ing; total, 12,069. Total loss in the two battles, 14,794. The loss of the rebels in the two battles, as near as can be ascertained from the number of their dead found upon the field, and from other data, will not fall far short of the following estimate: Major Davis, Assistant Inspector-General, who superintended the burial of the dead, reports about 3000 rebels buried upon the field of Antietam by our own troops. Previous to this, however, the rebels had buried many of their own dead upon the distant portion of the battlefield which they occupied after the battle-probably at least 500. The loss of the rebels at South-Mountain cannot be ascertained with accuracy, but as our troops continually drove them from the commencement of the action, and as a much greater number of their dead were seen upon the field than of our own men, it is not unreasonable to suppose that their loss was greater than ours. Estimating their killed at 500, the total rebel killed in the two battles would be 4000. According to the ratio of our own killed and wounded this would make their loss in wounded 18,742. As nearly as can be determined at this time, the number of prisoners taken by our troops in the two battles will, at the lowest estimate, amount to 5000. The full returns will no doubt show a larger number. Of these about 1200 are wounded. This gives the rebel loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 25,542. It will be observed that this does not include their stragglers, the number of whom is said by citizens here to be large. It may be safely concluded, therefore, that the rebel army lost at least 30,000 of their best troops during their campaign in Maryland. From the time our troops first encountered the enemy in Maryland until he was driven back into Virginia, we captured thirteen guns, seven caissons, nine limbers, two field-forges, two caissonbodies, thirty-nine colors and one signal-flag. We have not lost a single gun or color.On the battle-field of Antietam 14,000 small arms were collected, besides the large number carried off by citizens and those distributed on the ground to recruits and other unarmed men, arriving immediately after the battle. At South-Mountain no collection of small arms was made, owing to the haste of the pursuit from that point. Four hundred small arms were taken from the opposite side of the Potomac. GEO. B. MCCLELLAN, Major-General Commanding. GENERAL HALLECK TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN, WASHINGTON, D. C., September 30, 1862. Major-General McClellan, Commanding, etc.: GENERAL: Your report of yesterday, giving the results of the battles of South-Mountain and Antietam, has been received and submitted to the President. They were not only hard-fought battles, but well-earned and decided victories. VOL. V.-Doc. 30 HEADQUARTERS NINTH ARMY CORPS, ANTIETAM CREEK, September 22, 1862. ( GENERAL ORDER No. 12.-It is with the greatest pleasure that the Brigadier-General cominanding the First division, announces to the officers and men of the command, his entire satisfaction with the manner in which they fought in the bloody battles of South-Mountain and Sharpsburgh. No troops in Europe could have done late successes, choosing their own position, and The insolent enemy, flushed with the led by their most talented generals, have been met in desperate contest and hurled from the soil they had invaded. better. We have borne no mean part in these victories, won for the glorious Union and Constitution, without which life is worth nothing, and for the defence of which we are still ready to die. Soldiers! In our rejoicings let us drop a manly tear for those who have fallen by our sides, and for the brave men of our division, whose spirits have fled to new scenes of glory. The names of "South-Mountain" and "Sharpsburgh" will be inscribed on the respective regimental colors. By order of Brigadier-General WILCOX. ROBERT A. HUTCHINGS, Capt. and Ass't Adj't-Gen. HONORABLE MENTION OF TROOPS. HEADQUARTERS NINTH ARMY CORPS, MOUTH OF ANTIETAM CREEK, MD., September 28, 1862. SPECIAL ORDER No. 8. The following officers and enlisted men of this command have been honorably mentioned in the official reports of the engagements of the seventeenth instant, and their names are hereby published, as a testimony to their gallant and meritorious conduct in the field, and for efficiency in their departments. FIRST DIVISION. Captain Robt. H. Hutchins, A.A.G.; Lieuts. Brackett, James W. Romeyn, and Dearborne, aids-de-camp on General Wilcox's personal staff; Colonels B. C. Christ and Thomas Welsh, for the able manner in which they handled their brigades; Capt. Wm. T. Lusk, A. A. A.G. of