Joseph K. F. Mansfield, Brigadier General of the U.S. Army Part 2

II. In Col. Jacob Higgins' (125th Penn.) report we have--

"Previous to this Gen. Mansfield fell, some of my men carrying him off the field on their muskets until a blanket was procured." (Page 492, Vol. XIX.)

It cannot be determined from the report, exactly when or where "this" was; but it was plainly early in the morning and before the 125th entered West Wood, where (and not in East Wood) they fought.

This report annoyed me much when I first saw it in 1887, but Col. Higgins has written to me that he knows nothing personally of the event but reported it because officers whom he trusted a.s.sured him it was so.

III. Col. Knipe, (46 Penn.) who made the brigade report, simply mentions that Mansfield was wounded.

IV. In Gen. Crawford's report we read:

"Gen. Mansfield, the corps commander, had been mortally wounded, and was borne past my position to the rear." (Page 485, Vol. XIX, Part I.)

This "position" is not defined further than to state that it was "Miller's" woods, or "East woods," as we now call them.

V. Gen. Williams, commanding 1st division and succeeding Mansfield in command of the corps, says:

"While the deployment [of the 12th corps] was going on and before the leading regiments were fairly engaged, it was reported to me that the veteran and distinguished commander of the corps was mortally wounded." (Page 475, Vol. XIX.)

VI. Gen. Geo. H. Gordon, commanding 3d brigade, 1st division, says:

"Gen. Mansfield had been mortally wounded at the commencement of the action, while making a bold reconnoissance of the woods through which we had just dashed." (Page 495, Vol. XIX.)

VII. We find the following in the report of Gen. Edwin V. Sumner, "commanding 2d and 12th corps." He also commanded the 1st corps upon his arrival in our part of the field, about 9 A. M.:

"General Mansfield, a worthy and gallant veteran, was unfortunately mortally wounded while leading his corps into action." (Page 275, Vol. XIX.)

VIII. Gen. Hooker, commanding 1st corps and having the 12th under his orders, makes no mention of the wounding.

IX. Gen. McClellan, commanding the Union army, thus refers to the deployment of the 12th corps:

"During the deployment, that gallant veteran, Gen. Mansfield, fell mortally wounded while examining the ground in front of his troops."

(Page 56, Vol. XIX.)

It should be stated that Vol. XIX was not published until October, 1887--twenty-five years after the battle.

Besides these unsatisfactory official reports, we have the following authentic accounts, that have been made public from time to time, and should have furnished the world with the truth. I noticed that the newspapers of the day had little to say about the event; accordingly, a few weeks after the battle I wrote an account and forwarded it to my father, who sent it to the Hon. Benjamin Douglas, a prominent citizen of Middletown, Conn.--Mansfield's home. Mr. Douglas acknowledged the receipt, and showed his appreciation when we were publishing our regimental history,[18] by furnishing gratis the portraits of the general. This letter was published in the Portland, Me., papers.

The regimental history, published in 1871, has a very minute account of the event. About 700 copies of it were sold.

The report for 1862 of the Adjutant General of Maine also has a narrative of the battle, embraced in the report of Col. Beal, who returned to duty before the end of the year. (Page 74, main report.)

GENERALS AND STAFF DID NOT WITNESS.

A singular phase in this case is the fact that none of Gen. Mansfield's subordinate commanders excepting Gen. Crawford, and none of Mansfield's staff, witnessed the wounding. In the three days he was our commander none of us saw a staff officer with him. It was only a vague memory of a lost and forgotten general order, and the reference to "Captain Dyer" in the General's memorial volume,[19] that suggested the possibility there was a staff. In 1890 to '94 I made a special and persistent effort to learn who his staff were; also who was the orderly and who the colored servant that we saw with him. The orderly and servant we have not found. After much writing I learned that Samuel M. Mansfield,[20] a son of the General, had been appointed an Aide but had not been able to join his father. Maj.

Clarence H. Dyer, at that time Captain and A. A. G., had accompanied the General from Washington and was on duty with him till his death.

Furthermore, Gen. James W. Forsyth, then a Captain, (familiarly known as "Toney") was temporarily a.s.signed as aide-de-camp to Mansfield by Gen.

McClellan, at whose head quarters Forsyth was then serving. These two were "present"; but Gen. Mansfield kept them flying so constantly that none of us recognized them as his staff.

There are also shadowy hints from various sources that a Lieutenant of cavalry, name and regiment not stated, lost his opportunity for a day of glory by too frequent sips of what was known as "commissary."

Gen. Forsyth writes (1891) that he was sent by Mansfield to "bring up the divisions of the corps" and that he "was not with Gen. Mansfield when he received his death wound."

Maj. Dyer writes (1891):

"At the time the General was mortally wounded, I was not near him, as he had given me an order to bring the command of Gen. Crawford to the front. It was halted somewhat to the rear and our left. When I returned I found that the General was being removed to the rear, but by the men of what regiment I do not know. I remained with him until he died, which must have been about 1 o'clock P. M., 17th. * * Where the General fell was a little to our left of the woods--a cornfield was directly in front. I am very sure that the General was not killed by the men of the [Confederate] command in front of the 10th Maine. I am positive as to this."

