but the enemy was bringing up fresh columns and over lapping our left, and we were forced back. The enemy seemed to be overcoming us until our left was reinforced by troops ordered from our right. They engaged the enemy and drove them back of the Dunker church, and our lines were re-established." The Twenty-first, commanded by Capt. F. P. Miller, who was killed during the battle, along with the Twenty-first Georgia, was posted by Colonel Walker, commanding Trimble’s brigade, behind a stone fence, and, says General Early, "concentrating their fire upon a part of the enemy’s line in front of the latter [regiment], succeeded in breaking it. " Colonel Thruston, of the Third North Carolina, gives this picture of the part of Ripley s brigade in the action on the left:
The house being passed, the Third North Carolina infantry mounted over the fence and through the orchard, when the order was given to change direction to the left to meet the pressure upon General Jackson, near what is known as the Dunker church. This change of front was admirable, though executed under heavy fire of infantry and artillery. Owing to this change, our line of battle was 500 yards further to the left than it was in the early morning, and brought us in close connection with the troops of the right, and in the deadly embrace of the enemy. I use the word embrace in its fullest meaning. Here Colonel DeRosset fell, severely wounded and permanently disabled, Captain Thruston taking command at once. It was now about 7:30 a. m. Jackson s troops were in the woods around, and west of the Dunker church and north of the Sharpsburg-Hagerstown turnpike. As we came up he advanced and drove the enemy back across a cornfield and into a piece of woods east and north of the church. Here the enemy, being reinforced by Mansfield s corps, returned to the assault, and the fighting became desperate for an hour. The two weak divisions of Jackson and one brigade of D. H. Hill fought and held in check the six[1] divisions of Hooker and Mansfield; so tenaciously did their brave troops cling to the earth, that when reinforced by Hood and two
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- ↑ There were only five present.
