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Photographs by Dennis Steele
90 ARMY ■ September 2012
Antietam at 150
By BG John S. Brown
U.S. Army retired
eptember 17 marks the 150th anniversary
of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest
single day in American history. The battlefield, not far from Washington, D.C.,
still retains much of its original character. The
campaign remains a case study in operational
maneuver and the battle a testimony to courage
under fire.
S
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The Lower Bridge spans Antietam Creek on Antietam National Battlefield, Md. Today it is referred to as Burnside’s Bridge
for MG Ambrose E. Burnside, whose corps finally advanced across it after being blocked by about 500 Confederates for
three hours during the Battle of Antietam. Two major attacks were repulsed, but the Federals succeeded with a third attack.
n the July issue we discussed Union GEN George B. McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign and its inglorious end.
Learning that McClellan was withdrawing his army by
sea from the peninsula, Confederate GEN Robert E. Lee
broke away and hastened to defeat Union forces in northern
Virginia before McClellan could rejoin them. These were
commanded by MG John Pope, a capable general but no
match for Lee and his brilliant principal subordinates,
I
BG John S. Brown, USA Ret., was chief of military history at the
U.S. Army Center of Military History from December 1998 to
October 2005. He commanded the 2nd Battalion, 66th Armor, in
Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War and returned to Kuwait as
commander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in 1995.
He has a doctorate in history from Indiana University. His book,
Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army,
1989–2005, was published in 2011.
92 ARMY ■ September 2012
Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson and James Longstreet. In a series of masterful maneuvers, the Confederate generals
turned Pope’s flank, forced him into a battle to recover his
lines of communications and handed him a stinging defeat at
the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas).
Union forces fell back on Washington, D.C., where they
were absorbed into a larger whole that included McClellan’s
returning Peninsular veterans. Pope was exiled to St. Paul,
Minn., there to take command of the Northwest Department.
McClellan assumed command of the combined forces and
did a commendable job of reorganizing, retraining and reinvigorating them. McClellan was at his best when not on the
field of battle. President Abraham Lincoln had appointed
Henry W. Halleck as his General in Chief in July 1862, but
Halleck assumed a role as military advisor to the President
rather than attempt the direct exercise of field or strategic
command.
A current view of Dunker Church shows the National Park Service sign with a photograph
of casualties on the same ground. The church was the objective for attacks on the morning
of the battle by Union corps under MG Joseph Hooker and MG Joseph K.F. Mansfield.
s capable as McClellan’s reconstruction of the Army of
the Potomac was, Union mobilization practices embodied a flaw that would continue to haunt commanders on the battlefield. Rather than placing a priority on
bringing veteran regiments back up to full strength after
combat losses, the Union favored raising entirely new
units. Among the perceived advantages, this practice reduced the burdens of administering existing units at a distance—and offered additional command positions with
consequent opportunities for patronage. During this period only 50,000 recruits replaced combat losses, whereas
420,000 went into totally new units. As a result, regiments
with combat experience withered, and regiments without
combat experience continued to be thrown into battle underprepared.
Lee knew he could not rest on his laurels after Second Bull
Run, nor was he inclined to. On September 4 he invaded
Maryland, both to retain the initiative and in the hope that
Marylanders could be induced to join the Confederacy.
Maryland was a slave-holding state, and sentiment for the
South there was strong. The invasion offered opportunities
to sever vital Union east-west rail communications, seize the
critical depot of Harpers Ferry, W. Va., move the fighting
away from Virginia, and operate against such major northern
cities as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Lee’s
aspirations were Union nightmares. McClellan alleged he
did “not despair of saving the capital” but nevertheless considered it prudent to ship the “family silver” elsewhere.
On September 13 McClellan was handed a copy of Lee’s
Special Order No. 191. One of his soldiers had found it in an
abandoned Confederate campsite and recognized its importance. This intelligence coup revealed that the Confederates
would be strung out from Harpers Ferry—where Jackson
was besieging a garrison of 12,000—to Hagerstown, Md.,
and beyond. Little blocked McClellan’s approach from
Washington through Fredericksburg, Va., to cut across this
A
The memorial to the Union’s Irish Brigade
honors soldiers who fell in the battle of
Bloody Lane.
line of communications. McClellan acted on this intelligence windfall, but the next day rather than immediately.