Colonel Christ's brigade; Lieut. Samuel U. Benjamin, commanding battery E, Second U.S.A.; Lieut. John M. Coffin, and Sergeants Wm. Davis and Newall B. Allen, of Eighth Massachusetts battery. SECOND DIVISION. NEW-YORK "TRIBUNE" NARRATIVE BY GEORGE N. SMALLEY. BATTLE-FIELD OF ANTIETAM, WEDNESDAY EVENING, Sept. 17, 1862. Capt. H. R. Mighels, A. A.G., Capt. C. H. Hale, aid, and Capt. W. C. Ramalle, A.D.C. and ordnance-officer, all of Gen. Sturgis's staff, for personal gallantry; also, Captain U. Slato, A.Q.M., Fierce and desperate battle between two hunCaptain F. Berrier, C.S., and brigade Surgeon F.dred thousand men has raged since daylight, yet Watson, of Gen. Sturgis's staff, for efficiency in their departments; Captain Clark, battery E, Fourth artillery, Lieut. Hinkle, A.D.C. to Gen. Nagle, for activity and gallantry; Surgeon Reber, for devotion to his duty; Orderly Sergeant C. F. Meskle, company E, Fourth artillery, for gallant conduct and able handling of the battery after all the commissioned officers were disabled. THIRD DIVISION. night closes on an uncertain field. It is the greatest fight since Waterloo all over the field contested with an obstinacy equal even to Waterloo. If not wholly a victory to-night, I believe it is the prelude to a victory to-morrow. But what can be foretold of the future of a fight in which from five in the morning till seven at night. the best troops of the continent have fought without decisive result? I have no time for speculation - no time even Lieut.-Col. Kimball, commanding Ninth New-to gather details of the battle-only time to state York volunteers, Major Jardine, commanding its broadest features, then mount and spur for Eighty-Ninth New-York volunteers, and Major Ringold, commanding One Hundred and Third New-York volunteers, for gallant conduct and able management of their commands. KANAWHA DIVISION. New-York. After the brilliant victory near Middletown, Gen. McClellan pushed forward his army rapidly, and reached Keedysville with three corps on Monday night. That march has already been described. On the day following the two armies busy at intervals; once in the morning opening with spirit, and continuing for half an hour with vigor, till the rebel battery, as usual, was silenced. Lieuts. R. P. Kennedy, A.A.A. G., and J. Bots-faced each other idly until night. Artillery was ford, A.A.D.C., of Col. Scammon's staff, for coolness and efficiency; Colonels George Crook, commanding Second brigade, and Hugh Ewing, commanding First brigade, for energy and skilful bravery; Lieuts. Furbay and Duffield, Thirtieth regiment volunteers, acting as aids to Col. Ewing, and who were both killed; Lieut.-Colonel A. H. Coleman, commanding Eleventh regiment volunteers, killed while gallantly leading his men; Lieut.-Col. J. D. Hines, Twelfth regiment volunteers; Color-Sergeants White and Carter, who were both killed, and Corporals Howett, of company D, and Buchanan, of company C, of the same regiments, for rescuing their regimental colors, when the color-sergeants were shot. The General commanding takes this opportunity to mention the gallant and meritorious conduct of Captain G. M. Bascom, A.A.G.; Lieuts. S. L. Christie, J. W. Conine, and The. Cox, aidsde-camp on his personal staff; brigade Surgeon W. W. Holmes, for his thorough attention to the duties of the medical department, in the prompt organization of hospitals, and systematic provision for the wounded; Surgeon Cutter, late medical director on General Reno's staff, for energetic attention during the action to the disposal of the wounded in the field; also, to thank Captain E. P. Fitch, A.Q.M. and acting commissary of subsistence, for unwearied labor, by night as well as by day, in bringing forward supplies to the command under circumstances of great difficulty; also, to thank Mr. F. Cuthbert, a civilian, and employed in the quartermaster's department, for gallantry displayed as a volunteer in carrying despatches and orders upon the field. The ability and gallantry displayed by the division commanders has already been noticed, in the official report of the engagement. J. D. Cox, McClellan was on the hill where Benjamin's battery was stationed, and found himself suddenly under a rather heavy fire. It was still uncertain whether the rebels were retreating or reenforcing. Their batteries would remain in position in either case, and as they had withdrawn nearly all their troops from view, there was only the doubtful indication of columns of dust to the rear. On the evening of Tuesday, Hooker was ordered to cross the Antietam Creek with his corps, and feeling the left of the enemy, to be ready to attack next morning. During