Antietam National Battlefield

 

Visited: Sept 2019

Nearby town: Sharpsburg, MD; Frederick, MD

"In the time that I am writing, every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before. It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield."

-Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker

September 17, 1862 - the single most bloodiest day in United States history.

On that day, the gentle, rolling hills and serene meadows of Western Maryland witnessed a tremendous and terrible battle.

The Civil War had been raging for nearly 18 months. By the end of the summer of 1862, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia again repelled the Union Army at the Second Battle of Bull Run. In addition, Union General McClellan's planned invasion of Richmond, the Peninsular Campaign, stalled and sputtered. After suffering heavy losses, the Union abandoned the invasion and withdrew.

These victories emboldened Confederate General Robert E. Lee. He decided to make a daring move. He decided to invade Union territory by advancing his army into Maryland. Lee predicted that moving the action north would relieve war-torn farms in Virginia, and enable him to re-supply his own army. Lee also thought that Maryland would be a good place to initiate an invasion because Maryland was a slave state and many of its citizens were sympathetic to the Confederate cause. Lee thought there was an outside chance that Maryland might welcome his army or even secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. Furthermore, Lee hoped that military victories on Union soil would destroy Northern morale as the midterm elections approached; convince Northern leaders to abandon their goal of reuniting the nation and broker for peace; and encourage foreign powers, particularly Britain and France, to officially recognize the Confederate government.

Lee began to move his army north and into Maryland in early September 1862.

The Union Army of the Potomac took notice of Lee's movements to the north. They figured that the Confederates planned to attack Union soil. On September 7, the Army of the Potomac, led by George B. McClellan, marched north of Washington DC into Maryland, parallel to Lee's army, with orders to pursue Lee and cut off any attack. McClellan's forces were huge, numbering approximately 102,000 men, including six infantry corps, led by Joseph Hooker, Edwin Sumner, Fitz John Porter, William B. Franklin, Ambrose E. Burnside, and Joseph K. Mansfield, respectively. McClellan's pursuit of Lee was slow and cautious. McClellan's overly cautious approach had led to the failure of the Peninsular Campaign; however, Lincoln respected McClellan's organizational skills, training abilities, and knew that McClellan enjoyed fierce loyalty among his troops. Therefore, even though the Cabinet insisted that McClellan was unfit for command, Lincoln retained McClellan as head general of the Army of the Potomac despite his previous failures. 

Lee's plan involved a risky maneuver. Lee decided to split his 55,000-strong force into two. One contingency, led by Stonewall Jackson, would attack the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and then the other, led by Lee himself and James Longstreet, would simultaneously attack the city of Hagerstown and cut off the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which provided crucial supply to Washington DC. 

These plans - known as Special Order 191 - were distributed to the Confederate officers. A copy of these orders became lost somewhere in transit. On September 13, a Union Corporal, Barton Mitchell, just happened to discover this copy lying in the grass at a campground recently vacated by Confederate troops, wrapped around three cigars. McClellan could not believe his luck. He now knew the detailed plans of Lee, and more importantly, he knew that Lee was splitting his forces into two, thus subjecting each cohort to isolation and defeat if McClellan acted quickly. Incredibly, despite this knowledge, McClellan waited nearly an entire day before positioning his troops to intercept Lee's splintered army.

In a somewhat ironic twist, Confederate spies alerted Lee that McClellan was moving quickly - or, at least, quickly for McClellan. Too quickly. McClellan's aggressive action was so out of character, Lee surmised that something was amiss. Lee suspected that, somehow, McClellan had caught wind of the Special Order. Lee took action to mitigate this potentially disastrous scenario. Lee was able to concentrate most of his forces at the village of Sharpsburg, on the western bank of the Antietam River.          

The Union army arrived at the eastern bank of the Antietam River on the evening of September 15. If McClellan had attacked at that moment, his forces would likely have overwhelmed the vastly outnumbered Confederate army. However, due to McClellan's overly cautious nature, he wrongly assumed Lee's troops were much more numerous then they actually were, and instead bunkered down. McClellan would not attack for another day-and-a-half, thereby allowing Jackson's troops to arrive and reinforce Lee's army. The extra time also allowed Lee to fortify a position at Dunker Church. Lee placed main artillery and cannon in the field next to the Church.

Dunker Church

 

The battle commenced on the early morning of September 17. Union Gen. Hooker led the initial assault. His troops attacked from the north on the Confederate's left flank, with plans to pierce the line and overrun the fortification at the Dunker Church. A cornfield provided cover as Hooker's troops approached. However, once the troops emerged from the cornfield, they were met with a terrible and terrific volley from Jackson's division, positioned at the Church. For the next four hours, the cornfield changed hands again and again as both sides attacked and counterattacked. The carnage was brutal, one Lousiana Brigade suffered 60% casualties in 30 minutes. Losses were incredibly heavy, thousands of troops on both sides lay in the cornfield, dead and dying. 

the hallowed grounds of the Cornfield

After this bloody and brutal seesaw in the cornfield, the Union army was finally able to push through and occupy the grounds near the Dunker Church at approximately 10:00 in the morning.

