which would cause him to resign his commission a couple of months after the Maryland Campaign). Capt. James M. Carrington’s Charlottesville Artillery had been left in Richmond to recruit and refit, and was not with the battalion during the campaign. [9]

When the Federal garrison at Harper’s Ferry surrendered to Stonewall Jackson’s forces early on the morning of September 15th, Jackson immediately advised Gen. Robert E. Lee via courier.  Lee, who was urgently concentrating his scattered army at Sharpsburg in the face of the rapid advance of Maj. Gen. George S. McClellan’s Federal Army of the Potomac, ordered Jackson to join him there with his command.  Jackson secured the prisoners and supplies at Harper’s Ferry, and many of his soldiers improved their weaponry from the stores there.  After leaving one division to parole the Federal prisoners, Jackson marched to Sharpsburg that evening with his other two divisions, including Ewell’s, commanded by Lawton, and arrived there on the morning of the 16th. Three units of Courtney’s Battalion marched with Lawton: Johnson’s Bedford Artillery, Garber’s section of the Staunton Artillery, and D’Aquin’s Louisiana Guard Artillery.  It was at this time that the batteries of Brown’s Chesapeake Artillery, Dement’s 1st Maryland Artillery, and Latimer’s Courtney Artillery were left behind at Harper’s Ferry to refit with new equipment and horses from the captured stores. [10]

Jackson’s Chief of Artillery, Col. Stapleton Crutchfield, started for Sharpsburg from Harper’s Ferry on the morning of the 16th, but upon reaching Shepherdstown that evening, was ordered to return by Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton, Chief of Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia. Pendleton ordered Crutchfield to facilitate the forwarding of Jackson’s artillery to Sharpsburg as well as the formation of new batteries from the captured ordnance.  This was just the beginning of a frustrating couple of days for Crutchfield, who wrote in his report of his efforts on September 17:

“After much difficulty I found the quartermaster in charge of the captured guns, and found he had been busy removing them, and in so doing had mismatched the caissons, limbers, and guns to such an extent that after vainly spending half the day at it, I gave up the task of getting together any batteries from among them. The batteries of Captains Brown, Dement, and Latimer had been left at Harper’s Ferry, as disabled, on account of the condition of their horses.  I therefore had horses turned over to them, filled them up with ammunition…and started them for the battle-field, going on ahead myself. I got there too late in the evening to be able to give any report of the battle.” [11]

Inexplicably, Major Alfred R. Courtney did not march with Lawton and the battalion’s batteries to Sharpsburg.  He elected instead to stay behind at Harper’s Ferry to oversee the refitting of Brown’s, Dement’s, and Latimer’s units, thus leaving the other batteries of his battalion at Sharpsburg without an overall commander. Jackson’s command held the Army of Northern Virginia’s left flank at Sharpsburg, and Jackson, likely because of the absence of Crutchfield and Courtney, came up with an unusual solution.  He asked the army’s cavalry chief, Maj. Gen. Jeb Stuart, to take command of the artillery on the Confederate left, combined with Stuart’s own horse artillery under Major John Pelham.  Stuart and Pelham were highly effective in helping to secure the left flank during the battle with a mixed collection of artillery batteries that included Johnson’s, Garber’s, and D’Aquin’s units. [12]

Battle flag flown by the Chesapeake Artillery during the Maryland Campaign. Author.

Battle flag flown by the Chesapeake Artillery during the Maryland Campaign. Author.

