* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Battle of Antietam
Alabama in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Shiloh wikipedia , lookup
Battle of White Oak Road wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Wilson's Creek wikipedia , lookup
Opposition to the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Second Battle of Corinth wikipedia , lookup
First Battle of Lexington wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Sailor's Creek wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Fort Pillow wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Perryville wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Cumberland Church wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Appomattox Station wikipedia , lookup
Union (American Civil War) wikipedia , lookup
Red River Campaign wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Chancellorsville wikipedia , lookup
First Battle of Bull Run wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Roanoke Island wikipedia , lookup
Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Second Battle of Bull Run wikipedia , lookup
Mississippi in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Namozine Church wikipedia , lookup
Conclusion of the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Battle of New Bern wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Lewis's Farm wikipedia , lookup
Eastern Theater of the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Northern Virginia Campaign wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Fredericksburg wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Malvern Hill wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Harpers Ferry wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Seven Pines wikipedia , lookup
BATTLE OF ANTIETAM A History From Beginning to End Copyright © 2016 by Hourly History Limited All rights reserved. Table of Contents Maryland, My Maryland… McClellan’s Army The Opening Gambit Harper’s Ferry Dunker Church & The Woods The Cornfield Bloody Lane Burnside’s Bridge The End of the Fight The Aftermath >>BONUSES<< Introduction In the fall of 1862, the entire world had its attention on what General Robert E. Lee was doing. Over the summer he’d proven that the Confederacy had some serious chops, and now, hard on the heels of victory, he was about to make a daring move - one that would take the Southern war from the defensive to the offensive. The next steps would be crucial. Victory would mean recognition for the Confederacy from the European nations. Should that happen, then there was a distinct possibility that Great Britain and France would join the war on their side. Such an alliance would change the face of the United States of America forever. Antietam, though, would change all of that. What transpired in those fields and along that creek would become a tragedy that would be remembered for years to come. Dunker Church. The Cornfield. The West Woods. Bloody Lane. Burnside Bridge. More than the individual people, the places would become immortalized, with a memory of wholesale slaughter attached to each. It’s hard to think about individuals when the dead and wounded number in the thousands. There were some individuals who stood out, some in infamy, others more heroically. Had it not been for the actions of two particular men, General Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy and Major General George McClellan of the Union Army, the entire war might have ended differently. Let’s start out with General Lee, at the end of a very successful summer. Chapter One Maryland, My Maryland… “The present seems to be the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland.” —Gen. Robert E. Lee In September of 1862, fresh from the victory at Second Bull Run, General Robert E. Lee thought to take his army into Maryland, bringing the fight into the enemy’s lands. It was a good time of year for an invasion. Being late September, a fresh harvest would be coming in. What better plan than to deplete the enemy’s resources rather than your own? It was a strange invasion. While the troops were starving, the orders were to take nothing. General Lee not only forbade his troops from looting or pillaging, but they were ordered to pay for any provisions they took – right on down to the wood from one farmer’s fence that was taken for campfire fuel. Of course, they were paying in Confederate currency, but the thought behind it was good. Moreover, the Southern army was tired and hungry from their battles at Bull Run. Still, they were in high spirits. The Confederacy had just won both recent engagements, and Lee now was taking them within fifty miles of Washington. They entered Maryland feeling that victory would soon be theirs. They expected a hero’s welcome. After all, they had come to free the state from “Northern domination.” They arrived singing and enjoyed the confidence that comes from knowing that men would flock to their cause by the thousands. It did not take too many miles of marching to find out otherwise; the welcome they got was downright chilly. The people of Maryland (at least in this region) were staunch Union supporters. With more than a year having gone by since the start of the war, most of the men of Maryland who were supporters of the South were already soldiers somewhere, having long since joined. Moreover, while Marylanders were farmers like themselves, the actual Maryland farm was quite different from the Southern counterpart. Here there were no slaves working vast plantations. Maryland was made up of family farms, with very few individuals owning slaves at all. So while rumors might have told of a large number of Southern sympathizers just waiting to join