Glover Chapter 15

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Sweet Taste of Victory

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It was early afternoon of a pleasant Sunday, September 14. On a little knoll near Catoctin Creek, the tanned and weathered Bucktails drank coffee and munched their rations. The division had left camp on the banks of the Monocacy, two miles east of Frederick, at dawn. It had not been a hard march, but the men were enjoying the break. From their little knoll the Bucktails viewed a sight that would make any healthy heart beat faster. In front and behind them were long blue lines of marching soldiers. All over the gently rolling Maryland countryside men were marching toward a mountain.
To many of the Bucktails the view that they had of the mountain itself was unique. Ever since they approached Middletown, where the people had met them with flags and cheers, they had been gazing at this huge bluish bulk looming up ahead of them. Back home one could not get to look at a mountain in this way. The mountains were high enough. They seemed to tower into the sky, but they were all crammed together. The narrow valleys of the Wildcat District provided no such long range view of its pine and hemlock covered hills, as the Bucktails now had of this rugged mass of earth called South Mountain.
A little to the north could be seen a spot in that great earth bulk not quite so high as the rest. That was Turner's

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   Gap. The Ninth Corps under newly appointed General Jesse Reno was already fighting, on the left side of this gap. To the southwest was another little break in the long mountain, Crampton's Gap, where Franklin's Corps had gone. The Bucktails finished their coffee, scoured out their tin cups with a bit of Maryland sand, and took their place in the long blue column marching toward the Battle of South Mountain.[1]
          From Catoctin Creek the National Road led northwest for nearly three miles before the winding ascent up over Turner's Gap began. To the right and left other roads branched off, all meandering up the steep mountainside and all joining the National Road again around the summit of the gap. It was almost as though these side roads had been placed there to help in flanking movements. The gap itself, if defended by a fair-sized force, would be almost unassailable by a frontal attack alone. On the eastern side of Turner's Gap and extending a couple of miles to the north was a spur paralleling the main height. Between the two was a little valley, open country for the most part, patchworked with cultivated fields, pastures, and a few wood lots. The valley gradually rose until near the northern end of the spur only a little depression separated the two ridges. Earlier in the day only a part of the command of Confederate General D. H. Hill was on the mountain. But as the waves of blue rolled in from the east, scattered gray outfits of Hill hurried up the western side of the mountain. Longstreet also was on his way.[2]
          The Bucktails left Catoctin Creek about two o'clock. They had covered only about two miles along the National Road when they discovered that the column was turning off to the right. Old Hagerstown Road they called this one. It ran almost due north. Presently the division was halted near

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a stone church at a cross-roads. In the yard of Mt. Tabor Church Hooker and Meade were having a conference. Even Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, in command of the Union Right Wing, was there. As the brass talked things over in the church yard the men could hear the guns and see the little puffs of white smoke on the side of the wooded ridge south of Turner's Gap. Reno's Corps had been fighting there for quite a while now. The going had been hard, but they had just about pushed the Rebels to the top of the mountain. However, it would be much better for Reno if some Union pressure could be exerted at some other places along the big mountain. That was what the generals were planning in their church yard conference on this Sunday afternoon.[3]
The conference broke up and the column started forward once more. Again it was another fork to the right for Meade's Pennsylvania Reserves, now in advance and on the extreme Federal right. They were nearing the base of the big spur now. Yet another road branched off, this time to the left. Up a narrow ravine which in some way through the years had dug itself into the side of the mountain spur, this road led to the top, twisting and turning with the gulley. Confederate artillery posted on the mountain was throwing a few shells down from the heights. There was Rebel infantry undoubtedly along that wooded spur. By order of no less a figure than that of the corps commander, "Fighting Joe" himself, the Bucktails were thrown out as skirmishers up the brushy, boulder-strewn mountain side. The Second Regiment and two companies of the First were put in right behind the First Rifles. Using the snake-like road as a guide the lines of skirmishers started out. Scrambling up through briars and brambles and around rocks, the Bucktails, now less than three hundred rifles, did not need to send word back that

