up, and just then, a Confederate musket ball
slammed into the back of his head, glanced off the lower occipital bone, and
lodged between his jugular vein and carotid artery. He fell unconscious and might
have been left behind, as his line gave way at that moment, but thankfully, two
soldiers—a lieutenant and a corporal—grabbed him and dragged him by his heels
to the safety of a haystack 150 yards away.

Surgeon H. Ernest Goodman of the 28th Pennsylvania arrived on the scene, and with
forceps, extracted the ball. Tyndale awakened, but was partially deaf and
unable to move all of his face. Nevertheless, he burbled, “Thank the officers
and men for their great courage this day; and tell them that, though I have
always been very strict with them, it was for their own good, and Ilove and
respect them.”

(This is the area where Tyndale was wounded. That's me standing in the foreground. In 1862, the area around me would have been dotted with haystacks. The Confederates would have been on the horizon near the New York monument. The Union troops--now firing away the last of their ammunition--retreated eastward toward the perspective of the viewer. When Tyndale fell unconscious, two Union soldiers--Lieutenant Charles W. Borbridge and Corporal A. Henry Hayward--grabbed Tyndale by his ankles and pulled him to safety.)

Although he expected to die, Tyndale survived. (The wound
did eventually kill him, but much later—in 1880. It produced a blood clot that
induced a severe heart attack.) Tyndale’s head wound shattered his physical
health, and the fight at Antietam, which cost his brigade 448 officers and men,
stuck with him,