"We were massed `in column by company' in a cornfield; the night was close, air heavy...some rainfall...The air was perfumed with a mixture of crushed green corn stalks, ragweed, and clover. We made our beds between rows of corn and would not remove our accouterments."

Pvt. Miles C. Huyette, Company B, 125th Pennsylvania Infantry

"As night drew nearer, whispers of a great battle to be fought the next day grew louder, and we shuddered at the prospect, for battles had come to mean to us, as they never had before, blood, wounds, and death."

Mary Bedinger Mitchell, (Resident of Shepherdstown)

"...I began to feel wretchedly faint of heart, for it seemed timely that the coming of battle meant my certain death."

Pvt. Ezra E. Stickley, Company A, 5th Virginia Infantry

"Suddenly a stir beginning far up on the right, and running like a wave along the line, brought the regiment to its feet. A silence fell on everyone at once, for each felt that the momentous `now' had come."

Pvt. David L. Thompson, Company G, 9th New York Volunteers

"Our first fire was rattling volley; then came the momentary interval occupied in loading. The rifles were, of course, muzzle loaders, with iron ramrods; the cartridges were new and the brown paper of the toughest description, so that strong fingers were required to tear out the conical ball and the little paper cap of gunpowder. Emptying these into the muzzle and ramming home and capping the piece took time---seemingly a long time in the hurry of action..."

History of the 35th Massachusetts Volunteers

"It was no longer alone the boom of the batteries, but a rattle of musketry--at first like pattering drops upon a roof; then a roll, crash, roar, and rush, like a mighty ocean billow upon the shore, chafing the pebbles, wave on wave, with deep and heavy explosions of the batteries, like the crashing of the thunderbolts."

Charles Carleton Coffin, Army Correspondent

"Sometimes a shell would burst just over our heads, scattering the fragments among us."

Lt. Thomas H. Evans, 12th U.S. Infantry

"Such a storm of balls I never conceived it possible for men to live through. Shot and shell shrieking and crashing, canister and bullets whistling and hissing most fiend-like through the air until you could almost see them. In that mile's ride I never expected to come back alive."

LtCol A.S. "Sandie" Pendleton, CSA

"In the time that I am writing every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before. It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield."

Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, USA, Commander, I Corps,
Army of the Potomac

"The force of a mini ball or piece of shell striking any solid portion of a person is astonishing; it comes like a blow from a sledge hammer, and the recipient finds himself sprawling on the ground before he is conscious of being hit; then he feels about for the wound, the benumbing blow deadening sensation for a few moments. Unless struck in the head or about the heart, men mortally wounded live some time, often in great pain, and toss about upon the ground."

History of the 35th Massachusetts Volunteers

"The truth is, when bullets are whacking against tree trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like eggshells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man is to get out of the way."

"I recall a soldier with the cartridge between his thumb and finger, the end of the cartridge bitten off, and the paper between his teeth when the bullet had pierced his heart, and the machinery of life--all the muscles and nerves--had come to a standstill."

Charles Carlton Coffin, Army Correspondent

"Under the dark shade of a towering oak near the Dunker Church lay the lifeless form of a drummer boy, apparently not more than 17 years of age, flaxen hair and eyes of blue and form of delicate mould. As I approached him I stooped down and as I did so I perceived a bloody mark upon his forehead...It showed where the leaden messenger of death had produced the wound the caused his death. His lips were compressed, his eyes half open, a bright smile played upon his countenance. By his side lay his tenor drum, never to be tapped again."

Pvt. J. D. Hicks, Company K, 125th Pennsylvania Volunteers

"Comrades with wounds of all conceivable shapes were brought in and placed side by side as thick as they could lay, and the bloody work of amputation commenced."

"A man lying upon the ground asked for drink--I stooped to give it, and having raised him with my right hand, was holding the cup to his lips with my left, when I felt a sudden twitch of the loose sleeve of my dress--the poor fellow sprang from my hands and fell back quivering in the agonies of death--a ball had passed between my body--and the right arm which supported him--cutting through the sleeve, and passing through his chest from shoulder to shoulder."

Clara Barton

"...two of our army surgeons came into the room and began to tie up my arteries to stop the bleeding, which possibly saved my life. Before they got through, however, several shells struck the house and they left me alone."

Pvt. Ezra E. Stickley, Company A, 5th Virginia Infantry

"All were calling for water, of course, but none was to be had. We lay there until dusk--perhaps an hour, when the fighting ceased. During that hour, while the bullets snipped the leaves from a young locust tree growing at the edge of the hollow and powdered us with fragments, we had time to speculate on many things-among others, on the impatience with which men clamor, in dull times, to be led into fight."

Pvt. David L. Thompson, Company G, 9th New York Volunteers

"I have seen more than I ever expected to see. I have layed on the field in front of the enemy, where the dead and wounded were laying in heaps around us."

Sgt. Jacob Fryberger, Company K, 51st Pennsylvania Infantry

"Before the sunlight faded, I walked over the narrow field. All around lay the Confederate dead...clad in `butternut'...As I looked down on the poor pinched faces...all enmity died out. There was no `secession' in those rigid forms nor in those fixed eyes staring at the sky. Clearly it was not their war."

Pvt. David L. Thompson, Company G, 9th New York Volunteers