Meanwhile, the other batteries of Courtney’s battalion at Harper’s Ferry were forwarded by Crutchfield to Sharpsburg as they were refitted with horses and equipment.  One section of Latimer’s battery was issued two 3-inch Ordnance rifles from the stores at Harper’s Ferry to replace two damaged Parrott rifles, and arrived on the battlefield late in the afternoon of the 17th.  Dement’s battery soon followed and arrived that night.  Lacking battalion leadership, these batteries were ordered in some manner to the threatened Confederate right flank and went into position there, although neither was engaged.  The Chesapeake Artillery was the last to receive new horses and equipment; the company as well as the other section of Latimer’s battery were ordered to march to Sharpsburg on the morning of the next day, September 18.  Pvt. John Hooff confirmed this in a letter to his aunt on September 17, saying:

“We are now equipping our battery with new horses, harness, and wagons captured in the fight, our old horses were completely worn out as also were the men, we have now rested 2 days and will start fresh to morrow morning to give the Yanks another thrashing.” [13]

During the battle of September 17th at Sharpsburg, Lawton was seriously wounded and carried from the field; command of Ewell’s Division then passed to Brig. Gen. Jubal A. Early.  Probably around the time the fighting ended that day, Early desired to consolidate his artillery, now dispersed among both flanks of the army as well as Harper’s Ferry.  Courtney’s absence was greatly missed, much to Early’s extreme irritation. Early sent an order in writing to Courtney to accompany the division’s batteries remaining at Harper’s Ferry and bring them the next day to Sharpsburg.  Incredibly, after reaching Shepherdstown, but before crossing the Potomac River, Courtney turned command of the battalion over to Capt. Billy Brown as the senior officer present, and then absented himself from the army without leave for nearly a month.  Outraged, Early brought charges against Courtney, stating that the major:

“on the 18th day of September, 1862, at or near Shepherdstown Virginia, having received an Order in writing from Brigadier General J.A. Early, his commanding officer, who was then in command of the Division, to bring the batteries belonging to the Division which were on the Va side of the Potomac to the point at which the Division was then drawn up in line of battle facing the enemy at Sharpsburg Maryland, and himself to report to his said Commanding officer at that point in person, did fail and neglect to comply with said order, but instead did turn over the command of said batteries to the senior captain present with directions to him to carry said batteries to the place occupied by the Division and did fail and neglect to conduct himself in person to his said Commanding officer at the place & time ordered or at any time thereafter until on or about the 15th of October following.”

Thus the Chesapeake arrived on the battlefield at Sharpsburg early on the afternoon of September 18, the day after the battle, and the last unit of the battalion to arrive along with the remaining section of Latimer’s battery.  Courtney subsequently appeared before a court martial, was found guilty of neglect of duty, disobedience of orders, and absence without leave, and transferred west. [14]

Corporal Dan Daugherty served in the Chesapeake Artillery during the Maryland Campaign. Author.

Corporal Dan Daugherty served in the Chesapeake Artillery during the Maryland Campaign. Author.

The arrival of Brown and the remaining guns of the battalion created a new leadership dilemma for Jubal Early.  In Courtney’s absence, Early needed to appoint an interim battalion commander, who would normally be the senior officer present.  Billy Brown had been the senior officer of the battalion’s batteries present at Harper’s Ferry, since his commission date as captain was previous to that of both Latimer and Dement.  Although Brown outranked Garber and his captain’s commission preceded that of D’Aquin, Capt. John R. Johnson’s commission was dated a month before Brown’s. Undoubtedly, Early far preferred to appoint the highly regarded Brown, described by Ewell as, “a most gallant and valuable officer,” rather than John R. Johnson. [15]

Johnson’s Bedford Artillery had been originally organized as Co. C, 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment in May, 1861, but converted to an artillery battery in August of that year.  Johnson was elected as the unit’s captain in April, 1862, and the company was assigned to Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor’s brigade.  One of Ewell’s staff officers described Johnson’s company during the Valley Campaign as:

“a Battery of which the Captain & men gave Taylor infinite trouble & caused much swearing. Taylor wanted them to reelect their old Captain but instead they chose their 1st Lieut. named Johnson, whom Taylor declared worthless, relieved the concern from duty & sent them off to Richmond…He made the campaign without them & I expect was very lucky, as Johnson certainly turned out indifferent & seemed a nerveless, feebleminded sort of creature, well meaning enough, but no officer.”         

