Antietam, Md. Col. John S. Crocker, Lt. Col. Benjamin C. Butler, and adjutant of 93d New York Volunteers (Waters Whipple Braman; see comment by , below) photographed by Alexander Gardner.
Library of Congress image.
Friday, September 21, 2012
September 21—Left here at 6 P.M., marched nine miles, and halted for dinner. Our company being rear guard of the brigade, we had a hard time of it, as the roads are very muddy and we had to keep up all the stragglers. We reached Wakefield at 5 A.M., and laid in the woods and mud for the night.
SEPTEMBER 21ST—We have one day of gloom. It is said that our army has retreated back into Virginia.
93rd N.Y. Infantry at Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, Antietam, Md. Sept., 1862. (U.S. Army Heritage Collections Online)
September 21st. This morning the Second corps fell in at an early hour and marched to Harper’s Ferry, encamping on Bolivar Heights. The march was very pleasant, the roads being good, and the weather superb. The whole army is in camp in the vicinity, and every hill and valley within sight is dotted over with canvas villages. Harper’s Ferry is one of the picturesque spots in America, delightfully situated in the gap of the Blue Ridge mountains. The Shenandoah here unites with the Potomac, and together they flow between the range of mountains on the way to the deep blue sea. Away off to the southwest the Blue Ridge mountains, with their thickly wooded slopes, form an impenetrable wall on the easterly side of the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah, and to the equally fertile Louden valley on the opposite side of the range.
The town lays in the hollow, at the foot of the heights, and is now of no importance, except as the place where the celebrated John Brown and his followers immortalized themselves. The old blackened walls of the government arsenals, destroyed at the very beginning of the war, stand like grim skeletons in their hideousness, and with the exception of a few straggling huts, is all there is of the place.
September 21.—Munfordsville, Ky., was to-day occupied by a force of Union troops under Col. Edward McCook. They drove out a large force of rebel cavalry, without any Union loss. The rebels lost a colonel and a lieutenant-colonel.
—The United States ram Queen of the West, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Lippincott, accompanied by two transports laden with troops, while reconnoitring on the Mississippi River, in the vicinity of Bolivar, Miss., were attacked by a party of rebel guerrillas, who opened fire upon them with grape, canister, and musketry. The Queen of the West returned the fire, which was kept up for half an hour, the rebels pursuing the boats for two miles. Three men were killed and one man wounded on the ram and transports in this affair.
—Cassville, Mo., occupied by about one hundred rebel troops, was this day attacked by a detachment of the First Arkansas cavalry, under the command of Captain Gilstray, and captured, completely routing the rebel force, killing and wounding a number, and taking nineteen prisoners. They also captured a number of horses and fire-arms.
—The officers of the United States Sanitary Commission received at New-York a telegraphic despatch from San Francisco, California, announcing that the citizens of that city had contributed one hundred thousand dollars for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers and seamen of the National army and navy.
—The Union force at Shepherdsville, Ky., under Colonel Granger, commanding the post, were attacked by a body of rebel cavalry; but, after a short skirmish, the rebels were repulsed, with a loss of five killed and twenty-eight taken prisoners.
