a most graphic and admirable account was furnished by Mr. Smalley, a brilliant writer and an eye-witness, for the New York Tribune, a portion of which is here transcribed.

After describing the gloomy condition of the federal troops on the right at one o'clock, Mr. Smalley says All that had been gained in front had been lost! The enemy's batteries, which, if advanced and served vigorously, might have made sad work with the closely-massed troops, were fortunately either partially disabled or short of ammunition. Sumner was confident that he could hold his own, but an

ArBurnside

other advance was out of the question. The enemy, on the other hand, seemed to be too much exhausted to attack. At this erisis Franklin came up with fresh troops and formed on the left. Slocum, commanding one division of the corps, was sent forward along the slopes lying under the first ranges of rebel hills, while Smith, commanding the other division, was ordered to retake the cornfields and woods which all day had been so hotly contested. It was done in the handsomest style. His Maine and Vermont regiments and the rest went forward on the run, and, cheering as they went, swept like an avalanche through the cornfields, fell upon the woods, cleared them in ten minutes, and held them. They were not again retaken.

The field and its ghastly harvest which the reaper had gathered in these fatal hours finally remained with us. Four times it had been lost and won.

The splendid feat of Burnside holding the hill was one of the memorable deeds on that day of earnest action. At four o'clock (says Mr. Smalley,) McClellan sent simultaneous orders to Burnside and Franklin; to the former to advance and carry the batteries in his front at all hazards and at any cost; to the latter, to carry the woods next in front of him to the right, which the rebels still held. The order to Franklin, however, was practically countermanded, in consequence of a message from General Sumner, that if Franklin went on and was repulsed, his own corps was not yet sufficiently reorganized to be depended on as a reserve. Burnside obeyed the order most gallantly. Getting his troops well in hand, and sending a portion of his artillery to the front, he advanced them. with rapidity and the most determined vigor, straight up the hill in front, on top of which the confederates had maintained their most dangerous battery. The movement was in plain view of McClellan's position, and as Franklin on the other side sent his batteries into the field about the same time, the battle seemed to open in all directions with greater activity than ever. The fight in the ravine was in full progress, the batteries which Porter supported were firing with new vigor, Franklin was blazing away on the right, and every hill-top, ridge, and piece of woods along the whole line was crested and veiled with white clouds of smoke. All day had been clear and bright since the early cloudy morning, and now this whole magnificent, unequaled scene, shone with the splendor of an afternoon September sun. Four miles of battle, its glory all visible, its horrors all veiled, the fate of the republic hanging on the hour-could any one be insensible to its grandeur? There are two hills on the left of the road, the furthest the lowest. The rebels have batteries on both. Burnside is ordered to carry the nearest to him, which is the furthest

ing down into the valley, where fifteen thousand troops are lying, he turns a halfquestioning look on Fitz John Porter, who stands by his side, gravely scanning the field. They are Porter's troops below, are fresh, and only impatient to share in this fight. But Porter slowly shakes his head, and one may believe that the same thought is passing through the minds of both generals

"They are the only reserves of the army; they cannot be spared."

McClellan remounts his horse, and with Porter and a dozen officers of his staff rides away to the left in Burnside's direction. Sykes meets them on the road-a good soldier, whose opinion is worth taking. The three generals talk briefly together. It is easy to see that the moment has come when everything may turn on one order

given or withheld, when the history of the battle is only to be written in thoughts and purposes and words of the General. Burnside's messenger rides up. His message is

"I want troops and guns. If you do not spare them, I cannot hold my position for half an hour."

McClellan's only answer for the moment is a glance at the western sky. Then he turns and says very slowly

"Tell General Burnside that this is the battle of the war. He must hold his ground till dark at any cost. I will send him Miller's battery. I can do nothing more. I have no infantry."

"Tell him if he can not hold his ground, then the bridge to the last man !-always the bridge! If the bridge is lost, all is lost."

The sun was already down; not half an hour of daylight was left. Till Burnside's message came, it had seemed plain to every one that the battle could not be finished to-day. None suspected how near was the peril of defeat, of sudden attack on exhausted forces-how vital to the safety of the army and the nation were those fifteen thousand waiting troops of Fitz John Porter in the hollow. But the rebels halted

instead of pushing on; their vindictive cannonade died away as the light faded. Before it was quite dark, the battle was over.

With the day, (says the official report of the commanding general,) closed this memorable battle, in which, perhaps, nearly two hundred thousand men were for fourteen hours engaged in combat. We had attacked the enemy in position, driven them from their line on one flank, and secured a footing within it on the other. Under the depression of previous reverses, we had achieved a victory over an adversary invested with the prestige of former successes and inflated with a recent triumph. Our forces slept that night conquerors on a field won by their valor, and covered with the dead and wounded of the enemy.

This has been called the bloodiest day that America ever saw, and the fighting was followed by the most appalling sights upon the battle-field. Never, perhaps, was the ground strewn with the bodies of the dead and the dying in greater numbers or in more shocking attitudes. The faces of those who had fallen in the battle were, after more than a day's exposure, so black that no one would ever have suspected that they were once white. All looked like negroes, and as they lay in piles where they had fallen, one upon another, they filled the bystanders with a sense of horror. In the road, they lay scattered all around, and the stench which arose from the

unendurable. Passing along the turnpike

from Sharpsburg to Hagerstown, that night, it required the greatest care to keep one's horse from trampling upon the dead, so thickly were they strewn around. Along the line for not more than a single mile, at least one thousand five hundred there lay unburied.