the day of appar ent inactivity, McClellan, it may be supposed, had been maturing his plan of battle, of which Hooker's movement was one development. The position on either side was peculiar. When Richardson advanced on Monday he found the enemy deployed and displayed in force on a crescent-shaped ridge, the outline of which followed more or less exactly the course of Antietam Creek. Their lines were then forming, and the revelation of force in front of the ground which they really intended to hold, was probably meant to delay our attack until their arrangements to receive it were complete. During that day they kept their troops exposed and did not move them even to avoid the artilleryfire, which must have been occasionally annoying. Next morning the lines and columns which had darkened corn-fields and hill-crests had been withdrawn. Broken and wooded ground behind the sheltering hills concealed the rebel masses. What from our front looked like only a narrow summit fringed with woods was a broad tableland of forest and ravine; cover for troops every where, nowhere easy access for an enemy. The in person. They came at last to an open grasssown field inclosed on two sides with woods, protected on the right by a hill, and entered through a corn-field in the rear. Skirmishers penetrating these woods were instantly met by rebel shots, but held their ground, and as soon as supported, advanced and cleared the timber. Beyond, on the left and in front, volleys of musketry opened heavily, and a battle seemed to have begun a little sooner than it was expected. smoothly sloping surface in front and the sweep-ward compactly, Hooker as usual reconnoitring ing crescent of slowly mingling lines was all a delusion. It was all a rebel stronghold beyond. Under the base of these hills runs the deep stream called Antietam Creek, fordable only at distant points. Three bridges cross it, one on the Hagerstown road, one on the Sharpsburgh pike, one to the left in a deep recess of steeply falling hills. Hooker passed the first to reach the ford by which he crossed, and it was held by Pleasanton with a reserve of cavalry during the battle. The second was close under the rebel General Hooker formed his lines with precision centre, and no way important to yesterday's fight. and without hesitation. Ricketts's division went At the third, Burnside attacked and finally cross-into the woods on the left in force. Meade with ed. Between the first and third lay most of the the Pennsylvania reserves formed in the centre. battle-lines. They stretched four miles from right Doubleday was sent out on the right, planting to left. his guns on the hill, and opening at once on a Unaided attack in front was impossible. Mc- rebel battery that began to enfilade the central Clellan's forces lay behind low, disconnected line. It was already dark, and the rebel position ridges in front of the rebel summits, all or nearly could only be discovered by the flashes of their all unwooded. They gave some cover for artil-guns. They pushed forward boldly on the lery, and guns were therefore massed on the right after losing ground on the other flank, but centre. The enemy had the Shepherdstown road made no attempt to regain their hold on the and the Hagerstown and Williamsport road both woods. The fight flashed, and glimmered, and open to him in rear for retreat. Along one or faded, and finally went out in the dark. the other, if beaten, he must fly. This among other reasons determined, perhaps, the plan of battle which McClellan finally resolved on. Hooker had found out what he wanted to know. When the firing ceased, the hostile lines lay close to each other-their pickets so near that six rebels were captured during the night. It was inevitable that the fight should recommence at daylight. Neither side had suffered considerable loss; it was a skirmish, not a battle. "We are through for to-night, gentlemen," remarked the General, "but to-morrow we fight the battle that will decide the fate of the republic." "We have no troops there. The rebels are shooting each other. It is Fair Oaks over again." So every body lay down again, but all the night through there were frequent alarms. The plan was generally as follows: Hooker was to cross on the right, establish himself on the enemy's left if possible, flanking his position, and to open the fight. Sumner, Franklin, and Mansfield were to send their forces also to the right, cooperating with and sustaining Hooker's attack while advancing also nearer the centre. The heavy work in the centre was left mostly to Not long after the firing ceased, it sprang up the batteries, Porter massing his infantry sup- again