September 17.

No rations yet. Nothing of importance occurred until about noon when our rations came — a great event. About 1:30 P.M. we were ordered forward. Capt. King was acting Adjutant, Adjt. Wales being sick. The officers here left their horses, so we suspected trouble somewhere and that our services were needed.

We marched about a mile and lay down in a piece of woods beside a battery of 32-pounders. We lay within two or three rods20 of the guns and they nearly made us deaf when they fired. Some of us said they never expected to hear again. Below us, in the hollow, the infantry were fighting and the rattle of the musketry and the crashing of the shells, as they came breaking through the trees over our heads, was terrible. I never expected to come out alive. We were soon ordered to support the others.

Down the hill we went until we came to a cornfield in which we formed and lay down. The bullets cut the corn to pieces but not a man was hurt.

We were now within a few rods of the Antietam. The rebels lay on one side of the creek and the federals on the other. They fought in this position for over two hours. Soon we were ordered forward farther up the stream towards the bridge which the rebels were disputing us to pass. Over fences, up hill and down we went double quick until we came to a field in front of the bridge, where we formed in line of battle, and stood over half an hour with a raking fire pouring into us and could not return it for fear of shooting our own men in front on the banks of the creek.

The men lay in front of us behind a rail fence, with hardly any woods on their side of the bank. The enemy was strongly posted on the opposite side behind piles of wood and some earthworks which they had thrown up in a hurry. They had also large trees behind which they posted themselves.

Our sharpshooters were behind trees on the hill behind us, and when they saw their ‘man,’ he was sure to fall. They would lie sometimes five minutes with their guns pointing across the creek before they would fire. The field on which we stood was covered with dead and wounded. The wounded they were carrying off as they could. The regiments in front of us suddenly moved off to the right of us and we took their places.