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In this dream, whenever it came, he was sailing in a ship of a peculiar build, indescribable but always the same, and being borne on it with great speed towards a dark and undefined shore. He had always dreamed this before victory. He dreamed it before Antietam, before Murfreesborough, before Gettysburg, before Vicksburg.
"And who is this officer, Lucy?" Miss Kingston asked rather anxiously. "He is a Virginia gentleman, auntie. His mother has large estates near Richmond. He was in the cavalry with Stuart, and was made prisoner while he was lying wounded and insensible at Antietam; and I think, auntie, that that " and she hesitated "some day we are going to be married."
To the south the Northern artillery was equally strong, and beyond the Antietam also it was massed in battery after battery to protect its men. But the coming twilight found both sides too exhausted to move. The sun was setting upon the fiercest single day's fighting ever seen in America. Nearly twenty-five thousand dead or wounded lay upon the field.
Finally, I was severely wounded at Antietam, and would probably have perished on the field had it not been for the kindness of a gentleman named Murray, who had me carried to his house and provided me with every comfort. Thanks to his charity, and to the nursing which I received from his black domestics, I was soon able to get about the plantation with the help of a stick.
The wave of alarm which swept over the South after the surrender of Fort Donelson was quickly translated into such a high passion for battle that the march of events until the day of Antietam resounded like an epic.
Custer's brigade becoming isolated after the fight while assisting the rear guard, was also obliged to retire, which it did to Shepherdstown and there halted, picketing the river to Antietam ford.
Now and then they heard the booming of guns, and just before dark there had been a short artillery duel across the Antietam, but now the night was quiet, save for the murmur and movement of a great army. Through the darkness came the sound of many voices and the clank of moving wheels. Dick asked permission for his two comrades and himself to go down near the river and obtained it.
General Longstreet compliments Brigadier General Toombs for his "gallant defense at the bridge of Antietam and his vigorous charge upon the enemy's flank; he was severely wounded at the close of the engagement." General Toombs returned to his home after Sharpsburg, and remained several months.
In quick succession the battleships Montana, Louisiana, Ohio, and New Hampshire were sunk, as were the carriers Gettysburg, Antietam, Guadalcanal, and Chapultepec as well as the cruisers Manitowoc, Baton Rouge, Jackson, Yonkers, Long Beach, Evanston and Portsmouth, to say nothing of the countless destroyers and other craft.
Before dawn, scouts came in, saying that there had been hard fighting off toward Harper's Ferry, and that Lee with the other division of the Southern army was retreating into a peninsula formed by the junction of the river Antietam with the Potomac, where he would await the coming of Jackson, after taking Harper's Ferry.
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