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they had found the enemy. A Rebel battery off on the left was sending in a hot fire of shot and shell right where the skirmishers were pulling themselves up the side of the spur. The gray picket line fell back, but not without firing quite a few well-aimed shots from behind trees and boulders.[4]
Meade deployed the rest of Seymour's First Brigade on the right of the narrow road up the mountain. To the left of Seymour the Second and Third Brigades were started up the spur. Much farther to the left near the Old Hagerstown Road, Hatch's Division was going forward. That is Hatch's Division minus Gibbon's Brigade. This famous fighting outfit had been withdrawn and sent straight up the National Road into Turner's Gap .[5]
The Southerners who had proven to be such expert marksmen as they fell back up the steep slope were soldiers belonging to the Alabama brigade of General Robert Rodes. It was a better than average brigade, as the Bucktails had found out. On the crest of the spur one of these Alabama regiments was dug in back of some rock outcropping. McNeil halted his sweating men and took a good look at the enemy's position. The Second Regiment and part of the First were now panting up the slope not far behind. It was still going to take a bit of doing to flush those Alabamians from their nature made fortress. McNeil gave some instructions to a couple of his captains just as a blast of Rebel musketry made every Bucktail hug the nearest boulder just a little tighter. Orders received, the captains left their colonel. "Pour your fire on those rocks," ordered Colonel Hugh McNeil. This was not the kind of an order the Bucktails often received. They were accurate marksmen, and were not given to firing at rock piles on the outside chance of hitting a Rebel they could not even see. They always picked their target. "Fire on those rocks, I tell you," thundered the colonel. So the Bucktails fired. Used

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to taking deliberate aim and making it count, the First Rifles lay on their bellies and with their breech-loading Sharps fired upon a South Mountain crag because that was their skipper's orders.
While his men thought they were wasting their ammunition, Hugh McNeil kept a watchful eye on the outcropping. After what must have seemed to him an interminable length of time, he saw what he had been waiting for. Out of the laurel on the other side of the rocks a line of blue soldiers, many of them with a bucktail in his cap, was slowly moving. "Charge," shouted the excited McNeil. And charge the men did, Bucktails, First Regiment, and Second, out from behind whatever cover they had taken. When they saw their friends on the other side of the Alabamians, they knew that they had a leader, a leader who could play it smart. So they charged up the top of the slope and against that formidable pile of rocks at which they had been blindly shooting The gallant Alabamians were caught and those who were not killed had to surrender. The crest of the spur had been won.[6] Hugh McNeil, amateur soldier, had used his head and had saved his men. In a few days he would catch a Confederate bullet and die, but he would live on in the affectionate memory of several hundred Pennsylvania soldiers who, like all the boys who made up that big Army of the Potomac, only asked for good leadership.
The entire line of the First Brigade had by now reached the spur crest and was pushing the Confederates south along the top. Shortly the Second and Third Brigades gained the top on their front. Retiring through the woods, the Rebels fell back to the edge of the open fields which extended across the little valley between the spur and the main mountain. Here more Alabama soldiers were posted behind one of the mountain's many stone walls. With the Fifth Regiment in

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the lead, the Pennsylvanians charged. Confederate soldiers behind stone walls were usually difficult to dislodge. The Northerners had the edge in numbers, and, just as important, they now had a taste of long-yearned-for victory. There was no stopping them. Back through a cornfield, into a pasture, and on up the brushy, rocky slope of South Mountain the Reserves drove the outnumbered Southerners. The main height was game at dusk, and with darkness the battle
petered out. It was the first time the Bucktails had ever had a part in a conclusive victory in a big battle.
Back at Middletown that morning there had not only been flags and cheers for the Northern soldiers; there were also flowers. As the Third Reserves marched through the winding main street of the village a little girl had shyly given one of the men a small bouquet. That night as the September twilight closed in over the top of South Mountain his comrades found the soldier dead. The fatal bullet had torn a huge hole in his jacket. Inside the jacket was the little girl's bouquet.
It was gloomy and a bit chilly at the Bucktails' mountaintop bivouac. The orders to the men were to rest on their arms. No one could be sure that morning would find the defeated Rebels gone. But a story was making the rounds of the regiment that helped to enliven the dark, cheerless evening. While McNeil was waiting to see whether or not the party which he sent around to the rear of the Alabamians would get through he endured some suspensive moments. Presumably to ease his understandable anxiety he grabbed a rifle and started to look for possible targets around the boulders above him. He saw two soldiers in gray, one behind the other, through an opening in the rocks Then, the almost unbelievable story was, the colonel drew a careful bead and fired. Down went both Confederates. The bullet

