Regimentals

Saturday, January 11, 2020

One minute in the Bloody Cornfield at Antietam


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"Rifles are shot to pieces in the hands of the soldiers, canteens and haversacks are riddled by bullets, the dead and wounded go down in scores. The smoke and fog lift; and almost at our feet, concealed in a hollow behind a demolished fence, lies a rebel brigade pouring into our ranks the most deadly fire of the war. What there are left of us open on them with a cheer; and the next day, the burial parties put up a board in front of the position held by the Twelfth [Massachusetts] with the following inscription: ‘In this trench lie buried the colonel, the major, six line officers, and one hundred and forty men of the [13th] Georgia Regiment.”

-- Benjamin F. Cook of the 12th Mass describing the Sept. 17, 1862, advance of Georgians in the Bloody Cornfield. From The History of the Twelfth Massachusetts Volunteers, the Webster Regiment, published in 1882.

1 comment:

  1. I have visited the Antietam National Battlefield Park on 2 occasions. I have stood where all this happened and tried to visualize what horrid carnage was there so long ago. It truly must have been just plain awful. The area is quiet now. Nothing there to show what once was, with so many lives lost. Places such as this, and many more, are Hallowed Ground.

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