An officer was riding back and forth on the open hillside, a gallant officer rallying his men.  None would stop; it was death to stop.  He threatened, and almost struck the men, but they would run on as soon as his back was turned.  They were right to run at this moment, and he was wrong in trying to form on the naked slope.  Beyond the hilltop was the place to rally, and the men knew it, and the gallant officer did not He rode from group to group of fleeing men as they streamed up the hill.  He was a most conspicuous target.  Many shots were fired at him, but he continued to ride and to storm at the men and to wave his sword.  Suddenly his head went down, his body doubled up, and he lay stretched on the ground.  The riderless horse galloped off a few yards, then returned to his master, bent his head to the prostrate man, and fell almost upon him.

The Federal infantry could now be seen nowhere in our front.  On our left they began to develop and to advance, and on the right the sound of heavy fighting was yet heard.  The enemy continued to develop from our left until they were uncovered in our front.  They advanced, right and left; just upon our own position the pressure was not yet great, but we felt that the Twelfth regiment, which joined us on our left, must soon yield to greatly superior numbers, and would carry our flank with it when it went.  The fight now raged hotter than before.  I saw Captain Parker, of Company K, near to us.  His face was a mass of blood—­his jaw broken.  The regiment was so small that, although Company H was on its left, I saw Sam Wigg, a corporal of the colour-guard, fall—­death in his face.  Then the Twelfth South Carolina charged, and for a while the pressure upon us was relieved; but the Twelfth charged too far, and, while driving the enemy in its front, was soon overlapped, and flanked.  Upon its exposed flank the bullets fell and it crumbled; in retiring, it caught the left of the First, and Company H fell back.  Now the enemy moved on the First from the front and the regiment retired hastily through the corn, and formed easily again at the stone fence from which it had advanced at the beginning of the contest.  The battle was over.  The enemy came no farther, and the fords of the Potomac remained to Lee.

All the night of the 17th and the day of the 18th we lay in position.  A few shells flew over us at irregular intervals, and we were in hourly expectation of a renewal of the battle, but the Federals did not advance.  By daylight on the morning of the 19th we were once more in Virginia.

While A.P.  Hill’s division had suffered but small loss in the battle of Sharpsburg, and while our part in the battle had been fortunate, it was clear that Lee’s army as a whole had barely escaped a great disaster.  I have always thought that McClellan had it in his power on the 18th of September to bring the war to an end.  Lee had fought the battle with a force not exceeding forty thousand men, and had lost nearly a third.  McClellan, on the 18th, was fully three times as strong as Lee; but he waited a full day, and gave the Confederates opportunity to cross, almost leisurely, the difficult river in their rear.