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had gone through the first man. hit a boulder, and ricocheted on to the second. To stretch credulity further yet, there were those who, after the Alabamians had been driven from their rocky retreat, and the Bucktails advanced to the outcropping, had taken the time to make certain that they found the second Rebel, as well as the first, dead! [7]
The next morning fog had replaced the battle smoke of the evening before. However, it was soon discovered that the enemy had left during the night. There were the dead to bury, blue and gray. The Bucktails had casualties of nearly one-fifth their number: eleven killed, thirty-nine wounded. As always, after a fight it took some time to collect gear and equipment. This time Rebel wounded had to be rounded up and sent back. The battling Bucktails had performed these grim after battle duties before. Now the task was eased by the realization that they had been a part of a clear-cut victory. Although they did not yet know it, Harpers Ferry was about to surrender. Franklin's Sixth Corps had not made it in time but along the rest of the line, Union arms had been, at last, successful. The Ninth Corps, with Reno dead, had gained the top of the mountain. Gibbon's Brigade, at Turner's Gap, had won a sobriquet which would make it the ideal and envy of every other outfit. Hatch's Division, its commander wounded, wit an assist from Ricketts', was also astride the mountain.[8]
McClellan would be severely criticized for his leisurely movements that September, but the rank and file of the Army of the Potomac loved their popular general more than ever that day after South Mountain. As the Bucktails started down the western slope toward Boonsboro they met ambulances going the other way. This sight always saddened their hearts, but there were also details of prisoners being sent back. The groups of men in gray and ragged butternut

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headed for the rear was another sign of the victory in which they had a part. It was a novelty indeed to be following retreating Rebels. It felt good to be on the winning side at last. So who cared if the pace was slow and progress impeded by wagons ahead and traffic going in the opposite direction? They had just won a big fight .[9]
Southwest of Boonsboro was the little village of Sharpsburg, with the meandering Potomac, there flowing from north to south, a little to the west. About the same distance east of Sharpsburg was the much smaller Antietam Creek, which parallels the Potomac at this point, and then empties into it as the larger stream straightens out a bit, and flows east a few miles below Sharpsburg. It was fine, rolling countryside around Sharpsburg, with good farms, where sleek cattle grazed and corn grew tall before the harvest. Here and there were small patches of wood. Little by-ways interlaced the two main roads which crossed at the village. The Boons- boro Road lead on southwest to Shepardstown. Along a ridge mid-way between the two streams the Hagerstown Pike ran almost due north. A ridge ran also on the eastern side of the Antietam, broken here and there, as was the ridge on the western side.[10]
As the Bucktails came down the dusty road from Boonsboro, they knew that the Confederate' retreat was ended. This new fun of chasing Rebels had indeed been short lived. Ahead of them was a little valley between two low ridges. A hollow, it would be called in the Wildcat District. Across that little hollow, Confederate artillery was posted. Beyond they could just make out enough rooftops to know that a village was there. On the near side Union batteries had been carefully placed. Back of the batteries on both sides of the road, Federal troops were going about the business of bivouac. Lee had backed up. That was quite evident, for now

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and then Southern artillerists would send a shell over the creek that had gnawed out the little hollow. The village was Sharpsburg; the creek was called Antietam. Like all of the other little cogs in the Union military machine now arriving, the Bucktails bivouacked. They must soon fight another battle.