the Confederacy, the reality was that the Southerners were just plain not welcome in most parts of the states, and in fact, Lee lost more troops than he gained when he crossed the border. The initial optimism of the army died away with each weary mile into enemy territory. There was still plenty of enthusiasm to focus on the task at hand. Lee’s troops had successfully invaded the North - now it only remained to pick a site for the battle to come. As tempting a target as Washington might have been, the road between Antietam and the Union capital was choked with wounded Northern soldiers in retreat, and the fortification around Washington was tough. Also, the number of troops stationed there would have been twice the size force that Lee commanded. Also, Lee had to keep in mind that a ship stood on standby to whisk President Lincoln and his Cabinet to safety should a Washington invasion occur. All these factors made Washington a less than desirable choice. Lee was not the only Confederate general in enemy territory. The Confederate forces in Kentucky, under Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, also had had a successful battle at Richmond, and was now poised outside of Cincinnati. Truly it had to feel as if Southern domination was near. There were others thinking along the same lines. Lee was well aware of the scrutiny of England at this time. The Confederacy had sought to create a treaty with Great Britain all the way back at the beginning of the war when they’d sought their assistance when the North had blockaded Southern shipping. Thus far, England had shown hesitancy in becoming involved, instead opting for a position of neutrality. This “wait and see” attitude had continued over the next year, as those who decided such things watched to see how the South fared in their struggles before committing to their side in anything. However, could support be gained off of such a questionable act? Lee’s orders thus far had been to defend the borders of the Confederacy, and not to invade enemy territory. Lee justified his action by pointing out that this was simply a foray into the north, with no intention of keeping any possible land gained in such an invasion. Regardless, Lee was there without permission and hoping that a bold move would not only strike a blow straight into the heart of the Union but would also gain that international support that was so important to winning the war. This was the situation as Lee marched his army into Maryland. Singing no less. It was not an impressive sight. The men had little to eat but dried corn and green apples. They were feeling “hollowed out” according to one private’s memoirs. Their clothes were torn and disheveled, most of them had lice, and thousands of the Southern troops had no boots. Marching in rags, dirty, with bare feet and gaunt from hunger, fifteen hundred men deserted the army on the march. Some from the conditions, some from being in the service without any possibility of leave, some because they’d “signed on to defend the Confederacy, not to invade.” A point needs to be made here: while they looked a wreck, these were a tough force of fighting men. These kind of brutal conditions have a way of whittling out the weak, so as much as they came in with nothing, looking like an army of beggars more than an invading force, they would fight fiercely when the time came, with every confidence that they could win this thing. Lee was not doing much better than his men. He’d recently suffered an embarrassing injury. While reading a map a week prior, a sudden gust of wind caught the paper, sending it flying into the face of Lee’s horse, Traveler. The horse shied and panicked. When Lee attempted to grab his bridle, he had been injured. As a result, he had both of his hands bandaged, one for a broken bone, one for a severe strain. Now he was unable to ride, and for the time being was confined to leading the invasion by riding in an ambulance. To make matters worse, two generals immediately under him had a conflict over the possession of captured Federal ambulances. Brigadier General Nathan Evans had Brigadier General John Bell Hood arrested for insubordination. Two other generals, Major General Ambrose Paul Hill and Major General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, were also embroiled in a dispute. Jackson accused Hill of neglect of duty and placed him under arrest. Hill’s men had been a half hour late to start on the road to Leesburg, and Hill rode well in advance of the column, heedless of stragglers. When confronted on the matter, Hill held out his sword in a gesture of resignation. Jackson refused, instead telling Hill to “consider himself under arrest” and made the General ride in the back of the formation. With all this conflict from within, and several of the troops straggling further and further behind, Lee’s men numbered barely 50,000 by the time they arrived at the river. While the men themselves had a kind of cocky bravado in regards to the fight itself, they were a ragtag bunch in sore need of a meal and time to rest. This was not an auspicious force with which to begin an invasion. Chapter Two McClellan’s Army “I will send you trophies” —General McClellan’s message to President Lincoln The Army of the Potomac did not seem very enthusiastic to meet the enemy. As they rode out on September 7th , it was with a certain feeling of pessimism. To be fair, they were not the only ones feeling as if disaster was imminent. All the way up into Pennsylvania, there was a certain panic setting in. In the southern part of the state, residents were taking family and livestock north in great numbers. The newspapers were full of dire warnings and prophetic messages of doom and gloom. “Jeff