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A battery that fought in many campaigns--“Knap's”
The upper photograph is of Independent Battery E of Pennsylvania Light Artillery, known as Knap's Battery, after its captain, Joseph M. Knap.
Here the battery is within a strong fortification, guarded by a “slashing” of trees with branches pointing outward, visible beyond the walls.
At Antietam, where the battery distinguished itself, there were no entrenchments to protect it from the fire of the Confederates; yet, practically unsupported, it broke up two charges in the thick of the action.
Then McClellan's long-range guns materially assisted the Union advance, but later in the day the demand for artillery was so great that when General Hancock asked for more to assist his attenuated line, he could not get them until he finally borrowed one battery from Franklin.
After the battle ended (September 17, 1862) and the Confederates withdrew to the south side of the Potomac, General Porter resolved to capture some of the Confederate guns commanding the fords.
One of the five pieces taken in this exploit on the night of September 19th was a gun which had been captured by the Confederates at the First Bull Run, from Griffin's Battery, D of the Fifth United States Artillery.
There is another photograph of Knap's battery in Volume II, page 61. It was organized at Point of Rocks, Maryland, from a company formed for the Sixty-third Pennsylvania and surplus men of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantry in September, 1861.
Its service included Pope's campaign in Northern Virginia, beside the Maryland campaign which culminated at Antietam.
Its next important campaign was that of Chancellorsville, and then came the Gettysburg campaign.
The scene of its activities was then transferred to the West, where it fought at Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.
It was with Sherman in the Atlanta campaign, marched with him to the sea, and returned to Washington with the Army of Georgia in time for the Grand Review. |
