the rugged by-paths that had been just traversed, to find D.H.  Hill and Longstreet in a hand-to-hand combat, defending the routes on South Mountain that led down on us by the mountain crests.  The next day orders for storming the works by the troops beyond the river were given.  McLaws and Walker had secured their position, and now were in readiness to assist Jackson.  All the batteries were opened on Bolivar Heights, and from the three sides the artillery duel raged furiously for a time, while Jackson’s infantry was pushed to the front and captured the works there.  Soon thereafter the white flag was waving over Harper’s Ferry, “the citadel had fallen.”  In the capitulation eleven thousand prisoners, seventy-two pieces of artillery, twelve thousand stands of small arms, horses, wagons, munitions, and supplies in abundance passed into the hands of the Confederates.  Jackson’s troops fairly swam in the delicacies, provisions, and “drinkables” constituting a part of the spoils taken, while Kershaw’s and all of McLaw’s and Walker’s troops, who had done the hardest of the fighting, got none.  Our men complained bitterly of this seeming injustice.  It took all day to finish the capitulation, paroling prisoners, and dividing out the supplies; but we had but little time to rest, for Lee’s Army was now in a critical condition.  McClellan, having by accident captured Lee’s orders specifying the routes to be taken by all the troops after the fall of Harper’s Ferry, knew exactly where and when to strike.  The Southern Army was at this time woefully divided, a part being between the Potomac and the Shenandoah, Jackson with three divisions across the Potomac in Virginia, McLaws with his own and a part of Anderson’s Division on the heights of Maryland, with the enemy five miles in his rear at Crompton Pass cutting him off from retreat in that direction.  Lee, with the rest of his army and reserve trains, was near Hagerstown.

On the 16th we descended the mountain, crossed the Potomac, fell in the rear of Jackson’s moving army, and marched up the Potomac some distance, recrossed into Maryland, on our hunt for Lee and his army.  The sun poured down its blistering rays with intense fierceness upon the already fatigued and fagged soldiers, while the dust along the pikes, that wound over and around the numerous hills, was almost stifling.  We bivouaced for the night on the roadside, ten miles from Antietam Creek, where Lee was at the time concentrating his army, and where on the next day was to be fought the most stubbornly contested and bloody battle of modern times, if we take in consideration the number of troops engaged, its duration, and its casualties.  After three days of incessant marching and fighting over mountain heights, rugged gorges, wading rivers—­all on the shortest of rations, many of the men were content to fall upon the bare ground and snatch a few moments of rest without the time and trouble of a supper.

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