(Main Tablet):
C.S.A.
Jackson's Division, Jackson's Command.
Brigadier General J.R. Jones, Commanding.
(September 17, 1862.)
Early in the morning of the 17,th while in the position taken the evening before, Jackson's Division was subjected to a heavy fire of artillery from light batteries in its front, which was replied to by the batteries of the division, Poague's, Carpenter's, Brockenbrough's, Raine's, Caskie's and Wooding's. Heavy guns beyond the Antietam enfiladed the division line and took it in reverse. Upon the advance of the Federal line, at 6 a.m., east of and on the Pike the Confederate skirmishers were thrown behind the rocky ledge 78 yards west of this and fired into the flank of Doubleday's Division as it neared this point. By the deployment of Gibbon's and Patrick's Brigades west of the pike the skirmishers were driven in; Doubleday advanced to and south of this point, met Grigsby's first line, - the brigades of Winder and Jones, - and after an obstinate contest of over half an hour, Grigsby was compelled to fall back to the second line in the edge of the woods, 380 yards south. In the early part of the day Brigadier General Jones was wounded and turned command of the division to Brigadier General W.E. Starke.
(Second, continuation, tablet):
At the end of a half hour Starke's second line advanced obliquing to the right, aligned along the fence bordering the pike and engaged the Union advance east of it. As the left reached the fence the fire of Campbell's Battery and of five regiments of Gibbon's and Patrick's Brigades, formed behind the ledge 78 yards west of this, struck it in flank and rear, and the entire command retreated to the woods from which it had advanced. At an early stage of this movement, General Starke was killed and the command of the Division devolved upon Colonel Grigsby, 27th Virginia Infantry. Grigsby reformed the division and, moving in connection with Early's Brigade, turned the flank of Gobbon's and Patrick's line, compelling it to retire to Miller's Barn. Early halted in the angle of the West Woods a few yards south and west of this, and Jackson's Division, now reduced to 200 men, formed on his left, fronting the low ground west of the ledge and between it and the northern extremity of the West Woods, where it assisted in checking the advance of Goodrich's Brigade, Twelfth Corps, shortly after which it fell back to Alfred Poffenberger's, 400 yards southwest of this, where it was relieved by the advance of McLaw's Division.
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