Pendleton, the army’s Chief of Artillery, referred to Johnson’s battery as, “not up to a fair standard of care on the part of officers, or peculiar adaptness in them for their work.” [16]        

Jubal Early, the shrewd prewar lawyer, may have counted Brown’s service one year prior as captain of the “1st Company” of the defunct 2nd Maryland Infantry Regiment into the seniority equation.  Although that company never entered Confederate service, this would have allowed Early to predate Johnson’s commission with Brown’s by at least eight months.  However Early justified it, multiple witness accounts state that the battalion was “temporarily commanded by Capt. Brown” at this time, including Johnson himself.  Three weeks later, Johnson was relieved of his position and the Bedford Artillery disbanded in the Army of Northern Virginia’s re-organization of its artillery arm, and the battery’s men and horses were distributed to other units. Brown would continue as the battalion’s interim commandeer for the next several months. [17]

Brown’s first task as Chief of Artillery on September 18th was to unite the battalion’s scattered batteries, and they were likely put into position in a multi-battery artillery line Jackson established on the Confederate left flank. Both armies remained on the field at Sharpsburg that day, in some places only hundreds of yards apart.  There were orders from both Lee and McLellan not to bring on a general engagement, but throughout the day there occurred constant sharpshooting, occasional cannon discharges, and a few troop demonstrations on the part of the Federals. Lee finally ordered his army to re-cross the Potomac River into Virginia that night; the Chesapeake Artillery crossed with the rest of Early’s troops just after sunrise on the morning of the 19th, and the division went into camp a few miles from Shepherdstown. [18]

As for the Chesapeake’s part in the battle of Sharpsburg, it is difficult to fault Charles Dallam for missing the correct date by one day in his letter to Ezra Carman after the passage of over thirty-seven years.  Moreover, it is apparent why Dallam, Bedney Spencer, Thomas LeCompte, and probably other men in the battery believed they had participated in the conflict there.  While holding their position and expecting a renewal of hostilities at any moment on September 18th, against occasional troop movements and cannon fire, with continual sharpshooting on a horrific landscape blasted by the war’s bloodiest day just the day before, the scene would have looked, smelled, sounded, and felt like a battle. Surely these men experienced what to them was the “second day” of the battle of Sharpsburg. But there is also a clear answer to William W. Goldsborough’s query as to the battery’s whereabouts on September 17th: “where were they not on that gory field?”  They were not on the field at Sharpsburg.

Rick Richter was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in nearby Silver Spring, MD.  He received both his BA and MA degrees from the University of Notre Dame.  He is the author of Three Cheers for the Chesapeake!  History of the 4th Maryland Light Artillery Battery in the Civil War, published by Schiffer Publications. Rick has lectured on the Chesapeake Artillery before both battlefield preservation and living history groups, and appeared as the consulting historian in an episode on Benner’s Hill at Gettysburg for The Travel Channel’s “Mysteries at the National Parks” series.  He was also an exhibitor in the B&O Railroad Museum’s “The War Came by Train” exhibit.  He is a member of the Civil War Trust, the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association, the St. Mary’s County Historical Society, and the Society of Civil War Historians. After a career as an executive in sales and marketing in the Consumer Goods industry, Rick is now a partner in a large executive recruiting firm.  He has six grown children and lives in Toronto.  His interest and research into Maryland Civil War units continues.

                                                                                   ENDNOTES

1.  For a complete history of the Chesapeake Artillery’s operations during the Maryland Campaign, see Rick Richter, Three Cheers for the Chesapeake! History of the 4th Maryland Light Artillery Battery in the Civil War (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2017), 43-47 (hereafter cited as Three Cheers).

2.  Richter, Three Cheers, 27-31; Joseph T. Glatthaar, Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia, A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 6, 8-9, 45-46, 48, 51, 154-165.