Such a spectacle was in keeping, of course, with the terrible carnage incident to such a prolonged and constant contest between two such vast armies. The loss of the union forces in this battle was, according to General McClellan, two thousand and ten killed, nine thousand four hundred and sixteen wounded, and one thousand and forty-three missing; and their total loss in the battles of the 14th and 17th amounted to fourteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-four. Of the confederates killed, about three thousand were buried by the unionists, and their

The confederates also lost three of their bravest generals, Starke, Branch, and Anderson.

General Reno's death was a severe blow to the union army. He had been most active all day, fearing no danger, and appearing to be everywhere at the same time. Safe up to seven o'clock, no one dreamed of such a disaster as was to happen. He, with his staff, was standing a little back of the wood, on a field, the confederate forces being directly in front. A body of his troops were just before him, and at this point the fire of the confederates was directed. A minie-ball struck him and went through his body. He fell, and, from the first, appeared to have a knowledge that he could not survive the wound he had received. He was instantly carried, with the greatest care, to the rear, followed by a number of the officers, and attended by the division surgeon, Doctor Cutter. At the foot of the hill he was laid under a tree; he died without the least movement, a few minutes after. The grief of the officers at this calamity was heart-rending. The old soldier, just come from the scene of carnage, with death staring him in the face on every side, here knelt and wept like a child; indeed, no eye was dry among those present. Thus died one of the bravest generals that was in the service of his country, and the intelligence of his death was received by all with the greatest sorrow, as it was well known that but few could take the place of so able and brave an officer. The command of the corps devolved upon General Cox, who, from that time, directed the movements of the army.

The fighting qualities of the southern soldiers, in this battle, may be judged of by the fact that the Fiftieth Georgia regiment lost nearly all their commissioned officers, and that at night, after the battle, only fifty-five men, of the whole regiment, remained fit for duty,-nor did they have anything to eat and drink for more than forty-eight hours. This regiment was posted in a narrow path, washed out into a regular gully, and was fired into by the

unionists from the front, the rear and left flank. The men stood their ground unwaveringly, returning fire until nearly two-thirds of their number lay dead or wounded in that lane. Out of two hundred and ten carried into the fight, over one hundred and twenty-five were killed and wounded in less than twenty minutes. The slaughter was horrible. When ordered to retreat, the living could scarcely extricate themselves from the dead and wounded lying around-a man could have walked from the head of the line to the foot on their bodies. The survivors of the regiment retreated very orderly back to where General Anderson's brigade rested. The brigade suffered terribly. James's South Carolina battalion was nearly annihilated.

There were not wanting, also, incidents of that class which show the qualities of ludicrousness and cunning in human nature, as, for instance, the following:

The New York One Hundred and Seventh regiment supported Cotheren's battery; and, during the hottest part of the fight, the confederates massed themselves opposite the union front, for an assault on Cotheren's position. The battery was short of ammunition, and so reserved their fire, while throughout the whole field there came a lull in the tumult. The confederates advanced in a solid mass, with a precision of movement perfectly beautiful. It was a moment which tried the nerves of the bravest. In the meantime, one of the lads,—a noted sporting character-becoming quite interested in the affair, had climbed a rock where he could view the whole scene. He occupied the place, unmindful of the bullets which were buzzing like bees all around. The confederates came on until the unionists could see their faces, and then Cotheren poured the canister into them. The advancing column was literally torn to pieces by the fire. At this, the lad on the rock became almost frantic in his demonstrations of delight, and as one of the battery sections sent a shrapnel which mowed down in an instant a long row of confederates, he swung his

cap, and, in a voice that could be heard by the flying enemy, shouted out, "Bull-e-ee-e! Set 'em up on the other alley!"

General Sumner had a son, a captain on his staff, who was but twenty-one years of age. During the battle, when the bullets were whistling around the general's ears, he found it necessary to send the young man upon a mission of duty to a certain portion of the field. After giving him the requisite instructions, the general embraced him and said, "Good-by, Sammy." "Good-by, father," was the response, and the captain rode forth upon his mission. On his return from his perilous errand, the fond father grasped his hand, with the simple remark, "How d'ye do, Sammy?" The spectators of this filial scene were much affected.

ers.

A union soldier belonging to a New York regiment was wounded in the shouldAfter dark, missing his regiment, he became lost in the woods, and went in the direction of the enemy. Seeing a party of men ahead, he called out, "What regiment do you belong to?" They answered, "The Third South Carolina. What do you belong to?" "The Tenth Virginia," was the ready and apt reply; saying which, he moved off in the opposite direction, and soon joined some union soldiers. His wits saved him.

The report of this battle by Mr. Smalley, in the New York Tribune, was pronounced by General Hooker, in a conversation with Mr. George Wilkes (himself an accomplished journalist), a perfect reproduction of the scene and all its incidents. In reply to a question by Mr. Wilkes, if he knew who the Tribune reporter was, General Hooker said: "I saw him first upon the battle-field, when we were in the hottest portion of the fight, early in the morning. My attention was then attracted to a civilian, who sat upon his horse, in advance of my whole staff; and though he was in the hottest of the fire, and the shot and shell were striking and sputtering around us like so much hail, he sat gazing on the strife as steady and undisturbed as if he were in a quiet theater, looking at a