In the Bowels of Hell at Antietam

By Scott Valentine

When William Estes Hacker regained consciousness after a bullet knocked him off his feet at Antietam, he became aware of the appalling human carnage around him. The deeply religious 18-year-old feared he had been cast down into the bowels of hell.

Hacker, a native of Philadelphia, Pa., who had moved with his family to Worcester, Mass., and attended military school, joined the army in 1861 as a volunteer aide to Brig. Gen. James Cooper of Maryland. In May 1862, Hacker became second lieutenant of Company A of the 3rd Maryland Infantry.

Months later at Antietam, at 7:30 a.m. on September 17, 2nd Lt. Hacker and the rest of the 3rd marched south down Smoketown Road toward the Hagerstown Pike. The Marylanders and their brigade were part of Maj. Gen. Joseph K.F. Mansfield’s 12th Corps. Coming to a woodlot known as the East Woods, they halted and deployed into a line of battle about 8:15.

They soon received orders to enter the woods, encountered enemy troops, and charged them. Hacker, at the head of his company, was among the first hit by fire. A bullet struck him on the right side of his chest near the armpit and exited just below the lower angle of the shoulder blade. At some point after he became aware of what had happened, comrades carried him to the nearby farmhouse of Samuel Poffenberger northeast of the East Woods.

About 9 a.m., nurse Clara Barton, and her assistant, Cornelius Welles, arrived on the scene with a wagon of medical supplies. They pulled up at a stone barn just down the lane from the Poffenberger house. Barton entered the barn and found hundreds of wounded men in desperate need of care—but no surgeons. The teamster driving the wagon made his way to the Poffenberger house, where surgeons frantically treated the wounded. Barton, and her team, leapt into action, distributing the supplies to the surgeons and caring for the injured men. Then they headed back to the barn to make the wounded as comfortable as possible while they waited for treatment. Whether or not Barton or Welles attended to Hacker is unknown.

Meanwhile, the fighting raged. After Confederate forces were driven from the immediate vicinity, Chaplain Samuel Kramer of the 3rd and others in the regiment went in to find Hacker and other missing men. They located Hacker inside the farmhouse, secured an ambulance, and transported him to better quarters.

Hacker received proper care, and his father, William, traveled from Worcester, Mass., to bring his son home to recuperate. Hacker never quite recovered. He returned to the regiment before the end of the year, but almost immediately fell ill and gained admission to a military hospital in Philadelphia. In January 1863, he rejoined his command with a promotion to captain and appointment as temporary inspecting officer for the 12th Corps. Then he contracted typhoid fever, which proved fatal. He died in the 2nd Division, 12th Corps hospital on March 29, 1863, five months shy of his 19th birthday. His remains rest in Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Scott Valentine is a MI Contributing Editor.

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