Davis will proclaim himself pres’t of the U.S. at Harrisburg! The last days of the republic are near,” wrote one rather vocal New Yorker. Even if morale was lacking in regards to victory, the soldiers themselves had confidence in their commander. Major General George McClellan had proven himself in the Mexican-American war as an able commander. As promotions during peace were slow, McClellan left for the army for an executive appointment in the railroad. When the Civil War broke out, McClellan was reappointed by President Lincoln, and for a brief time was named General-in-Chief of the Union Army. McClellan was loved by his men, who called him “Little Mac.” A rousing cheer rose up from the ranks when the men found out who would be leading them. McClellan was a man who would walk through the troops and salute and show his respect to every man he met. He had a way about him of making others feel important. For this reason, his men would follow him anywhere. Now if only McClellan would lead. When Lincoln recommissioned him, McClellan was ordered to “defend Washington.” He quickly merged General John Pope’s Army of Virginia into McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. McClellan left two corps under Major Generals Samuel Heintzelman and Franz Siegal to defend Washington and took the remaining 84,000 troops to Maryland to confront Lee. In a very short amount of time, he’d managed to reorganize the army into an effective, even if somewhat unpracticed, fighting force. The drawback was that many of the men under his command were new volunteers with no battle experience; some hadn’t even fired a gun at more than a few targets. However, it was not the lack of experience that made the men doubt the outcome of the battle. Instead, it was their track record; in the last several engagements – and for that matter in the course of the war thus far – there had been few victories. Especially when it came to tackling Lee’s army. Add to that McClellan’s perfectionist nature. The General was a very cautious man and was not one to move into action unless he was certain of victory. Also, he had a very poor idea of the numbers he was facing. Was he misinformed or was it pessimism that led him to inflate the numbers whenever he reported back to Washington? Whatever the case, McClellan felt that he was vastly outnumbered – estimating Lee’s numbers to be twice or even three times what they were. To be fair, getting information was difficult. McClellan was having a hard time getting scouts in near enough to count (though again, there’s some debate over whether he was making enough effort in this regard). Moreover, as always, when prisoners were questioned, they invariably lied about their numbers. Whatever the cause, this sure belief would lead to many decisions in the coming days that would make him far less maneuverable. In the end, though, the mood of the army would gradually change. The welcome that had been denied Lee was there for McClellan and his men. When the Army of the Potomac marched through the various towns, they were welcomed with jubilant celebration. People hung out of windows to watch and cheer on the army. Women would stand by the roadside, offering refreshment and encouragement. It has even been noted several times that the excitement was such that even McClellan’s horse was hugged. Suddenly the Union soldiers were hopeful again. They were the heroes of the piece again, and success was imminent. The stage was set. Two opposing armies with every confidence of being able to win were about to meet. Chapter Three The Opening Gambit “I think Lee had made a gross mistake, and he will be severely punished for it…I have the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in their own trap.” —General McClellan to President Lincoln On September 2, 1862, Lee took his men to the town of Frederick, Maryland, 25 miles from the Union outpost. Though the mayor was a Southern sympathizer, most of the town’s residents were fiercely loyal to the Union. Lee, always a risk-taker, decided to divide his forces. This was a tactic that had worked well for him in the past, and so he decided to try it again. He had confidence in part to his own enemy’s tactics. So far he had seen McClellan’s hesitation to act. He was counting on that now to work in his favor. The first division was sent out under Longstreet. This was to be made up of three divisions and the reserve artillery. They were to cross into Pennsylvania to Boonsboro, halfway to Hagerstown. The greater bulk of the army, all six remaining divisions, would be split further into three groups, and separately engage Union outposts before converging on Harper’s Ferry. The plan was that once Harper’s Ferry fell, the army would reunite with Longstreet and await further orders. Noting that General Hill would be detached from his unit to follow Longstreet, Jackson re-wrote Lee’s order for Hill, not knowing that Lee had already sent a copy of those orders to Hill himself. These orders would become the lynchpin that would change the course of Army of the Potomac. Longstreet memorized his copy of the orders and chewed the paper to a pulp to preserve the secrecy. While not as extreme as Longstreet, most of the other recipients of those orders, likewise destroyed them after reading, through burning or other means. However, one set of Hill’s orders never materialized at all. The set sent from General Robert E. Lee himself never made it into his hands. While the details of what happened next are rather unclear, the popular theory is as follows. Somehow, that set of orders wound up in the possession of an unidentified Confederate officer, presumed illiterate given what happened next. That paper wound up being used to wrap up three