Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/399

 Notes on the Battle of Sharpsburg. 393

Notes by General H. L. Benning on Battle of Sharpsburg.

SHARPSBURG, ijth September, 1862.

My report of this battle you have in print,* I suppose, but I know a few facts which I wish to state in justice to General Toombs.

Toombs was nominally in command of a division, consisting of his brigade, Anderson's brigade, and Dray ton's brigade; but at Sharps- burg he had only one regiment of Drayton's brigade, the Fiftieth Georgia; five companies of the Eleventh Georgia, of Anderson's brigade, and his own brigade. The rest of the division was imme- diately under General Jones. Two regiments of Toombs's brigade, Fifteenth and Seventeenth, and the five companies of Eleventh Geor- gia, had been sent off after the enemy's cavalry that had escaped from Harpers Ferry, so he was reduced to the Second and Twentieth Georgia under my command, the former having about 120 or 130 men and officers, and the latter about 220 or 230, and to Kearse's regiment, Fiftieth Georgia, consisting of from 130 to 150. Besides, he had Richardson's battery, four guns.

The Second and Twentieth held the bridge until i o'clock P. M. The Fiftieth on their right left its position. The enemy about i o'clock advanced a very long line, with its centre about opposite the bridge and the flanks far beyond ours. These flanks, having nothing to oppose them in their front, waded the creek, which, though wide, was shallow, and came around to envelop the Second and Twentieth. I then ordered them back. In fact, their ammunition was exhausted.

Lieutenant McCrimmon, of the Twentieth Georgia, with sixteen men, not all under him, was captured at the mouth of the bridge, the enemy who had waded the creek above coming in behind them to their surprise, while occupied with the enemy in front at the other end of the bridge. When the seventeen men surrendered, the enemy enraged were about to massacre them, saying they had fought too long against such odds. A colonel rode upon the bridge and remon- strated with the men and mollified them, and then sent the prisoners under guard to General Burnside's headquarters. As they marched off, this colonel rode down to the water's edge to let his horse drink; whilst there a shell from one of our guns burst near him and killed him.

About the same time the other two regiments and the five com-


 * It was never printed and cannot be found. E. P. A.