on the left. General Hooker, who had ports in the hollows. On the left, Burnside was taken his headquarters in a barn which had to carry the bridge already referred to, advancing been nearly the focus of the rebel artillery, was then by a road which enters the pike at Sharps-out at once. First came rapid and unusually freburgh, turning at once the rebel flank and de- quent picket-shots, then several heavy volleys. stroying his line of retreat. Porter and Sykes The General listened a moment and smiled grimwere held in reserve. It is obvious that the com-ly. plete success of a plan contemplating widely divergent movements of separate corps, must largely depend on accurate timing that the attacks should be simultaneous and not successive. McClellan had been informed of the night's Hooker moved Tuesday afternoon at four, cross-work, and of the certainties awaiting the dawn. ing the creek at a ford above the bridge and well Sumner was ordered to move his corps at once, to the right, without opposition. Fronting south- and was expected to be on the ground at daywest, his line advanced not quite on the rebel light. From the extent of the rebel lines deflank but overlapping and threatening it. Turn-veloped in the evening, it was plain that they had ing off from the road after passing the stream, he gathered their whole army behind the heights and sent forward cavalry skirmishers straight into the were waiting for the shock. woods and over the fields beyond. Rebel pickets withdrew slowly before them, firing scattering and harmless shots. Turning again to the left, the cavalry went down on the rebel flank, coming suddenly close to a battery which met them with unexpected grape and canister. It being the nature of cavalry to retire before batteries, this company loyally followed the law of its being, and came swiftly back without pursuit. Artillery was sent to the front, infantry was rapidly deployed, and skirmishers went out in front and on either flank. The corps moved for The battle began with the dawn. Morning found both armies just as they had slept, almost close enough to look into each other's eyes. The left of Meade's reserves and the right of Ricketts's line became engaged at nearly the same moment, one with artillery, the other with infantry. A battery was almost immediately pushed forward beyond the central woods, over a ploughed field near the top of the slope where the corn-field began. On this open field, in the corn beyond, and in the woods which stretched forward into the broad fields like a promontory into the ocean, were the hardest and deadliest struggles of the day. For half an hour after the battle had grown to its full strength, the line of fire swayed neither way. Hooker's men were fully up to their work. They saw their General every where in front, never away from the fire, and all the troops believed in their commander, and fought with a will. Two thirds of them were the same men who under McDowell had broken at Manassas. The half-hour passed, the rebels began to give way a little-only a little, but at the first indication of a receding fire, Forward, was the word, and on went the line with a cheer and a rush. Back across the corn-field, leaving dead and wounded behind them, over the fence, and across the road, and then back again into the dark woods which closed around them went the retreating rebels. Meade and his Pennsylvanians followed hard and fast- followed till they came within easy range of the woods, among which they saw their beaten enemy disappearing-followed still, with another cheer, and flung themselves against the cover. But out of those gloomy woods came suddenly and heavily terrible volleys-volleys which smote, and bent, and broke in a moment that eager front, and hurled them swiftly back for half the distance they had won. Not swiftly, nor in panic, any further. Closing up their shattered lines, they came slowly away; a regiment where a brigade had been; hardly a brigade where a whole division had been victorious. They had met at the woods the first volleys of musketry from fresh troops had met them and returned them till their line had yielded and gone down before the weight of fire, and till their ammunition was exhausted. In ten minutes the fortune of the day seemed to have changed; it was the rebels now who were advancing, pouring out of the woods in endless lines, sweeping through the corn-field from which their comrades had just fled. Hooker sent in his nearest brigade to meet them, but it could not do the work. He called for another. There was nothing close enough, unless he took it from his right. His right might be in danger if it was weakened, but his