Existing comment:
I Found the Enemy in Great Force
About 9:30 a.m. the battle started to shift from the north end of the battlefield toward the Sunken Road, 180 yards to your right (south). Two divisions from the Union Second Corps moved across the Mumma and Roulette farm fields in front of you. Initially, over 5,000 soldiers commanded by Gen. William H. French assaulted the Confederate position. French, who was ordered "to press the enemy" with all of his force, locked into a bloody and costly struggle against Confederates positioned in the well worn sunken farm road. Approximately an hour later, Gen. Israel Richardson's division of over 4,000 men moved in to support their comrades.
Gen. Nathan Kimble, whose men advanced across the ground in front of you, remembered that, "Directly on my front, in a narrow road running parallel with my line, ... forming a natural rifle-pit between my line and a large corn-field, I found the enemy in great force... As my line advanced to the crest of the hill, a murderous fire was opened upon it from the entire force in front. My advance farther was checked, and for three hours and thirty minutes the battle raged incessantly, without either party giving way."
Richardson's Division followed French, arriving about an hour later, adding additional forces to the fight.
French's Division led the assault. Moving from left to right in front of you. Seventy percent of his men had never been in a battle. In fact, many had enlisted in the army only two weeks before Antietam.
During the battle this field was planted in corn. The trees along the fence line in front of you were not there and the ground to the right (south) of the fence was open pasture.
Confederates under commanding Gen. D.H. Hill were strongly positioned behind stacked up fence rails in the Sunken Road. |