Cump, it is inspiring to read the story of an honorable opponent such as Colonel Cross, who faced my ancestors in the 18th Georgia on a number of occasions. Not directly at Antietam, as the 18th was then in the Texas Brigade, commanded at that time by Colonel William T. Wofford, who raised the 18th in 1861. My great uncles Frank and Alexander Boring were in Company A. The Texans and Georgians were in the cornfield that bloody day, but John B. Gordon, who was wounded five times before leaving the sunken road, or Bloody Lane, faced Colonel Cross. Gordon was from Calhoun, just up the road from me in what is now Gordon County.

After Antietam, The 18th Georgia was transferred, with Colonel Wofford back in command, to Cobb's Brigade, when the ANV was reorganized to place troops from the same state together. They were behind the stone wall at Fredericksburg, to meet Colonel Cross' New Hampshiremen. When General Cobb was mortally wounded, Wofford was promoted to Brigadier General. Thereafter, it was "Wofford's Brigade". The 18th was thereafter again commanded by Colonel S. Z. Ruff.

On that fateful July 2nd, when Cross was mortally wounded, the 18th was in the wheatfield, opposing his troops after their shift from the woods. It makes the struggles those men went through more immediate when human faces are put upon the numbers they faced; that is why I added all this information, in rememberance of those honorable men on both sides. Stan