centre was already threatened with annihilation. Not hesitating one moment, he sent to Doubleday : "Give me your best brigade instantly." The best brigade came down the hill to the right on the run, went through the timber in front through a storm of shot and bursting shell and crashing limbs, over the open field beyond and straight into the corn-field, passing as they went the fragments of three brigades shattered by the rebel fire and streaming to the rear. They passed by Hooker, whose eyes lighted as he saw these veteran troops, led by a soldier whom he knew he could trust. "I think they will hold it," he said. General Hartsuff took his troops very steadily, but, now that they were under fire, not hurriedly, up the hill from which the corn-field begins to descend, and formed them on the crest. Not a man who was not in full view-not one who bent before the storm. Firing at first in volleys, they fired then at will with wonderful rapidity and effect. The whole line crowned the hill and stood out darkly against the sky, but lighted and shrouded ever in flame and smoke. They were the Twelfth and Thirteenth Massachusetts and another regiment which I cannot rememberold troops all of them. There for half an hour they held the ridge, unyielding in purpose, exhaustless in courage. There were gaps in the line, but it nowhere bent. Their General was severely wounded early in the fight, but they fought on. Their supports did not come-they determined to win without them. They began to go down the hill and into the corn; they did not stop to think that their ammunition was nearly gone; they were there to win that field, and they won it. The rebel line for the second time fled through the corn and into the woods. I cannot tell how few of Hartsuff's brigade were left when the work was done, but it was done. There was no more gallant, determined, heroic fighting in all this desperate day. General Hartsuff is very severely wounded, but I do not believe he counts his success too dearly purchased. The crisis of the fight at this point had arrived. Ricketts's division, vainly endeavoring to advance and exhausted by the effort, had fallen back. Part of Mansfield's corps was ordered in to their relief, but Mansfield's troops came back again, and their General was mortally wounded. The left nevertheless was too extended to be turned, and too strong to be broken. Ricketts sent word he could not advance, but could hold his ground. Doubleday had kept his guns at work on the right, and had finally silenced a rebel battery that for half an hour had poured in a galling enfilading fire along Hooker's central line. There were woods in front of Doubleday's hill which the rebels held, but so long as those guns pointed toward them they did not care to attack. With his left, then, able to take care of itself, with his right impregnable, with two brigades of Mansfield still fresh and coming rapidly up, and with his centre a second time victorious, Gen. Hooker determined to advance. Orders were sent to Crawford and Gordon—the two Mansfield brigades-to move forward at once, the batteries in the centre were ordered to advance, the whole line was called on, and the General himself went forward. To the right of the corn-field and beyond it was a point of woods. Once carried and firmly held, it was the key of the position. Hooker determined to take it. He rode out in front of his furthest troops on a hill to examine the ground for a battery. At the top he dismounted and went forward on foot, completed his reconnoissance, returned, and remounted. The musketry-fire from the point of woods was all the while extremely hot. As he put his foot in the stirrup a fresh volley of rifle-bullets came whizzing by. The tall, soldierly figure of the General, the white horse which he rode, the elevated place where he was, all made him a most dangerously conspicuous mark. So he had been all day, riding often without a staff-officer or an orderly near him--all sent off on urgent duty-visible every where on the field. The rebel bullets had followed him all day, but they had not hit him, and he would not regard them. Remounting on this hill, he had not ridden five steps when he was struck in the foot by a ball. Three men were shot down at the same moment by his side. The air was alive with bullets. He kept on his horse a few minutes, though the wound was severe and excessively painful, and would not dismount till he had given his last order to advance. He was himself in the very front. Swaying unsteadily on his horse, he turned in his seat to look about him. "There is a regiment to the right. Order it forward! Crawford and Gordon are coming up. Tell them