Poughkeepsie Eagle June 9, 1863
Head Quarters Purnell Md. Vols.
Camp Monocacy, Md. June 5, 1863
Dear Eagle:
As it is so long since I last wrote that a letter may not be acceptable, but I’ll bother you any way.
On Thursday to relieve the monotony of camp life I concluded to visit the old battleground of Antietam; so leaving the City Hotel early in the morning I started for that memorable spot. The day was pleasant and the scenery fine. The road winds through the most beautiful portion of Maryland. We pass South Mountain with different feelings from those that animated our breasts on our first passage. South Mountain Gap has been described by several writers and as we were not actively engaged I will not trouble your readers with a repetition of its beauties. If the artist wishes a view of American scenery the wild gorges, narrow ravines, and precipitous sides of this range of mountains, which I believe are a branch of the Cumberland would furnish him with a subject, which, faithfully recreated, could not be surpassed.
We arrived at Boonsboro about 8 o’clock A.M. and took breakfast at the United States Hotel, where "mine host" did his best to accommodate us. While the horse was being fed we took a stroll through the village. Several of the Federal troops were buried in the churchyard in this place with handsome headboards, on which all the information necessary for friends is inscribed. After stopping here about an hour we started for the battlefield, passing through the village of Keedysville. It was at this place I stopped after I received my wound, and I called at my former quarters to see the folks, who appeared very glad to see me. We drove about 3 or 4 miles further and there turned to the right on a byroad leading to the Dunkard’s church at which place was the heaviest fighting on the right, and near which I was shot. This byroad was used by the "Copperheads" both in going and retreating from the field, and is still literally paved with their equipments. In this road the Irish Brigade made their famous charge killing the "Greybacks" by scores. I was informed by the landlord of the United States Hotel, that they lay in rows and their blood covered the ground. The wall bears marks of the conflicts. But the old church shows where the heaviest fighting took place. One shell went entirely through it leaving a hole at either end through which a large man might crawl with ease. It is also perforated with bullets and solid shot in many places. How it was left standing is a great wonder. The trees surrounding it, for it is in a piece of woods, are nearly all injured more or less. Nearly every one shows the scars of the contest. Many of them have been broken off at the tops, while the ground is still strewn with branches that were shot off in the fight.
I visited the corn field out of which our forces were driven three times before they could hold possession of it. The spot is altered a great deal, the fences being rebuilt and nearly the whole of the field being ploughed up. Even graves, of which several hundred are in the field, have not been secure from the intrusion of the plough. I could hardly recognize the place in which we stood except by going back to the home, and then marching in the direction that never by me to be forgotten 17th of September. In the barn yard where I lost my horse on the other side of the road were three graves of the 29th New York Militia, one of which bore the inscription, Irving B. Pollock on the headboard. I recollect but one of the other names viz. Ploss. The wood on the right of the corn fields look familiar, the trees shattered and torn by the stroke of the shell or that of the bullet. Very few of the trees in the corn field have any foliage, most being torn asunder or broken off at the top and standing like blasted monuments to mark the spot where "brother raised his hand against brother, and father against son" in deadly conflict. I saw in one grave 100 rebels buried in this place, and the lady of the house said eight thousand soldiers, two thirds of which were Confederates, were buried on the farm. Her house was used for a hospital, the family being away in Pennsylvania, and everything it contained being ruined. The family returned on Friday after the battle, and where they left a home of comfort and ease, found it full of wounded and dying soldiers.
I could not help contrasting the scene of the 17th of September and that of yesterday. Nothing to disturb the harmony of nature. The contrast between the whistle of the partridge, the ccoing of the dove, or the stroke of the woodman’s axe, and the sound of the shell, the wheugh of the minie ball, the whistle of the bullet, the rush of cannon ball mingled with the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, and the yell of the yet living combatant was great; too great to be imagined by those who have never experienced it.
The ground is well culled over for relics, and a few bullets and pieces of shell were all I could find. My companion, however, found in the woods the lower jaw of a rebel soldier which he has in his possession.
Our time being limited we did not visit Sharpsburg but deferred that till another time; so getting in our buggy we drove to camp well pleased with our trip and determined if possible to repeat it.
Yours &c,
S.H.B. Jr.