fresh cigars, and then was placed into a pouch and presumably forgotten. This would become a very important detail a little later in the story. On September 10, Lee marched his army out of Frederick and headed them north toward Pennsylvania. Lee even had some of his officers search out local maps and ask directions for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. So great was the secrecy that none of these officers had been informed that the true goal was Harper’s Ferry. Lee’s counterintelligence and Jeb Stuart’s Confederate horsemen’s blockade against Union cavalry probes were so effective that McClellan was not even aware that Lee was in Frederick until after the Army of Virginia had pulled out again. At this point, McClellan was working blind. It was no wonder he was cautious. McClellan’s tendency to wait until he was sure of all the facts was not being helped by his immediate superior, General in Chief Henry Halleck sent fretful dispatches from Washington, cautioning McClellan that Lee’s presence in Maryland may be a feint. Halleck warned McClellan that Lee might be trying to draw off Union forces to make way for the real attack from Virginia. McClellan was also getting some disturbingly contradictory reports on Lee’s strength. Brigadier General Alfred Pleasanton, head of McClellan’s cavalry and the vanguard of the march to Frederick, assured his commander that Lee had invaded Maryland with no less than 100,000 men. McClellan’s chief intelligence man, Allan Pinkerton, ranged the count more than 200,000. Deciding the number to be somewhere between, and always ready to assume the worst where numbers were concerned, McClellan asked Washington for reinforcements to properly face Lee’s force of “120,000 men.” McClellan’s forces reached Frederick three days after Lee had been there. They were treated like a liberating army, though the occupation of Lee’s men was less onerous than McClellan’s would soon prove to be. While Lee and his army had seen fit to pay for what they used, the Union forces were less concerned with niceties and were soon living off the land and raiding livestock. On Saturday morning, the 27th Indiana stopped at a meadow for a rest break. That particular meadow must have been a popular resting spot for the soldiers of the Confederacy as well because Sergeant John M. Bloss and Corporal Barton W. Mitchell of company F found three cigars wrapped up in a scrap of paper lying in the grass. That selfsame paper penned only three days previous that gave the entire battle plan of the Confederate army. It was in fact that missing communique from General Robert E. Lee to General Hill. Recognizing that they had something important in their hands, they rushed it to their superiors, who wasted no time in getting this information to General McClellan. The whole thing seemed suspicious and was regarded as a possible trap until the authenticity of the handwriting was able to be verified by a former friend of Lee’s Adjunct General, who had penned the copy. Suddenly all those confusing reports of Lee’s strength and destination that he had been getting made sense to McClellan. Still, McClellan did not move. Had McClellan taken action immediately he would have caught Lee’s forces scattered, and could have easily defeated the entire army. Instead, for whatever reason, he waited. It was six hours before he decided a course of action, and another twelve hours before the Union troops first started to move out from Frederick. This was all the time that General Lee needed. Chapter Four Harper’s Ferry “You will not abandon Harpers Ferry without defending it to the last extremity” —Orders to Colonel Dixon Miles at Harper’s Ferry Already the Confederates had overwhelmed the small garrison at Martinsburg, sending the men stationed there in a fast retreat to Harper’s Ferry, with Jackson’s men in close pursuit. While these men would swell the ranks of those stationed there, poor command would finish what the Army of Northern Virginia had started Colonel Dixon Miles had been left in charge at Harper’s Ferry. The placement was meant as a punishment –Colonel Dixon had led a small unit at Bull Run — which had ended with a court of inquiry where he had been found drunk and incompetent. Having been given command of a small unit out of the action, and denied any chance of promotion, Miles now spent much of his time in being bitter. His garrison had inflated to 13,000 men with the influx of Martinsburg forces. Harper’s Ferry might have been a little backwater fort, but it had supplies and food enough to re-equip Lee’s army, including a stockpile of uniforms and boots (which would come in handy later, as we will see in a bit). It was not easily defended, however. Jackson said he would rather “take the place forty times, rather than undertake to defend it once.” The Union forces knew well the shortcomings of the location. Harper’s Ferry was located at the confluence of two rivers and was surrounded by a network of high ridges. Anyone with artillery placed upon those heights could take the place with no effort whatsoever. As one defender said, “We were at the bottom of a bowl, even the dullest soldier could see the inevitable result.” Miles sent a plea for assistance to McClellan’s headquarters, stating that the besieged town could hold out for 48 hours, but after that, he would be forced to surrender. McClellan, mistakenly believing that Lee’s major forces were ensconced at Boonsboro, ignored Miles completely. Instead, he took the bulk of his men through Turner’s Gap in the Catoctin and Mouth Mountains. He then sent 12,000 men stationed in Buckeystown and led by Major General William Franklin to Crampton’s Gap, followed by 7,000 men stationed in Licksville and led by