to carry those woods and hold them-and it is our fight!" ing with the fire in his eyes and his martial air, as he hurried on to where the bullets were thickest. Sedgwick's division was in advance, moving forward to support Crawford and Gordon. Rebel reënforcements were approaching also, and the struggle for the roads was again to be renewed. Sumner sent forward two divisions-Richardson and French-on the left. Sedgwick, moving in column of divisions through the woods in rear, deployed and advanced in line over the corn-field. There was a broad interval between him and the nearest division, and he saw that if the rebel line were complete, his own division was in immediate danger of being flanked. But his orders were to advance, and those are the orders which a soldier and Sedgwick is every inch a soldier-loves best to hear. To extend his own front as far as possible, he ordered the Thirty-fourth New-York to move by the left flank. The manoeuvre was attempted under a fire of the greatest intensity, and the regIt was found that the bullet had passed com- iment broke. At the same moment the enemy, pletely through his foot. The surgeon who ex-perceiving their advantage, came round on that amined it on the spot could give no opinion flank. Crawford was obliged to give way on the whether bones were broken, but it was afterward right, and his troops pouring in confusion through ascertained that though grazed they were not the ranks of Sedgwick's advance brigade, threw it fractured. Of course the severity of the wound into disorder and back on the second and third made it impossible for him to keep the field, lines. The enemy advanced, their fire increaswhich he believed already won, so far as it be- ing. longed to him to win it. It was nine o'clock. Gen. Sedgwick was three times wounded, in The fight had been furious since five. A large the shoulder, leg, and wrist, but he persisted in part of his command was broken, but with his remaining on the field so long as there was a right still untouched, and with Crawford's and chance of saving it. His Adjutant-General, Major Gordon's brigades just up; above all, with the | Sedgwick, bravely rallying and trying to re-form advance of the whole central line, which the men the troops, was shot through the body, the bullet had heard ordered with cheers, and with a regi-lodging in the spine, and fell from his horse. Sement already on the edge of the woods he wanted, he might well leave the field, thinking the battle was won that his battle was won, for I am writing only about the attack on the rebel left. I see no reason why I should disguise my admiration of Gen. Hooker's bravery and soldierly ability. Remaining nearly all the morning on the right, I could not help seeing the sagacity and promptness of his movements, how completely his troops were kept in hand, how devotedly they trusted him, how keen was his insight into the battle, how every opportunity was seized and every reverse was checked and turned into another success. I say this the more unreservedly, because I have no personal relation whatever with him, never saw him till the day before the fight, and don't like his politics or opinions in general. But what are politics in such a battle? Half vere as the wound is, it is probably not mortal. The Fifteenth Massachusetts went into action with seventeen officers and nearly six hundred men. Nine officers were killed or wounded, and some of the latter are prisoners. Capt. Simons, Capt. Saunders of the sharp-shooters, Lieut. Derby, and Lieut. Berry are killed. Capt. Bartlett and Capt. Jocelyn, Lieut. Spurr, Lieut. Gale, and Lieut. Bradley are wounded. One hundred and thirty-four men were the only remains that could be collected of this splendid regiment. Gen. Sumner arrived just as Hooker was leaving, Gen. Dana was wounded. Gen. Howard, who and assumed command. Crawford and Gordon took command of the division after Gen. Sedghad gone into the woods, and were holding them wick was disabled, exerted himself to restore stoutly against heavy odds. As I rode over order; but it could not be done there. toward the left I met Sumner at the head of his Sumner ordered the line to be re-formed. The column, advancing rapidly through the timber, test was too severe for volunteer troops under opposite where Crawford was fighting. The vet- such a fire. Sumner himself attempted to arrest eran General was riding alone in the forest, far the disorder, but to little purpose. Lieut.-Col. ahead of his leading brigade, his hat off, his gray Revere and Capt. Audenried of his staff were hair and beard and moustache strangely contrast-wounded severely, but not dangerously. It was |