Lee, meanwhile, recognizing that critical intelligence had
been compromised, speedily threw blocking forces into
Turner’s Gap and Crampton’s Gap in Maryland while withdrawing the rest of his army in the direction of Sharpsburg
on the Potomac River. Enterprising Union corps commanders forced both gaps, but they lost a day doing it. McClellan
proceeded cautiously, convinced he was outnumbered even
though he had an overall numerical advantage of 84,000 to
55,000. Harpers Ferry, surrounded and bombarded on all
sides from neighboring heights, surrendered during the
morning of September 15. This freed Jackson’s considerable
besieging force to rejoin Lee.
Lee took up a position at Sharpsburg facing east across
Antietam Creek. Vegetation and irregularities in the ground
offered cover, but his back was against the Potomac River,
and the higher ground was on the Union side of Antietam
Creek. McClellan’s forces arrived on the afternoon of September 15. McClellan consumed the next day with skirmishing, reconnaissance and the formulation of plans. Jackson’s
force, meanwhile, marched from Harpers Ferry and assumed responsibility for the sector that would become the
axis of the Union’s main attack.
Early on September 17 two Union corps, commanded by
MG Joseph Hooker and MG Joseph K. F. Mansfield, smashed
into the Confederate left flank. They forced their way forward in heavy fighting but were checked by savage counterattacks and enfilading artillery fire. Mansfield was killed and
Hooker wounded. Subordinate commanders tried to regain
the momentum of the attack but became disorganized. The
divisions of MG Edwin V. Sumner’s II Corps marched in to
reinforce the attack but became separated and misdirected
during their approach. They deployed piecemeal in different
places. The first to arrive was so badly mauled it was almost
immediately combat-ineffective. The remaining two diviSeptember 2012 ■ ARMY
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Above, a memorial overlooking Dunker Church honors Maryland soldiers who fought in the Battle of Antietam. Inset left,
a bronze memorial of stacked rifles supporting a cooking pot
honors the 90th Pennsylvania Regiment at Antietam.
sions became embroiled in savage fighting for a sunken road
labeled Bloody Lane ever since. Repeated Union attacks
eventually forced the Confederates out of Bloody Lane. Confederate forces deployed north of Sharpsburg were now on
their last legs, and a fresh Union corps was arriving. At this
point McClellan, appalled by his losses and magnifying Confederate strength in his own mind, demurred from further
attacks on this axis.
cClellan’s hopes for victory shifted to the Confederate
right flank, against which MG Ambrose E. Burnside
was to launch massive attacks. Twice Union columns
were bloodily repulsed in assaults across the span thenceforward called Burnside’s Bridge. On the third attempt they
made it across. At about the same time, other Union columns
crossed Antietam Creek at fords located nearby. By 3:00 p.m.
Burnside was across the creek, and by 4:00 p.m. he was on the
high ground east and south of Sharpsburg. Around this time
Confederate MG A.P. Hill arrived on the battlefield with the
last of the Confederate divisions from Harpers Ferry. Literally panting from their forced march, these unexpected reinforcements crashed into the Union flank and forced it back to
Antietam Creek. Both sides had had enough.
Lee held his positions throughout the day of September
18, and McClellan declined to attack them. Securing this
moral victory, Lee skillfully withdrew across the Potomac
that night. Outnumbered by almost two-to-one on the battlefield, Lee had fought to a draw, losing about 10,300 to ap-
M
proximately 12,400 on the Union side. To this butcher’s bill,
one might add the capture of Harpers Ferry and its garrison.
Union troops had fought well, as had most of their commanders. McClellan himself had been cautious and indecisive,
committing his forces piecemeal. Lee had been able to shift
forces sufficiently to contain each attack in turn. Lee withdrew undefeated and was virtually untouched by pursuit.
President Lincoln was, however, able to portray the indecisive carnage as enough of a victory to justify unveiling his
Emancipation Proclamation. For the Union cause, this was a
victory of a very different sort.
✭
Recommended Reading:
Esposito, Vincent J., The West Point Atlas of American
Wars, Volume I: 1689–1900 (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger, 1959)
Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative, Vol. 1: Fort
Sumter to Perryville (New York: Random House, 1958)
Luvaas, Jay and Harold W. Nelson, eds., Guide to the
Battle of Antietam (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of
Kansas, 1996)
McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil
War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)
Sears, Stephen W., Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of
Antietam (Norwalk, Conn.: Easton Press, 1988)
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