Major General Darius Couch. Back at Harper’s Ferry, the situation was fairly dire. The troops under General Miles were mostly untrained. With the Confederates on the Heights, there would be but little recourse other than to surrender in the morning. That night, while Miles was still holed up at Harper’s Ferry, and McClellan was sending troops anywhere but there to relieve him, a Confederate sympathizer from Frederick arrived at Lee’s camp. He told the General about the set of orders recently discovered by Union soldiers and handed over to McClellan. At the same time, scouts reported seeing campfires from Turner’s Gap. Lee sent warnings to McLaws and Jackson at Harper’s Ferry, warning them that McClellan was coming, and then ordered a full-scale defense of Turner’s Gap. The next morning, Brigadier General Jacob Cox led his men up the two-mile slope at Turner’s Gap and found 200 Confederate cavalry and 1000 soldiers defending the ridge. At 9:00 AM, both sides opened fire. One of Cox’s commanders, Colonel Eliakim Scammon, moved the 23rd Ohio to flank the Southerners. The 23rd’s commander, Lt. Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, took them through the woods and up the slope. He was wounded in the arm and fell faint, still issuing orders. The Ohioans gained the ridge and opened a new front on the Confederate soldiers. When General Garland, commander of the Confederate troops, was killed, the Southerners lost spirit and retreated down the slope, giving up 200 prisoners to the onrushing Ohioans. When word of the battle reached McClellan, still in Frederick, he rode to Burnside’s headquarters on a knoll at the foot of South Mountain. There, to the ringing cheers of his men, McClellan sat on his horse and pointed to the gap through which the men would cross the mountain. One soldier said, “It was like an intermission had been declared in order that a reception might be tendered to the general in chief.” In the meantime, Confederate troops were cheering Robert E. Lee, who was once again astride his horse, Traveler. Hood’s men began shouting for their former commander, who was still under arrest over the incident with the Union ambulances. Hood was released for the duration of the battle, and so took his men into the Gap to stop the Union advance. When the fighting ended, the Union held the high ground at a loss of 1,800 out of 28,000 men. The Confederacy had 18,000 men engaged and lost 2,700, which included 800 missing. At this point, the Battle of Antietam might never have happened. Lee had decided to leave Maryland and go back to Virginia. However, a message from General Jackson changed his mind. Jackson had taken Harper’s Ferry and captured 73 pieces of artillery, 13,000 small arms, and 12,500 men. Leaving the garrison under the command of A.P. Hill, he led his men out immediately to converge with Lee at Sharpsburg. It was September 15th , 1862. Chapter Five Dunker Church & The Woods “The rebels are too many for us, but I would rather face them than Hooker.” —Union Colonel Retreating west from South Mountain, Lee’s 18,000 men numbered less than a third of the pursuing Union army. Near the Maryland town of Sharpsburg, Lee placed his men along a four-mile stretch of the river, Antietam. Lee’s selection of terrain looked to be a good one. There were wooden fences, natural rock ridges, and a road that had been so eroded with constant use it had sunken into a natural trench. The downside of the fortification was that the Confederates had their back to the Potomac, leaving little room for retreat if the battle should turn. With the land chosen, it was only a matter of waiting on the rest of the troops to catch up and get into position. The bulk of the army was still with Jackson, twelve miles away, but Lee knew his opponent well, and was confident that McClellan would not attack that day, nor likely the next. Although the Union trooped arrived a few hours later, Lee’s prediction proved to be true: McClellan’s army did not attack that evening, nor even the next day. It was a strange time of waiting, nerve-wracking in the extreme. Two young horsemen, challenging each other in a highspirited race, broke through the front lines, ignoring orders to stop. They came within rifle range of the Southerners who watched the race, cheering them on. This delay was all Jackson needed to reinforce Lee. Although still outnumbered, Jackson’s arrival evened the odds considerably and all the Confederates were now seasoned veterans of many battles. In contrast, the Union army was largely staffed by volunteers who had been stationed in and around Washington. Other than those troops who fought at the mountain passes, they were largely inexperienced. McClellan’s delay while the soldiers readied themselves to his specifications would prove costly. It was late Tuesday before McClellan had an attack plan for the next day, but the plan meant completely restructuring his entire army and adding in another division recently arrived from Washington under Major General Fitz-John Porter, as well as William Franklin’s VI currently seven miles away. McClellan chose General Joseph Hooker’s I corps to spearhead the attack. Hooker moved his men into position that evening, but as they neared the woods, they were fired upon by Confederates hiding in the trees. Twenty of Hooker’s men died before they were able to bed down for the night behind a farmyard. Notified of Hooker’s move, Lee sensed the new front and moved his men to face north to meet it. He also dispatched urgent messages to Hill and McLaws to bring their divisions to reinforce him. With their men, Lee would now have 40,000 troops to McClellan’s 70,000. It should be noted here that McClellan still firmly believed that Lee had