"The Bigness of War"

General Robert E. Lee gathered his Confederate army on the high ground one-half mile in front of this position. He defended the Boonsboro Road and the Middle Bridge primarily with artillery, placing more than thirty guns on the ridge ahead, while Union artillery lined the ridges behind this position and some of those guns were brought forward to this hilltop. From a far ridgeline, Confederate Lieutenant William Wood of the 19th Virginia Infantry recalled being impressed by the vast scale of the fighting, with enemy batteries of heavy guns planted on every hill for miles in a semicircle, every gun seeming to open every minute, smoke rolling back to the mountains, and shot and shell appearing to fall on every foot of land. At Antietam, Colonel James H. Childs of the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry, temporarily commanding Averell's Brigade, led the brigade across the Middle Bridge onto the Newcomer Farm when an artillery round struck him in the hip and killed two soldiers and four horses. After being wounded, Childs continued attending to his military duties and then asked surgeons to come to him if they were not saving someone whose life could be preserved, because he was in great pain. He died less than an hour later, leaving a widow and three children in Pittsburgh.

Maryland · United States