Luke's First Major Battle
After training in Tennessee, Luke engages in some skirmishes and small battles around the area in my new release, Uprooted by War. Here's what he writes to his wife Leah:
We’ve been involved in some successful raids around eastern Tennessee. These are more like skirmishes than battles, and some not even that. I think the purpose is twofold—to destroy
some structures important to the Confederacy and to tie up some of the Rebels, so they won’t be available to help in other battles.
Although we didn’t lose as many men, as we would have in a larger battle, it was still hard to see young soldiers ripped apart. There were casualties on both sides. If the raids we went on are any indication, I think the killing is going to be hard to get off my mind. A man can be alive and yelling one minute, and lying in a river of his own blood the next. It’s hard to hear bullets all around you and see someone beside you hit the ground to grow cold. Even with the enemy, I can’t help but think they too have families, hopes, and dreams.Many of us serve the same God. How can we be killing each other?
Luke's first major battle comes at Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg in Maryland on September 17, 1862. It would become known as the "bloodiest day" in the war. Here's how the battle looked to Luke:
On the morning of September the seventeenth, Luke and the soldiers with him began to hear heavy firing all around at different times. Some of it seemed to be coming from the direction of Sharpsburg. They received orders they were to take a bridge over the lower part of Antietam Creek. Confederates almost surrounded it.
They had four divisions of about 11,000 infantrymen, so they shouldn’t have had much trouble. From the start, however, things didn’t go well. For one thing, the usually jovial General Burnside’s mood turned foul. Rumor had it that McClellan chided him for moving too slowly when given orders, and McClellan had taken Hooker’s corps away from his command. In addition, General Cox seemed
to also be in charge, which meant they had two commanders over their corps—an unusual situation.
Luke soon realized getting the troops across that fifty-foot bridge would not be as easy as it appeared. The nearby bluff hid Confederate troops, who were ready to fire down on the enemy. In addition, the Southern soldiers had about a dozen artillery pieces with them on the higher ground. Luke could hear intense firing from other locations and knew a major battle had begun.
“Men,” an officer announced, “you will have plenty of reinforcements once we take that bridge.”
Yet, the men didn’t move right away. Luke didn’t know what caused the delays. Finally, late in the morning, orders came to charge the bridge. Some of the officers took their men downstream and tried to ford the creek. The swift water made it difficult, and everyone who tried to cross met with gunfire. They were easily picked off in a slaughter. When the artillery shells hit the soldiers, everything exploded, and body parts flew in all directions. It seemed more like a bad dream.
Tommy was one of the first ones hit. He took a direct hit from a shell and fell to pieces before Luke’s eyes. Luke didn’t let it register in his mind. He didn’t have time, because he had to shoot and stay alive himself.
Most of the men Luke knew from Tennessee ended up fighting with a group of soldiers from Pennsylvania. Luke helped tear down a rail fence to use for cover. After a while, he also used the
stone wall, which ran near the creek. The bullets rained down all around. Luke had never encountered anything like it.
Ronald Crowder fought beside Luke and took a bullet in the forehead. Luke saw it and noted how strange the perfectly round hole looked between the man’s eyes before it started gushing blood, but he kept fighting. He would grieve later.
Together with the Fifty-First New York, Luke and the Pennsylvanians began to make headway. They eventually found themselves only twenty-five yards from the enemy. Their officer, Colonel Hartranft, yelled commands until he lost his voice. Around one o’clock, the Confederate fire lessened. A few men ran ahead and found the enemy had indeed retreated.
They’d lost over five hundred men trying to take that bridge. There were bodies all around, and many more lay wounded. Still, they weren’t finished fighting. It took about two hours to get all the men across the bridge. All the blood made it so slick that it became almost impossible to walk across it without sliding down.
Luke tried not to think about it or look down as he almost skated across. They were told they needed to advance, and their orders said to converge on Sharpsburg. Other divisions joined them, as the long lines of soldiers marched toward the town from the south. Luke thought of Shakespeare’s comment that the greater the danger, the greater the courage. That might not be true. He didn’t feel at all courageous right now. He felt sick and depressed. He rubbed the back of his neck as he marched, but the tension didn’t leave.
Suddenly the Ninth Corps experienced the heaviest fighting yet, much worse than the bridge. Men were falling everywhere. Luke shot, reloaded, and shot some more. His rifle became hot
from the firing. He grew numb, but he continued to fight without thinking. Over and over again, he did what he’d drilled to do, what he had to do. The smoke from all the guns became so thick no one could see, and Luke’s eyes burned as if they were on fire too. Would this nightmare never end?
When they’d lost about a fifth of their men, Burnside pulled them back. As he turned to leave, a bullet caught Luke in his upper left arm. He picked himself up and ran to catch up. The blood gushed out of his arm, but he couldn’t stop now. They retreated back to the bridge, but this time they took to the heights on the west bank. Luke sat down, too weak to do much more. Another soldier took a large handkerchief and tied it tightly around his arm to curb the bleeding.
About twelve hours from when it had begun, the battle ended, although random shots still fired now and then. The moans of the dying filled the dusk. There’d been too many wounded and dead men to collect before dark. Night fell and the only men helped off the field were those who could get themselves up. In the morning, the removal of so many bodies would be a daunting task.
The next morning, the two armies awoke across from each other. Between them lay an unimaginable number of bodies. No matter how Luke turned, he saw the same sickening scene. Some cadavers were already beginning to turn dark and smell. Smashed caissons, broken wheels, fallen cannons, and items from the soldiers were strewn everywhere. It looked like a mighty storm had hit. Luke later learned there’d been almost 23,000 Federal casualties and 12,000 Confederate ones. The Union had had nine generals killed. His mind couldn’t conceive it all. One in every four men in the battle had fallen. The battle had ended in a draw with neither side winning. Yet, as the gruesome details sank in, neither side wanted to resume the fighting. What a waste!
(All my profits from my books go to a scholarship fund for missionary children.)
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Perseverance is an admirable trait when used in the right way. Remember the old adage, "If at first you don't succeed try, try again." Thomas Edison put it another way: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
