(CIVIL WAR PENNSYLVANIA) Eck John F Letter describing the B

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"WE WAS IN LONGER THAN ANY OTHER REGT ON THE FIELD" (CIVIL WAR--PENNSYLVANIA.) Eck, John F. Letter describing the Battle of Antietam and the assault on Bloody Lane. Autograph Letter Signed to friend Samuel. 4 pages, 8 x 5 inches, on one folding sheet; pencil calculation on final page. With full transcription. Harper's Ferry, WV, 28 September [1862]

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John F. Eck of Columbia County served as a private in the 132nd Pennsylvania Infantry, which took heavy casualties at the Battle of Antietam while attempting to take Bloody Lane on the eastern part of the line. "The old soilders say it was one of the hardest battle fought since the war commenced, and we was in the very hottest of the fire. We fought four hour and forty two minutes before we was relieved, so we was in longer than any other regt on the field, and we had a pretty hard position to fight. We had to charge up a steep hill. . . . Just the other side, the rebs was entrench and then the work commenced. Such musketry never was herd before. Evry man to load and fire as fast as he could. I fired sixty one rounds, and then we made a charge on the rebs and took them. . . . The rebs lay two and three deep of dead and wounded. Such a site I never seen before, nor do I want to see it hereafter."