The Battle of South Mountain: The History of the Civil War Battle that Led the Union and Confederate Armies to Antietam by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2016-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

Hatch

Patrick sent two New York regiments ahead as skirmishers to probe the enemy and elicited but few harmless artillery bursts from the lone rebel guns. The Confederates were in desperate need of reinforcements and they came in the form of some exhausted troops. Brigadier Generals James Kemper and Richard Garnett marched their Virginians to the south spur from 15 miles away. Also starting in Hagerstown that morning was Colonel Joseph Walker’s South Carolina force. These men were on a forced march at the quick step and endured an endless stream of dirt and dust along with high temperatures and little water. Initially, these troops were ordered further south to Fox’s Gap before the order was reversed and they were forced to about face and march back north to the south spur of Turner’s- Gap. Garnett, who wrote “my troops were almost exhausted,” estimated that his men marched 18-20 miles in the heat and without rest before they even engaged in battle. [37] Longstreet was taken aback by their appearance and later noted that the newly arrived troops were “thinned to skeletons.”[38]

These men were an inferior opponent in their condition for the large force of the Union Army. Although the Federal advance was halted because Patrick’s battle line had thinned and separated due to the terrain, the bayonet charge ordered by Phelps resulted in the Yankee soldiers reaching and surmounting the stone wall behind which Garnett’s men were position and forcing the Confederate to withdraw. There was continued fighting on the south spur after darkness had fallen. Some of Garnett’s troops reformed with Colonel Walker’s South Carolina soldiers. This makeshift unit put forth an inspired, and at times wild, effort, but they were unable to drive the Federal troops from the spur. While the Union suffered 180 casualties, Garnett lost nearly 50 percent of his force.

The fighters of the north were so far successful in capturing both the north and south spurs. It was Turner’s Gap itself; however, that was strongly in Confederate possession. John Gibbon’s brigade had been dispatched to Bolivar by General Burnside on the morning of September 14. Confederate General Colquitt held a strong position on the high ground directly to the east of Turner’s Gap. Burnside ordered Gibbon to march along the National Pike and attack directly to the front of Colquitt in order to take the gap. On the north side of the turnpike, Colquitt positioned the 600 men of the 23rd and 28th Georgia regiments while on the other side of the road he had a force of 700 men in the regiments of the 13th Alabama, 27th, and 6th Georgia, for a total of 1,300 troops.

Advancing against the Confederates was the Black Hat Brigade, comprised of Western regiments from Wisconsin and Indiana. They had first seen battle just weeks ago against the Stonewall Brigade at Brawner’s Farm during the Second Bull Run campaign, but they would earn the eternal nickname Iron Brigade for attacking uphill against the Confederates.

The Black Hat Brigade under Gibbon waited

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