"You Are Firing Into Our Own Men"

Union Major General Joseph Mansfield led his Twelfth Corps into the East Woods after commanding the corps for only two days. Seeing soldiers from the 10th Maine Regiment firing into the woods, he shouted, "Stop, you are firing into our own men!" Sergeant E. J. Libby later recalled that he and Thomas Wait told Mansfield they were not firing at their own men because those behind the trees had been firing at them from the first. Mansfield looked again and acknowledged, "Yes, yes, you are right," but a bullet struck him in the chest, and he was carried to the rear where he died. The men of the Twelfth Corps fought on across the Cornfield and beyond without their commander, but his death caused some command confusion. The attack was stopped when Confederate Major General D.H. Hill brought up three brigades from the Sunken Road and sent them into the Cornfield and the East Woods. The Twelfth Corps retreated into the East Woods, while the Confederates pulled back to the Sunken Road and behind the Dunker Church. After three hours of fighting, the Cornfield was quiet.

Maryland · United States