The Battle of Antictam. 37
declined to publish his letters, but they were published in the Rich- mond Times of February 10, 1895. The reports of this battle are given in War Records, Vol. XIX, Part i. The reader may exam- ine them for himself.
The map in the War Records (plate No. xxix), which is followed by General Palfrey, is erroneous in giving the Confederate second position too far to the rear on the left. The line should be drawn about half-way between the first position and that there given as the second position. (The map in Baffles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume II, page 636, is more accurate.) None of the enemy ever came beyond the straw-stacks mentioned above, on the left, and very few of them came even so far. Moreover, they were all driven from this position and beyond the turnpike in the attack of McLaws* brigades, Early and Grigsby on Sedgwick, after whose defeat, I might say rout, there was no more fighting on that portion of the line. Grigsby's handful of men men of Jackson's old division, who had been through the Valley campaign, the Seven Days' bat- tles around Richmond, Cedar Mountain and Second Manassas, and had suffered severely in all, and who had already fought for several hours that morning, would never have been sent to the rear to recruit if there had been further need for them in front, but, as General Gordon said of his corps at Appomattox, they had been "fought to a frazzle. ' '
General J. R. Jones, commanding Jackson's old division on the morning of September 17, reports this division of four brigades as "not numbering over 1,600 men at the beginning of the fight," and its casualties as "about 700 killed and wounded" {War Records, Volume XIX, Part i, page 1008). This is a very heavy loss nearly 50 per cent., of which Taliaferro's and Starke's brigades suffered most when Starke led them forward to his death and they were ex- posed to both a front and a flank fire. Dr. Guild, chief surgeon of the army, reports "the killed and wounded of the whole army at 10,291 " ( War Records, Volume XIX, Part i, page 813), or almost 30 per cent. This was one of the greatest battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, and there was glory enough for all.
JAMES M. GARNETT.
BATTLE OF ANTIETAM.
The recent discussions of the battle of Antietam, Sharpsburg, as we call it, in the columns of The Sun, have been of great interest to