over 100,000 men in the field. In the pre-dawn mists, Hooker spotted a landmark by which to guide his troops – a single-story whitewashed building. Although Hooker originally thought it was a school, in actuality it was a place of worship that the locals called “Dunker Church” due to the practice of immersion baptism held there. At 5:30AM Hooker began his charge. If McClellan was cautious, Hooker was rash. He was also hard-drinking, toughtalking, and by all accounts a hell of a fighter. Hooker had split his men into three parts, one division commanded by Abner Doubleday, the man later credited for inventing the game of baseball. He and his men took the right flank, though the North Woods. On the left, Brigadier General James Ricketts led a division and one of McClellan’s brigades through the East Woods. This left George Meade to the center and slightly rear. Hooker’s forces created a front a half-mile wide. As Doubleday’s men marched through the woods, Confederate cannons opened fire on them. So accurate was the aim that the second volley tore through the ranks, killing two men and wounding eleven more. Federal guns answered, pouring their fire into the Confederate artillery. Soon these were joined by the Union’s big guns, the twenty-pounder cannons. The advancing Union front faced fierce resistance. In a cornfield ahead, Hooker spotted Confederate bayonets, called a halt to the advance, and summoned fire from the artillery. Union artillery roared over the heads of Hooker’s men and saturated the cornfield, leveling the crops and leaving the slain laying “in rows, precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before” as Hooker noted in his official report. Ricketts’ left flank emerged from the woods and went on into the cornfield, stepping over the Confederate dead. Scarcely 200 yards away, both sides dug in and exchanged fire. As both sides were reinforced, the volley continued for another half hour. At 6:45 AM the Confederate reinforcements withdrew, having lost more than 50% of their total. Suddenly, the Southern line was bolstered by five regiments from New Orleans who charged and drove the Union back through the cornfield and into the woods. To counter the attack, the Union brought up a battery of three-inch guns to point blank range and decimated the Southern troops as they charged. The last division of Ricketts’ men were delayed because they lost their commander. When the cannon attack began, he simply dismounted and scurried to the back, muttering in fright about cannon charges. He resigned two days later. The division finally arrived at the battle. When the color bearer on the Union side was killed, and the flag fallen, a group of ten Federal troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat to retrieve it. Seven of the ten men were killed before the flag was recaptured. By 7:00 AM, the 12th Massachusetts had lost 224 of 334 men and the Confederate reinforcements under cannon fire had lost 323 of 500. While Ricketts’ men were fighting in the cornfield, Doubleday’s spearhead, a brigade who referred to themselves as the “Iron Brigade” under Brigadier General John Gibbon, pushed through a pasture to the northwest corner of the cornfield and encountered withering fire from the front and from the West Woods. Gibbon set up a couple of guns to cover his men, but the gunners quickly became targets from sharpshooters. In a matter of minutes, half the gunners were killed. Gibbon ordered up six more guns with greater range, and they laid down fire with case shot - scrap metal in an iron case. This kept the Confederates occupied until a section of the Iron Brigade took the West Woods. The rest of Gibbon’s men pushed forward to a rail fence separating the cornfield from the pasture. A regiment of Georgians rose from the fence line and the two sides unloaded into each other’s ranks at near point blank range. The Iron Brigade charged the fence, leaping over it and scattering the Georgians, but not without heavy losses. They pushed on, but suddenly there were under fire from their right flank. Two fresh Confederate brigades burst through the West Woods and lay down fire from a rail fence only thirty yards from the spearhead. The Union vanguard wheeled to meet the new threat of fresh troops. Additionally, a battery company rained down case fire on the Confederates. After fifteen minutes, the Southerners retreated into the woods, leaving men scattered, dead and dying, along the ground and hanging from the fence. Chapter Six The Cornfield “Whole ranks of brave men…were mowed down in heaps to the right and left. Never before was I so consciously troubled with fear that my horse would further injure some wounded fellow soldier, lying helpless on the ground. This most deadly combat raged until our last round of ammunition was expended.” —John B. Hood Throughout the war, many battles were fought in cornfields, but only one bore the name “The Cornfield.” It was a small patch of land, roughly 250 yards wide and 400 yards deep. It was estimated that by the end of the day, the North and the South went back and forth over the same ground more than 15 times, and the bodies there were piled high. As the North pressed on to Dunker Church, Jackson’s men were shredded, leaving and the front line of the Army of Virginia with a large gaping hole in it. They were on the verge of collapsing when Jackson sent in his final reserve, the 2,300-man division under the command of John Bell Hood. Hood’s men had been held back because they were exhausted from skirmishing the night before in the East Woods. Although they’d had a chance to rest, they had not had a chance to eat, with no rations issued for several days. This morning they had received rations for the first