Well the Captain knows exactly what memory is my favorite! At the 140th Antietam I was thrust from my usual Sgt position to company commander. And at that time I was still a new sgt. First let me explain the event to you a little. The event up to that point was weak, it wasn't organized properly etc. My company was down there for basically just one battle anyway, "The Cornfield".
The brass woke us up around 3:30 am to get us ready to move. But since there was no water etc, my battalion was standing down. So the entire staff of my company was gonna stand down in support of the battlion. I got angered by this and decided I was gonna go out anyway. I figured I couldn't let my boys fall in under another commander or company. We had a few companies with us so I had a total of 45 to 50 men under my command. Needless to say I was a nervous wreck. Even though company c had a Lt, he wasn't real good in the field. So he told me that in the field he was gonna go to the officers meeting and during the battle he would follow my lead. This made me even more nervous. I mean I've led troops in the field before but nothing of this scale before. On the march to the field it was pitch black, distant cannon fire lit up the night sky. I ran up and down the long line of men checking on each of them.
When we finally arrived on the field we were moved into position. Time and time again my men were moved up and down the field but never into the action. So finally I got fed up, acting like a young war crazed Sgt I screamed to my men. "You wanna Get in this fight boys?!?" Of course they all cried out a huzzah! So I told em to follow me and don't stop for anyone, just keep moving and stop when I tell em to! So we did just that. We crashed through Advancing and retreating lines of Union blue. "Make way for brooklyn" the boys yelled out. As we rushed the cornfield "Give 'Em Hell Brooklyn" was heard from our fellow Union boys.
When we finally go out on our own, I slowed the men and reformed the battle line. It was hard as all hell to keep them in line in that damn cornfield. Finally we made contact with the rebs. We didn't even see em at first. We just got shot up! I realized that I had some how pushed us so far in that I was surrounded on all sides by confederates. And we were real close to a road on my right flank. Quickly I formed a large square of men with reserves in the middle of the box. Now we were covered on all sides. Seeing a large number of troops coming down the road and no union boys to be seen anywhere I took some of my boys around 10 riflemen and placed them in the corn on the side of the road. They held them for quite a while. Although I lost quite a few men, We held. Finally the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters came up the road and asked persmission to take over the road. It was awesome to have the sharpshooters support us. I pulled my men back and told them if they needed support we'd be right there if they needed!
Back in the square we were doing superb! At this point we had captured a full company and a few officers! And we kept fighting. We created a huged traffic jam, rebs trying to get in couldn't and the ones trying to escape were cut to shreds. Finally realizing the fight was almost through and our ammo running low from close to 2 hrs of fighting, I formed them up for one last charge. I placed guards with the prisoners and Charged at the closed line of rebs I could find! We captured them too!
At the end of the fight I had the adjudent of the Commanding general come up to me and ask that next time I let everyone else fight and not destroy a quarter of the reb army. The Major and Colonel from the Confeds gave me congrats on hard fighting and asked if I would join their units! All and all it was an awesome fight! As we marched out the crowd that was near by cheered for us and so did the units we fought with and against. We marched out in perfect order along with the 2nd U.S.S. We cheered and cheered! What a great experience, the only thing left was to go back to camp and try to make a mens with the rest of my staff.