Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/120

 114 Southern Historical Society Papers.

This ended the serious fighting on ihe Confederate left. McCIellan's attack had failed, and Jackson and his gallant colleagues held the field. When Sumner was leading Sedgwick to the attack the other two divisions of his corps, under French and Richardson, turned southward, and soon found themselves face to face with the centre of the army along the Bloody Lane. This position was held at first by two of D. H. Hill's brigades and some fragments of the others. A little later R. H. Anderson's division reinforced it. Sumner, when Sedgwick was being pressed, ordered French and Richardson to at- tack the troops in their front in order to make a diversion. After a most gallant resistance Hill was driven from the Bloody Lane. An- derson was involved in the defeat, and it looked as if the enemy was about to pierce the Confederate centre. The noble efforts of many brave men prevented this result. The artillery was managed and served with a skill and gallantry never surpassed. Fragments of commands fought with a splendid determination. As General Long- street says, the brave Colonel J. R. Cooke showed front to the enemy when he no longer had a cartridge. Such instances of courage and gallantry as General Longstreet relates of his own staff did much to encourage our men. The manner in which Longstreet, D. H. Hill, and other ofificers of high rank exposed themselves contributed to the result, and though, as General Longstreet says, some ground was gained and held at this point by the Federals, the attempt to break through the centre failed.

General Longstreet' s article would lead one to infer that this attack of French and Richardson was the leading event of the day on the field north of Sharpsburg. It does not, however, deserve this dis- tinction, having been subsidiary to the efforts made early in the morning further to the Confederate left. Let us see how the battle seemed to the people who were making the attacks up to this time. General Palfrey, a gallant officer of Sedgwick's division, who has given us the best account so far written of this campaign, says: " The right attack spent its force when Sedgwick was repulsed. Up to that time there had been close connection of place and some connection of time between the movements of the First (Hooker's), Twelfth (Mansfield's), and Second (Sumner's) corps, but after that the at- tacks were successive, both in time and place; and good as were some of the troops engaged, and gallant as some of the fighting, the movements of French and Richardson excite but a languid interest, for such use as was made of these troops was not of the kind to drive Hill, Hood, Jackson, Longstreet, and Lee from a strong position,