Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 6.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Loss of the Fiftieth Georgia regiment at Antietam.--An officer of the Fiftieth Georgia regiment writes to the Savannah Republican a letter, which shows that the slaughter of the rebels in the battle of Antietam has not been exaggerated, at least in regard [19] to the regiments whose movements he witnessed. He says: “The Fiftieth were posted in a narrow path, washed out into a regular gully, and were fired into by the enemy from the front, rear and left flank. The men stood their ground nobly, returning their fire until nearly two thirds of their number lay dead or wounded in that lane. Out of two hundred and ten carried into the fight over one hundred and twenty-five were killed and wounded in less than twenty minutes. The slaughter was horrible! When ordered to retreat I could scarcely extricate myself from the dead and wounded around me. A man could have walked from the head of our line to the foot on their bodies. The survivors of the regiment retreated very orderly back to where Gen. Anderson's brigade rested. The brigade suffered terribly. James's South-Carolina battalion was nearly annihilated. The Fiftieth Georgia lost nearly all their commissioned officers.” At night only fifty-five men of the Fiftieth remained fit for duty. They were over forty-eight hours without any thing to eat or drink.