3.  W.W. Goldsborough, The Maryland Line in the Confederate Army, 1861-1865, (Baltimore: Guggenheimer, Weil and Co., 1900), 321 (hereafter cited as Maryland Line); U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion:  A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, DC:  U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), 19, pt. 1, 963, (hereafter cited as OR; all volumes are Series I unless otherwise specified). 

4.  Daniel Carroll Toomey, The Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home, and Confederate Veterans’ Organizations in Maryland (Baltimore:  Toomey Press, 2001), 79 (hereafter cited as The Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home); T.P. LeCompte to Dear Mother, October 16th, 1862, private collection.

5.  Thomas G. Clemens, ed., Ezra A. Carman, The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, 3 vols. , (California: Savas Beatie, 2012), vol. 2, 556 (hereafter cited as Carman, The Maryland Campaign); Chas F. Dallam to Gen. E.A. Carman, Oct. 18th 1899, Box 2, Folder 5, Ezra A. Carman Papers, New York Public Library.

6. Charles Dallam, p. 283 [handwritten], line 11, 20th Ward, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Maryland Census of Population, 8th Census of the United States, 1860, National Archives Microfilm Publication M653, roll 479, records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 2, National Archives Building, Washington, DC;  Record Group 109 (RG 109), Compiled Service Records (CSR’s) of Confederate Soldiers, National Archives Building, Washington, DC (NAB); F.G. Duffield, “The Merchants’ Cards and Tokens of Baltimore,” The Numismatist 20, no. 3 (March, 1907), 68; Polk’s Baltimore City Directory for 1892 (Baltimore: Nichols, Killam & Maffitt, 1892), 298; Geo. A. Meekins, Fifth Regiment, Infantry, Md. Nat. Guard, U.S. Volunteers:  A History of the Regiment from its First Organization to the Present Time, Illustrated (Baltimore:  A. Hoen & Co., 1899), 11; Record books, Society of the Army & Navy of the Confederate States of Maryland Collection 1871-1926, MS 2825, Maryland Historical Society (MHS); Certificate of Eligibility for Cross of Honor Application to United Daughters of the Confederacy, and “Morning Report June 25th, 1865, Point Lookout,” Charles F. Dallam papers, author’s collection (hereafter cited as Dallam papers); Charles F. Dallam Admission Application, Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home Record Books, 1883-1932, MS 256, Special Collections Library, MHS.

7. Charles F. Dallam CSR, RG 109, NAB; Certificate of Eligibility for Cross of Honor Application to United Daughters of the Confederacy, and “Morning Report June 25th, 1865, Point Lookout,” Dallam papers; Charles F. Dallam Admission Application, Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home Record Books, 1883-1932, MS 256, Special Collections Library, MHS; Toomey, The Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home, 47; Chas F. Dallam to Gen. E.A. Carman, Oct. 18th 1899, Box 2, Folder 5, Ezra A. Carman Papers, New York Public Library.

8. OR, 19, pt. 1, 807; Alfred R. Courtney CSR, RG 109, NAB; Robert K. Krick,  Lee’s Colonels: A Biographical Register of the Field Officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, 2nd Edition, Revised (Dayton:  Morningside, 1984), 86; Joseph H. Crute, Jr., Units of the Confederate States Army (Midlothian: Derwent Books, 987), 397; Terry L. Jones, ed., Campbell Brown’s Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 59.

9. OR, 19, pt. 1, 807, 837; William L. Balthis CSR, RG 109, NAB; “Staunton’s Brave Artillery Boys,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 29, 1905. There is disagreement among historians as to whether Garber commanded a section of two guns or the Staunton Artillery’s full complement of four guns at Sharpsburg.  It has been concluded here that Garber led a section only, based on a tabular summary in the Official Records of armament in the Army of Northern Virginia during the summer of 1862 that lists only two guns for Balthis’ battery (OR, pt. 1, 19, 837; Curt Johnson and Richard C. Anderson, Artillery Hell: The Employment of Artillery at Antietam [College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995], 93 [hereafter cited as Johnson and Anderson, Artillery Hell]; Carman, The Maryland Campaign, vol. 2, 69).

