2. Mansfield was mortally wounded while deploying his troops about 7 A.M., and A. S. Williams took command: reported strength, 10,126; actual. about 7,000. Marching more obliquely to the road, facing southwest, they cleared the cornfield, and about 8.40 A.M. drove the Confederates across the turnpike and into the west woods.
3. The Second corps, under Sumner, had not received orders to march till 7.20, after the First was crippled and the Twelfth in the thick of action; and Richardson's waiting for Morell's division of the Fifth corps to occupy the ground he vacated caused him to be an hour later still. Sedgwick's division, with Sumner at the head, .went first, French following; each with perhaps 5,000 men; they crossed the Antie tam, moving west by north, till the centre was nearly opposite the Dunkard church; then de ploying, faced west, French forming on Greene's left. Sedgwick passed through the east woods and the cornfield; advanced swiftly in three lines, no regiments in column or ready to face to either flank if attacked, swept by Greene's right and pressed through the west woods with left on the church, to the western edge and a wood road along it. Meantime McLaws and Walker with six brigades had come up, one brigade had been drawn from the right to re inforce Early's forces of Ewell's division; and all fell Sedgwick's left flank and rear. Nearly 2,111 Union soldiers were struck down at a blow without a chance to retaliate; this division lost 2,255 men in all, more than 40 per cent of its entire number, including Sedgwick severely wounded. Sumner tried to change front, but the lines broke and scattered north ward, sweeping away everything in their rush, and only reformed on the north hill where Meade and the First corps had taken refuge. A brigade of the Twelfth came up to help, but lost a third of its number, one regiment losing 60 per cent. The right of the Confederate at tacking line crossed the turnpike at the Dunk ard church and made two assaults upon Greene's position east of the church, and were repulsed with great slaughter, and Greene, making a counter charge, entered the woods beyond the church. Greene held this position until noon, when the Confederates attacked both his flanks and drove him from the church.
Meantime W. F. Smith of Franklin's corps had come on the field. Hancock (then one of his brigadiers) obtained a regiment from Sum ner, took position opposite the woods, drove away the approaching Confederate skirmishers, and silenced their batteries. A second brigade was placed on his left, and with heavy loss ad vanced to near the church; but on sending for his reserve brigade to support it he found it had been ordered away to support French. The lat ter moving to the left south of the east woods, over the farm lands, drove back D. H. Hill's skirmishers to his main line in the sunken road, where he engaged him over an hour, when he was joined by Richardson. Here a long and sanguinary conflict ensued: the Confederates turned the "Bloody Lane" into a rough fortress with fence rails, and before carrying it the Union divisions had lost near a third of their total, one regiment losing 60 per cent. They had won 'the position by perhaps 1 P.M., and shortly afterward French's troops were relieved by a brigade of Smith's division. Richardson withdrew his men to the ridge, and about that time was mortally wounded and succeeded by Hancock. This practically ended the operations on the Federal right, and indeed the battle of Antietam so far as it had any tendency to change the status quo. When Richardson's line had been withdrawn, there was a vigorous contest of artillery. Meagher's brigade took the centre, and somewhat less than two regi ments came from French to aid Richardson's division. Despite the application for artillery for the division, none had been obtained. The length of the Union line made it impossible that more than one line of troops be formed; and so far advanced was this line that a part of it was continually swept by the fire of the bat ttries on the Confederate left, these batteries being protected by the west woods. An attack on the Union left was successfully repulsed Hexamer's battery (obtained from and Battery I, First artillery.
4. Between 4 and 5 P.M. a regiment of Franklin's corps was ordered to drive away some skirmishers of Hill's division south of the Bloody Lane and succeeded at the cost of half its force.