time in three days, and were settling in to cook their breakfasts when the call came for them to stiffen the line. Angry and resentful, they nonetheless rose and formed a new front against the attacking Union army. The opening volley from Hood’s men went through the Federals like a “scythe running through our lines” as Rufus Dawes later recalled. The Federals fell back to The Cornfield, losing in moments what took over and hour of bloodshed and hundreds of lives to gain. Dawes stopped the retreat north of the field. The Texas Brigade charged The Cornfield under heavy fire from the retreating Federals. After three successive standard bearers were shot dead, Major Dingle grabbed the flag and yelled, “Legion, follow your colors” and led the Texas Brigade within 50 yards of Federal troops before he too was shot dead. The Texans rushed the Union front line, becoming separated from the rest of the army by 150 yards. A brigade of Federals lay on the ground, rifles balanced on the lowest rail of the fence. The smoke of the battlefield was so thick, the Federals had to look for the legs of the Texans to shoot. The Texans ran into a trap as the Union brigade under Meade opened fire. At the same time, more Union soldiers opened up from the pike. Of the 226 Texas attackers, 186 were killed. This was a loss rate of 82.3%. Union cannons were loading and firing as fast as they could. The smoke from the black powder was so thick often the gunners could not see the enemy they were firing on, even though the Confederates were within 30 yards. Of 100 gunners, 40 were killed. Men swarmed in to take over as each one fell. The gunners now used double canister shot, metal containers holding round iron balls similar to large shotgun shells. These were incredibly effective. One Union officer reported seeing a Confederate arm flying thirty feet in the air. After 20 minutes of rapid fire, the cannon batteries were nearly depleted. Gibbon found enough hale horses to hook up the guns. He dragged the artillery back up the road, followed by the surviving Iron Brigade. It was only 7:00 AM and the death toll was already incredible. Of the 9,000 men Hooker used in the opening attack, it is estimated that 2,600 were either killed or wounded. Nearly that many again had become lost or separated from their units or had limped back injured. Hood’s men had pushed the Federals back, but the exhausted troops could not pursue them because a new threat had arrived. 7,200 fresh troops under Joseph Mansfield burst onto the field, sending the surviving Confederate troops back into the West Woods for shelter. Mansfield’s troops, however, were inexperienced, most of them raw recruits with minimal training. Mansfield himself, though a 40-year veteran, had never commanded so large a force and in fact had spent most of those 40 years in engineering and staff work. Afraid his raw recruits would bolt under fire, Mansfield marched them in a tight clustered formation, ten ranks deep instead of two, thus presenting a target “almost as good as a barn.” Mansfield made another horrifying mistake when he ordered his men to stop firing into the woods because he was afraid some of Hooker’s men were still in there. When the gray uniforms were pointed out to him, he acknowledged his mistake, just as a musket ball tore into his chest and took him out of the fight permanently. He died later that day. Mansfield’s replacement, Brigadier General Alpheus Williams, was a capable commander with battle experience. He took over from Mansfield only an hour into the fight and would thus lead the XII Corps for the remainder of the battle (and in several after that). The battleground itself though was held almost exactly as it had been earlier that morning, with neither side gaining or losing any ground. The scattered corpses that littered the ground were the only indication that a battle had happened there. At the center of the line, the 27th Indiana fought the Georgians and North Carolinians from one of Hill’s brigades. The Confederates were using buck and ball, three pieces of shrapnel with the standard ball. This was also rather effective, as for every man killed, eleven more were sure to be wounded. Among those wounded was Corporal Barton Mitchell, who had found Lee’s missing orders wrapped around three cigars. Two more of Hill’s brigades joined the fight. However, as they settled in behind a rock ridge in the East Woods, Captain T. P. Thompson spotted Federals and cried out an alarm. Though his commander tried to quiet that alarm, the damage was done. Panic flew through the regiment, and then through the brigade. In moments, the entire brigade was in mass retreat. This opened a gap in the Confederate line. The Northern troops, under the command of Brigadier General George Greene, poured through the opening. 1,700 men slammed into the Confederates, who then retreated from the field. One private, seeing plenty of men in gray around him was certain he was in amongst friends and held his ground, up until another man proved those men were all dead by firing into one of the corpses. Greene’s other brigade swung left and came through the East Woods, flanking the southerners. The Federals had to be reined in while Greene maneuvered his guns into position for support. They drove the South back, and the Union army was within 200 yards of their goal, the high ground of Dunker Church, but the momentum was lost. Greene’s guns were out of ammunition; the chaos of the battlefield had left men confused and lost. Hooker was recognized by his white horse and was shot in the right foot. He was dragged off the line in shock from pain and blood loss. Without their commander, the men were disheartened. With Hooker out of action, there was no