Among the Union troops was a brave nurse known as the "angel of the battlefield". Arriving at the cornfield at noon, she did her best to comfort and aid the wounded. The nurse risked her own life doing this work, for as she offered this assistance, bullets still whizzed in the air and artillery boomed in the distance. She later recounted:

"A man lying on the ground asked for a drink - I stooped to give it, and having raised him with my right hand, was holding the cup to his lips with my left, when I felt a sudden twitch of the loose sleeve of my dress - the poor fellow sprang from my hands and fell back quivering in the agonies of death - a ball had passed between my body - and the right arm which supported him - cutting through the sleeve, and passing through his chest from shoulder to shoulder. There was no more to be done for him and I left him to rest. I have never mended that hole in my sleeve."

This nurse was, of course, Clara Barton, who would later found the American Red Cross.

the New York Monument

By midday, the action had shifted to the center of the Confederate line. South of the Dunker Church, the Confederate line ran along a "sunken" road. The Confederates along this road, led by Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill, held strong against the Union assault for over three hours. Eventually, after heavy losses, the Union army was able to take the road. However, the troops were so exhausted after taking the road, and the scene so chaotic, that no further assault was taken. Ultimately, neither side gained a decisive advantage. This sunken road was the scene of perhaps the bloodiest and costliest fighting in the entire war. Over 5,500 soliders were killed or wounded in three hours of battle in this spot alone. For years afterwards, veterans referred to the sunken road as "Bloody Lane."

Bloody Lane

The action then shifted to the southern end of the battlefield. Union Maj. Gen. Burnside was tasked to cross the Antietam River at the Rohrbach's Bridge and take the high ground on the bluffs on the western side of the river. The Confederate troops occupied these bluffs, but the forces there had been depleted as Lee redeployed the troops to the left flank at the cornfield and at the sunken road. By 10:00 am, only 3,000 Confederate soldiers, led by Brig. Gen. David Jones, were left to meet Burnside's troops at the river. Although vastly outnumbered, Jones occupied the high ground, and Burnside's troops were exposed along the river bank as they tried to cross the bridge. Burnside tried to cross the bridge, but was repeatedly repelled by Confederate fire and was forced to fall back after suffering heavy losses. Finally, on the third attempt, Burnside was able to advance across the bridge and push back Lee's right flank. Despite successfully taking the bridge, Burnside had been held up by Jones's men for nearly three hours and had taken heavy losses. Once again, the battle was effectively a stalemate. The bridge is now known as Burnside's Bridge.

Burnside Bridge

The battle ended at approximately 5:30 p.m. The Union had suffered 12,410 casualties with 2,108 dead. The Confederates had suffered 10,316 casualties with 1,547 dead. A staggering total of 22,726 casualties in a single day. Of the other casualties, 1,910 Union soldiers and 1,550 Confederate soldiers died of their wounds shortly after the battle. More Americans died in battle on September 17, 1862, than on any other day in the nation's history.

The Union referred to the battle as Antietam (after the river), and the Confederates referred to the battle as Sharpsburg (after the village).  

Facing these incredible losses, Lee decided to withdraw his forces across the Potomac and retreat back into Virginia on the evening of September 18. Although the Union suffered more losses than the Confederates, the Confederates were driven from the field of battle and decided to end their planned invasion. As Lee retreated, McClellan elected not to pursue Lee across the Potomac and deliver a potentially crippling blow to the Army of Northern Virginia, despite repeated entreaties from President Lincoln. Eventually, Lincoln had enough of McClellan's overcautiousness. The battle had concluded in a draw, but it could have been a decisive victory if McClellan had simply been more aggressive. On November 5, Lincoln relieved McClellan of command. Lincoln replaced McClellan with Ambrose Burnside. 

Although the battle was tactically inconclusive, historians generally agree that Antietam was a strategic victory for the Union. The Confederates had withdrawn first and abandoned their planned invasion of the North. That was enough of a victory to persuade Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in Confederate-controlled territory, and transformed the purpose of the war to not only perserving the Union, but also abolishing slavery. With emancipation being a stated goal of the Union campaign, Britain and France - countries that disliked slavery and had abolished slavery years earlier - decided not to officially recognize the Confederate government.  

Antietam National Battlefield was established to commerate the site in 1890. Be sure to visit the Museum, Visitor's Center, the cemetary, and take the auto-tour around the battlefield. Every American should visit these hallowed grounds.

For more info: https://www.nps.gov/anti/index.htm