behind AotW

This is Captain John Almy Tompkins who commanded Battery A of the First Rhode Island Light Artillery in the Maryland Campaign of September 1862. This photograph accompanied a display of his uniform frock coat and accouterments at the Antietam National Battlefield Museum, Sharpsburg.

Near the Dunker Church at Antietam on the 17th

Colonel Oakford … told us we had better limber our guns and save them. If we had attempted it we would have lost them before they could have been limbered. Instead of that we stopped the charge and drove the rebels back in disorder. The Mumma house and barn in our rear was on fire and at one time looked as if it would ignite our caissons, and some of them on the left of the battery had to be moved.

We were engaged about four hours and twenty minutes and expended over twelve hundred rounds of ammunition including every round of canister we had in our ammunition chests …