Here is another instance how impossible it is to see everything as it is in battle. Apparently Maj. Dyer did not see the General hurrying the 10th Maine across the brigade front.

GEN. MANSFIELD'S MISTAKE.

The next question that arises is, why did Gen. Mansfield suppose the 10th Maine was firing into Union troops?

While the corps was waiting in the vicinity of Joe Poffenberger's, (marked 6:20 on the map) from about 6:20 to 7:20 A. M., Gen. Mansfield was seen frequently by almost every soldier of the corps. In hundreds of letters, from the various regiments and batteries, there is a common agreement that the General was moving around the field continually. He seemed to be everywhere. Although he appeared like a calm and dignified old gentleman when he took command of the corps two days before, on this fatal morning he was the personification of vigor, dash and enthusiasm. As before stated, he remained some minutes at the northwest corner of East Woods (W on the map), observing the battle. One gets a fine view of the field from there and he must have got a good insight into the way Hooker's corps was fighting. Presumably the tide was turning against Hooker, and as likely Mansfield had been called upon by him for reinforcements, but when Mansfield left the northwest corner to set his corps in motion, the East Woods, if I have rightly interpreted the reports and correspondence, was still in possession of Union troops. Probably, almost at the same time that Mansfield quitted his lookout, the Confederate brigade of Law (Hood's division) came charging out of West Woods, the 4th Alabama on the right running up the Smoketown road, as before stated, and entering the woods at the south-west corner where the Georgia battalion joined on its right. The movements of all of Hood's troops were exceedingly rapid.

How much time elapsed from Mansfield's leaving his lookout to his being wounded, I can only roughly estimate at from fifteen to twenty minutes, but it was time enough to change the condition of affairs very materially, and I cannot help thinking the time pa.s.sed very quickly to him, and that he did not realize the fact that the remnants of Rickett's division had been driven out of the woods and cornfield, nor even did he suppose it was possible. Wise or unwise, it was entirely in keeping with everything else the General did during the three days he was with us, for him to come himself and see what we were doing; and like everything else, he did it with the utmost promptness. It was this habit of personal attention to details, and his other characteristic of rapid flying here and there, that make it so difficult for many of the soldiers of the 12th corps to believe he was wounded when and where he was.

A WORD IN CLOSING.

In this narrative it has been impossible to avoid frequent reference to myself and to my regiment, but there is nothing in the Mansfield incident of special credit to any of us. We were there and saw it; we live and can prove it; this is the whole story in a nut sh.e.l.l.

I have always regretted that I left the regiment even on so important a mission. At the time, I supposed it was only to be for a moment, and that with three field officers on duty I could be spared. As for the regiment, we succeeded so very much better later in the war, that we have not been in the habit of making great claims for the part we took in Antietam.

Many other Union regiments fought longer, struggled harder, did more effective service and lost more men than we.

The Confederates opposed to us appeared to be equal to us in numbers and they were superior in experience and all that experience gives. On all other fields, from the beginning to the end of our long service, we never had to face their equals. Everybody knows that troops fighting under the eye of Stonewall Jackson, and directed by Hood, were a terrible foe. Our particular opponents were all good marksmen, and the constant call of their officers, "Aim low," appeared to us entirely unnecessary.

It was an awful morning; our comrades went down one after another with a most disheartening frequency, pierced with bullets from men who were half concealed, or who dodged quickly back to a safe cover the moment they fired. We think it was enough for us to "hold our own" till Greene's men swept in with their "terrible and overwhelming attack."[21]

From all this story, I hope the reader will see why the wounding of Gen.

Mansfield, which is the all important part in this narrative, is only a secondary matter to the men of the Tenth Maine Regiment, and why misrepresentations and errors have gone undisputed so many years. We never considered it our business to set history aright, until we saw that _our_ testimony was discredited and found our statement of fact treated as only one of the many stories of the wagon-drivers of Sharpsburg.

EXPLANATION OF THE MAP.

The following map is based upon one issued November, 1894, by the "Antietam Board." This in turn was based upon the so-called "Michler" map from the office of the U. S. Engineers, which, while correct in the main, has many errors of detail, and it is not likely that all of them have yet been discovered by the Board. Indeed, one object of the Board in issuing the map, was to invite criticism and corrections from the soldiers and others.

The positions of the troops cannot be shown with anything like accuracy and clearness on so small a map, and are omitted excepting a few needed to ill.u.s.trate the narrative, but it may be said in a general way, that just before Gen. Mansfield was wounded, the Union forces, under Hooker, were pushed out of "the great cornfield" and the East Woods. The 12th Corps, (Mansfield's), with some help from the remnants of the 1st Corps (Hooker's), stopped the advance of the Confederates under Hood, and in turn drove them back to West Woods.

At the time Mansfield was wounded, Major Robbins' command in East Woods was the extreme right of the troops of the Confederate left wing (Jackson's) _actually engaged_. Their line ran, with many turns and several intervals, from the woods through the great cornfield to the northern part of West Woods. Not many men in either army were firing their muskets at the moment Mansfield was shot, but the two or three thousand on each side, who were engaged, were very fiercely contending for their positions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Battlefield of Antietam]