10.  OR, 19, pt. 1, 955, 963.

11. Ibid., 963.

12. Statement of Brig. Gen. J. A. Early, in Alfred R. Courtney CSR, RG 109, NAB; Ibid. 957.  See also Robert E.L. Krick, “Defending Lee’s Flank,” in Gary W. Gallagher (ed.), The Antietam Campaign (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 192-222 (hereafter cited as Krick, “Defending Lee’s Flank”); Marion V. Armstrong Jr., Opposing the Second Corps at Antietam: The Fight for the Confederate Left and Center on America’s Bloodiest Day (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2016), 21, 155. In his after-action report, Early incorrectly states that only Johnson’s and D’Aquin’s batteries marched with Ewell’s division to Sharpsburg, but subsequent research by Ezra Carman and others confirmed that Garber’s unit also participated and incurred casualties in the battle (OR, 19, pt. 1, 972; Carman, The Maryland Campaign, vol. 2, 594; Johnson and Anderson, Artillery Hell, 93).

13.  OR, 19, pt. 1, 963; Johnson and Anderson, Artillery Hell, 93; Carman, The Maryland Campaign, 594; Goldsborough, Maryland Line, 262; Jno.J.Hooff to Dear Aunt, September 17th 1862, Ward Family Papers, Book 5, Letter 734, Library of  Congress (hereafter cited as LOC).

14.  Statement of Brig. Gen. J. A. Early, in Alfred R. Courtney CSR, RG 109, NAB; Krick, “Defending Lee’s Flank,” 213.

15.  William D. Brown, Louis E. D’Aquin, William F. Dement, Asher W. Garber, John R. Johnson, Joseph W. Latimer CSR’s, RG 109, NAB; OR, 27, pt. 3, 451.

16.  John R. Johnson CSR, RG 109, NAB; Sibley, F. Ray, ed., Confederate Artillery Organizations (El Dorado Hills, California:  Savas Beatie LLC, 2014), 119; Crute, Units of the Confederate States Army, 395; Jones (ed.), Campbell Brown’s Civil War, 61; OR, 19, pt. 2, 650. Johnson’s Bedford Artillery is not to be confused with the identically named battery formed by Captain Tyler C. Jordan in January, 1861, and later commanded by Captain John Donnell Smith.  This unit served in Longstreet’s corps in the Army of Northern Virginia (Crute, Units of the Confederate States Army, 394-5; Sibley [ed.], Confederate Military Organizations, 30-31).

17.  William D. Brown CSR, RG 109, NAB; Richter, Three Cheers, 14-15; Carman, The Maryland Campaign, 149; Jno.J.Hooff to Dear Aunt, October 2, 1862, Ward Family Papers, Book 5, Letter 743, LOC; John William Ford Hatton, Memoir, John William Ford Hatton, First Maryland Battery C.S.A. 1861 to 1865, John William Ford Hatton Papers, LOC, 349; OR, 19, pt. 2, 653.

18. Heros Von Borcke, Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence, 2 vols., (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1866), vol. 2, 237; OR, 19, pt. 1, 972, 994.

 

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Society of the Army & Navy of the Confederate States of Maryland Collection, 1871-1926. MS 2825, Special Collections Library, Maryland Historical Society.

Toomey, Daniel Carroll.  The Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home and Confederate Veterans’ Organizations in Maryland.  Baltimore:  Toomey Press, 2001.

U.S. War Department.  The War of the Rebellion:  A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 128 vols. Washington, DC:  U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880-1901.

Von Borcke, Heros. Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence. 2 vols. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1866.

Ward Family. Papers.  Library of Congress.


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