[KG_SSpoom]

It was now about 1 p.m., and the main fury of the battle focused on Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's IX Corps and its advance on the Confederate line south of Sharpsburg. But just because the fighting had subsided on the northern part of the battlefield did not mean it had ended. Not by a long shot.

Soldiers on the front lines still faced a firestorm of shot and shell, and units on both sides still suffered casualties. The 7th Maine, in the words of one veteran, "hugged the ground for several hours" among the boulders where it lay -- not as exposed to Confederate artillery fire as some Federal units. Thomas Hyde wrote later that "hills forbade all knowledge" of what was happening with Burnside's men to the south. "It was drawing near five o'clock…and we were expecting soon to be relieved, little knowing that in a few minutes more the 7th Maine were to find their Balaklava."

A bit before 5 o'clock, the six 3-inch rifles of Captain John W. Wolcott's Battery A, 1st Maryland Light Artillery, were ordered to an exposed position just forward of Irwin's brigade. Confederate marksmen across the Hagerstown Pike to the west and to the south, from the area of the Piper farm, hammered the exposed Federal cannoneers. Wolcott complained to artillery commander Captain Emory Upton that his men were being picked off by sharpshooters posted around the Piper barns. Irwin, who was accompanying Upton, decided to do something about it.

Hyde recalled that Irwin rode over to the 7th Maine and said, "Major Hyde, take your regiment and drive the enemy away from those trees and buildings." Hyde was astounded; he couldn't believe his commander was ordering what was then a regiment of less than 200 men to attack.

"Colonel, I have seen a large force of rebels go in there," Hyde remembered saying later. "I should think two brigades."

"Are you afraid to go, sir?" Irwin responded.

"Give the order so the regiment can hear it, and we are ready, sir," Hyde said. Irwin did just that, and Hyde called his men to attention. Before they set off, Hyde ordered Johnny Begg and George Williams, two young boys who carried the regimental guidons, to the rear, but they sneaked back in the ranks without Hyde's knowledge.

Moving by the left flank, Hyde marched his regiment in front of the Vermont Brigade, then south to the Sunken Road. There he ordered his men into a regimental battle line, and they "crossed the sunken road, which was so filled with the dead and wounded of the enemy that my horse had to step on them to get over."

On the other side, in a trampled-down cornfield, Hyde halted the men, straightened the line and ordered them to charge. The ground from the Sunken Road over which the 7th Maine attacked the Piper farm at first dips down -- Hyde described it as a "cup-shaped valley" -- then begins to rise gently. It reaches a slight ridge, on the other side of which sits the Piper barn. Not much more than 100 yards off to the right is the Hagerstown Pike, lined then and now by a low stone wall.

Moving ahead of the 7th Maine were 15 skirmishers under a Lieutenant Butler. Acting adjutant William L. Haskell rode with the left flank of the regimental line, while Hyde rode in front of the regiment on the right. As they started to move up the hill, Hyde claimed a shell from a friendly battery took out four of his men.