In the late afternoon of September 17, 1862 the 7th Maine Regiment received new orders. The Battle of Antietam had raged throughout the day. Thousands were dead and even more lay wounded on the field or suffering in hospitals behind the lines. After horrible combat at places known afterward as The Cornfield and Bloody Lane, the fighting climaxed at the lower bridge over Antietam Creek that historians called Burnside’s Bridge in memory of Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside who failed to capture it in a timely fashion. The 7th Maine was about to enter this action and its place in the history of the American Civil War.
Twenty-one year-old Major Thomas Hyde, a native of Bath, Maine, commanded the regiment. The regiment was part of Colonel William H. Irwin’s brigade of Maj. Gen. William Franklin’s VI Corps. The unit was seriously understrength that day. Only 181 men remained of its original complement of 1,000.
Hyde’s regiment had gone into action at the Bloody Lane and then taken up a position behind limestone outcroppings on the rolling hills west of Antietam Creek that afforded it a measure of protection from enemy fire. In that location the men dodged desultory enemy fire. When they could, the regi-ment’s marksmen sniped at enemy artillerists and officers.
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