The Cornfield

The Cornfield, site of some of the bloodiest fighting during the Battle of Antietam (near Sharpsburg, Maryland).
Photograph taken by the writer in April 2007, while touring the battlefields with Professor James McPherson.

Lee & Hood, 17 Sep 1862

As the Battle of Antietam came to an end, General Robert E. Lee encountered Brigadier General John Bell Hood while inspecting the Confederate left flank.
Lee reportedly asked: "Great God, General Hood, where is your splendid division?"
Hood replied, "They are lying upon the field where you sent them, sir."

(Roughly two-thirds of Hood's brigade had been killed or wounded fighting in "The Cornfield.")

Alfred Holt Colquitt (1824-1894)

from the New Georgia Encyclopedia:

Alfred H. Colquitt, an active secessionist and brigade commander in the Civil War (1861-65), was a prominent political leader in his home state until his death. During his long career, the veteran officer was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, as well as the governor of Georgia.
Alfred Holt Colquitt was born in Walton County [Georgia] on April 20, 1824. In his youth Colquitt was educated at a local school in Monroe and eventually attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), from which he graduated in 1844. Two years later Colquitt became a member of the Georgia bar and began practicing law in Monroe. His legal career was interrupted by service in the Mexican War (1846-48), during which he rose to the rank of major. Upon his return from the conflict, Colquitt began a political career and in 1853 was elected a U.S. representative to Congress. He did not run for reelection in 1854 but, at the end of his term in 1855, returned home to Georgia, where he was elected to the state legislature in 1859.
On the eve of the Civil War, Colquitt was actively involved in the secession movement. He served as an elector for John C. Breckinridge, a southern rights Democrat, during the 1860 presidential election, and in 1861 his support for states' rights won him a seat at the Georgia Secession Convention. Colquitt immediately joined the Confederate army when Georgia left the Union in January 1861.
Colquitt began his Confederate service as a captain but was quickly elected colonel of the Sixth Georgia Infantry in May 1861. After service in defense of Richmond, Virginia, during the spring and summer of 1862, he was appointed brigadier general on September 1, 1862. Colquitt commanded a brigade of Georgians throughout most of the battles in the eastern theater, from Antietam in Maryland in September 1862 through Chancellorsville, Virginia, in May 1863. Colquitt's service in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia garnered him the sobriquet "the rock of South Mountain" because his brigade stalwartly repelled an attack from the Union army at South Mountain in Maryland on September 14, 1862. After questionable service during Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's famous flank attack on the Union army at Chancellorsville, Colquitt was sent first to North Carolina and ultimately to South Carolina for much of 1863 and 1864. He participated in the defense of Charleston, South Carolina, during the long siege of that city.
On February 20, 1864, anxious to atone for what was perceived as poor service at Chancellorsville, Colquitt commanded the forces that won the Battle of Olustee in Florida. He was called "the hero of Olustee" for the victory that secured Florida and prevented a Union invasion of his home state. Colquitt returned to Virginia with his brigade for the Petersburg Campaign and helped prevent the seizure of the city in 1864. Late in the war, Colquitt was again transferred to North Carolina. In January 1865 he commanded at Fort Fisher, North Carolina, but could not prevent its capitulation. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major general.

Gen. John B. Gordon (1832-1904)

John Brown Gordon was one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted generals during the Civil War.
Although lacking any military education or experience, Gordon was elected captain of a company of mountaineers and quickly climbed from captain to brigadier general (November 1, 1862) to major general (May 14, 1864). Gordon was an aggressive general who, when in command or leading a charge, was never defeated or repulsed. In 1864, Gordon was described by General Robert E. Lee in a letter to Confederate President Jefferson Davis as being one of his best brigadiers, "characterized by splendid audacity."
Gordon was a brigadier general and brigade commander in D.H. Hill's division in the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. During the subsequent Seven Days battles, as Gordon strode fearlessly among his men, enemy bullets shattered the handle of his pistol, pierced his canteen, and tore away part of the front of his coat. He was wounded in the eyes during the assault on Malvern Hill.
Assigned by General Lee to hold the vital sunken road, or "Bloody Lane", during the Battle of Antietam, Gordon's propensity for being wounded reached new heights. First, a Minié ball passed through his calf. Then, a second ball hit him higher in the same leg. A third ball went through his left arm. He continued to lead his men despite the fact that the muscles and tendons in his arm were mangled, and a small artery severed. A fourth ball hit him in his shoulder. Despite pleas that he go to the rear, he continued to lead his men. Gordon was finally stopped by a ball that hit him in the face, passing through his left cheek and exiting his jaw. He fell with his face in his cap and might have drowned in his own blood if it hadn't drained out through a bullet hole in the cap.
After months of recuperation, in June 1863 Gordon led a brigade of Georgians in Jubal Early's division during the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania. At Gettysburg, on July 1, Gordon's brigade smashed into the Union XI Corps on Barlow's Knoll.
In the Overland Campaign, Gordon commanded a division in Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's (later Early's) corps. He proposed a flanking attack against the Union right in the Battle of the Wilderness that might have had a decisive effect on the battle, had Early allowed him freedom to launch it before late in the day. Gordon's success in turning back the massive Union assault in the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse (the Bloody Angle) prevented a Confederate rout.
He left with Early for the Valley campaigns of 1864 and was wounded August 25, 1864, at Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Confederate engineer Jedediah Hotchkiss's official report of the incident stated, "Quite a lively skirmish ensued, in which Gordon was wounded in the head, but he gallantly dashed on, the blood streaming over him." His wife Fanny, accompanying her husband on the campaign as general's wives sometimes did, rushed out into the street at the Third Battle of Winchester to urge Gordon's retreating troops to go back and face the enemy. Gordon was horrified to find her in the street with shells and balls flying about her.
Returning to Lee's army after Early's defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Gordon led the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia until the end of the war. In this role, he defended the line in the Siege of Petersburg and commanded the attack on Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865 (where he was wounded again, in the leg). At Appomattox, he led his men in the last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia, capturing the entrenchments and several pieces of artillery in his front just before the surrender. On April 12, 1865, Gordon's troops officially surrendered to Bvt. Maj. Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, acting for Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

(info from Wikipedia)