ed along down the hill a little while
before us, the officer saw some distance from the main road a rather
prosperous looking bunch of farm buildings, and thinking there was a good
opportunity to do some foraging, rode over there. The piazza was on the
back side of the house and as he rode around the house, there sat seven
Johnnies on the piazza, their guns were all standing in one corner a
little distance from them. He was tremendously startled as well as they,
but he got his senses first, got his revolver out and got the drop on them
before one of them moved. He then ordered them into line and marched them
over to the main road, arriving there as our regiment was passing along.
As we wended our way down the side of the mountain, the view we had below
of the valley of the Antietam was of surpassing beauty; Sharpsburg across
the valley was barely distinguishable; then to the right and to the left,
up and down the valley as far as the eye could penetrate, stretched one of
the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen. The next day we lay in camp a
mile or two from the Antietam River all day. The morning of the 17th, the
battle opened on the right in good earnest, but not until well into the
forenoon did it begin in our front, we being on the extreme left. Then we
were ordered forward to support a battery. As we lay there behind the hill
on which the battery was located, I had an interesting adventure. A shell
fired at the battery on the hill in front of us struck the ground, bounded
and struck the ground just back of me, I being seated on my knapsack
facing the rear; it plowed a hole under me from back to front and came
out between my feet. The ground settled down into the trench, my knapsack
and I going down with it. Well, that shell was given room as quickly as
possible. I rolled over three or four times and the other boys who were
sitting near did the same, but fortunately it did not burst and no one got
more than a good start. A little later my brother Vertulan, assistant
surgeon of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment, gave me a call.

About noon we were ordered in to take the Stone Bridge. Other troops had
been hammering away at it for some hours but without success. We were
moved down toward the river and opened fire on the Johnnies across a
narrow valley on the other side. As we moved forward we came in sight of
the bridge and the stream just below us. We stayed there in the open on
the side hill sloping down toward the r