ANTIETAM
horses were killed or crippled, and the gunners were just falling back before the advancing Confederate line of battle. To the left of the battery, and stretching off to the woods directly in our front, stood the remnants of a brigade, still stubbornly contesting the advance of the enemy's infantry. Our Regiment moved forward to the battery, the artillerymen at the same time returning to their guns. The Second Massachusetts took position to the right; the Twenty-Seventh Indiana came up on the left.
The Confederate infantry moved steadily across the corn-field, while the decimated brigade in its path fell back, step by step. We were obliged to wait before commencing fire, until they could be moved out of the way. Then we opened fire from one end of the line to the other. The enemy were handicapped by the fact that they were moving diagonally across our front, instead of directly toward us, and our fire was terribly severe, so it was not long before they broke and ran back to the woods. Immediately, however, another line was coming up, this time confronting
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