Too Afraid to Cry

Kathleen A. Ernst

Preview

The true skedaddlers were already long gone by Tuesday, September 16, the day before the battle.  They were safe across the Pennsylvania line, squeezed into hotels or in-laws’ spare bedrooms, or sleeping beside northern roads with their valuables jammed into wheelbarrows and saddlebags.  The Sharpsburg civilians advised to flee the day before the battle, when shells were already flying and the roads were hopelessly crowded, had to look closer to home for shelter.  The Jacob Houser family was among the refugees on the road that day.  As the Housers shepherded their children along, a few stray bullets whistled past.  A shell hit a nearby fence, making a lifelong an impression on William Houser, then 9.  The Grice family lived near the Lutheran church.  When they were advised to leave, Mrs. Grice packed some provisions for her brood, put them on Logan, their family horse, and set out.  They made their way to Killiansburg cave, along the C&O Canal.

Henry and Elizabeth Piper and their children lived on a prosperous farm north of Sharpsburg near the Hagerstown turnpike, part of an old land grant known, ironically, as “Mount Pleasant.”  Henry’s fondness for fashionable headwear had earned him the local nickname “Old Stovepipe.”  Although reputedly a Unionist, he also owned slaves who lived in a stone building beside the farm well.  When the Confederate Army appeared, most of Piper’s fields were freshly-plowed, ready for planting in winter wheat, but a twenty-five acre cornfield still awaited harvest.  Piper also owned a fifteen-acre apple orchard.

The beautiful farm was in the center of Lee’s battle line, and Generals James Longstreet and D. H. Hill commandeered the home for their headquarters.  Soon the yard was busy with couriers and staff, and maps and swords littered the tidy farmhouse.  That evening the nervous Piper daughters served the generals dinner and, in an attempt to be courteous, offered the men wine.  Longstreet initially refused but when he saw General Hill drink some without ill effect, said, “Ladies, I will thank you for some of that wine.”

After dinner the generals urged the family to leave.  They quickly packed what they could carry into a wagon, and Elizabeth Piper buried her dishes in the ash pile.  As the family set out one of the female slaves cried “Oh my God, take me along.”  She made the trek walking beside the wagon, carrying Henry and Elizabeth’s six-month-old grandson Elmer in her apron.  “We left everything as it was on the farm,” Mary Ellen recalled later, “taking only the horses with us and one carriage.”  After leaving their home to the dubious protection of James Longstreet and D. H. Hill the family headed toward Killiansburg Cave, but ultimately decided to seek shelter at Henry’s brother Samuel’s farm near the Potomac.

A group of Keedysville women and children, including little Oliver Reilly, left their homes and made their way to Samuel Pry’s mill.  The Pry home proved to be nebulous haven; while there, seven Confederates asked Mrs. Pry for supper.  She set their table on the porch and while they were eating (all but one who was sick, lying in the corn crib) a group of Union cavalry clattered down the road and ordered their surrender.  When one refused, a Yankee pointed his revolver and called, “Come out or I will shoot you down.”  Remembered Reilly, “Mrs. Pry threw up her hands and cried, ‘For God’s sake, don’t kill him on the porch!’”  The Rebel reluctantly conceded defeat and the lot of them trudged away under guard.

At McClellan’s headquarters, the Phillip and Elizabeth Pry family--including Samuel (14), Alfred (12), Ellen (9), Jacob (5), and Charles (3), and a year-old daughter--was still in residence.  Elizabeth Pry was cooking breakfast for General McClellan and General Hooker when an ambulance arrived, intended as transport for General Hooker.  McClellan ordered Elizabeth to take her children away to safety, and with the ambulance at their disposal, they trundled away to a friend’s farm in Keedysville.

After capturing Harpers Ferry, most of Stonewall Jackson’s men hustled back across the Potomac to provide critical support to the outnumbered Rebels already poised on the hills.  A Georgia regiment arriving the morning of September 16 halted in a peaceful grove outside of town near a small, plain sanctuary:  the Dunker church.  Captain James Nisbet asked, “‘Who are the Dunkards?’  ‘They are German Baptists,’ a civilian explained.  ‘This is a German settlement.’”  Any “Germans” lingering near the lines that day were treated to a strange performance.  As the Harpers Ferry veterans greeted South Mountain veterans, regimental bands struck up their beloved anthem, "Dixie," and the rough, reverent chorus swelled.  It was, William Poague recalled, “inspiring, soul-stirring music….”

That afternoon, Federal commanders were still jockeying their divisions into place.  Several crossed the Antietam near Samuel Pry’s gristmill.  Most of the First Corps bivouacked on the Poffenberger farm near the Hagerstown Turnpike.  General McClellan ordered Jeptha Taylor of Keedysville to provide supper for himself and his staff officers, and paid him two and a half dollars in gold for his trouble.  A fierce artillery barrage erupted about dusk, and the civilians crouched in cellars shuddered with each deafening roar.  About nine o’clock it began to rain.  Albert Richardson, correspondent for The Tribune, wandered into a farmhouse, occupied now only by some pickets; with his saddle as pillow, he lay down on some farmwife’s scoured parlor floor to get some sleep.  The Federal Twelfth Corps didn’t bed down in the tidy cornfield of Martin Line’s farm until midnight.  Surgeons had already established a field hospital in the house.

McClellan had ordered no fires and complete silence among the troops, and no one in any of the homes near the lines dared light candles or lanterns in fear of drawing fire.  The dark blanket that settled over the tense valley was punctuated sporadically by bursts of gunfire, as jumpy pickets fired at each other and threatening shadows.  A big battle was coming, and no one got very much sleep.