behind AotW

Captain Henry W. Addison of the “Bloody” 7th South Carolina Infantry remembered the fight at Sharpsburg many years later:

I think there had been considerable fighting before we arrived, from a short distance on the right of the Road [Hagerstown Pike], as we passed over dead & wounded before we began firing … we thought the Union Army had or was retreating, but as we reached the end of the crest, under the declivity, we were confronted with Artillery and any numbers of lines of Infantry that belched forth such destruction that as I had never seen before, though no novice in the business.

I believe we lost, in killed & wounded near 75 percent in twenty minutes … I am sorry I cannot be more explicit; but a grape-shot disabled me soon after our firing began …

Special thanks to Jim Buchanan for posting Addison’s letters to Ezra Carman on his most excellent Walking the West Woods blog.