commander with authority enough to gather the men. Greene stopped his men short of the goal when they came under heavy fire, and soon a lull settled over the battlefield. More than 8,000 men lay dead or dying on the field, and no ground had been won or lost. Chapter Seven Bloody Lane “The shrieks of the wounded and dying was terrible, but they rallied and came at us again and our men again awaited until they come in range and again arose and mowed them down the second time, but they came again.” —James C. Steele of the 4th NC At the beginning of the battle, Lee had stayed near the front lines, whereas McClellan established command from a nearby building. McClellan and his best friend, Major General FitzJohn Porter (commander of the V Corps) commanded the battle through two telescopes mounted on stakes pounded into the ground. The thick smoke made it difficult to see, so McClellan relied on signal fires and couriers for information, thus slowing his reactions to movements upon the battlefield. His plan of having Burnside’s men create a distraction on the Confederate left had yet to materialize, and the assault on the right had degenerated into skirmishes and disorganization. McClellan, however, created his own delays as well. When General Sumner came to McClellan, ready to attack an hour before sunrise, McClellan made the General cool his heels for an hour and a half before seeing him. After Hood’s counterattack, Sumner got the orders to advance, but not with all of his troops. McClellan insisted on holding back a division until it could be replaced with a division of V Corps. Anxious to get into the fight, Sumner bristled at the caution of his commander and led his men toward where he understood the battle to be. He passed Hooker, but Hooker was being carried off the field in pain and had significant blood loss, so the two men did not confer. So ready to fight was the old general that his men quickly outdistanced their reinforcements, weakening Sumner’s troops by 5,400 men. Sumner’s vanguard, under the command of Brigadier General Willis Gorman, burst from the West Woods 300 yards north of Dunker Church into heavy resistance fire. The enemy was made up of a few hundred bedraggled survivors of earlier skirmishes, but the attack was so perfectly timed and the fire so withering, it felt like walking into an ambush. Gorman had been on an intercept course with Lee’s reinforcements, and the Federals were now outnumbered. The few hundred had pinned down the Federals until help could arrive. The attacking Confederates slammed into them from west and south. The Woods was now littered with bodies. Sumner tried to wheel one of the brigades around to face the new threat, but by the time he rode to the rear, the men bolted and ran. Of the two brigades remaining, their commanders tried to get them reoriented to face the attacking division, but they were too close. The three divisions were so near that a single shot from a rifle could tear through three or four men. The Federals were afraid to fire for fear of hitting their own men. This was a valid concern; the 59th New York were firing wildly, not realizing that thy were firing into the backs of the 15th Massachusetts. The 15th suffered a loss of 344 men that day. The Confederates had worked their way around the besieged Northerners, and now Sumner’s men were facing fire from all sides. Also, Stuart worked his guns around, and they too began to fire into the Union forces. The 20th Massachusetts did not run. They shouldered their arms and formed an orderly withdrawal, forming a new defensive line in an empty field. After twenty minutes of fighting, almost half of Sumner’s men were dead, a staggering 2,255 men. Confederate losses were relatively light, but they pursued the retreating North into cannon fire. The Confederates lost more than a third of their men before retreating into the woods. Meanwhile, D. H. Hill’s two brigades under Robert Rodes and George B. Anderson occupied a superb strategic position on a nearby hill. At the base of the hill, a narrow country road ran a third of a mile south of Dunker Church, ran east for about 500 yards, then bent southeast to zigzag to Boonsboro Pike. The road had seen years of use and the wear of wagons and natural erosion had sunken the road several feet below the surrounding fields. It made a natural trench. It was here Hill’s 2,500 men waited while almost twice that number of Union soldiers mounted the crest of the hill 100 yards away, paused to redress the line, and then continued. With the enemy that close, and most of Hill’s men still reeling from the earlier fight, it would have been natural to open fire, but the men lay dormant in the sunken road. With the natural slope of the land leading up to the road and the nature of the road itself, both sides were just about invisible to each other until they hit that last rise. The Confederates waited until the Federals came into view at point-blank range and then opened fire. The first volley cleared the entire Union front rank. The Southerners rose from their positions and continued to pour fire into the advancing enemy. The Union men were mostly raw recruits, and they were facing battle-hardened Confederates. The North stood their ground for five minutes before breaking and running for cover. The losses were devastating; the brigade suffered 450 casualties. While they took cover, another brigade crested the ridge and were immediately fired upon. When they also faltered, French had to commit his last brigade, composed of three veteran regiments and one filled with fresh recruits. Even the Union veterans were astonished at the sheets of fire coming from the road. One private noticed that “every blade of grass” was moving and discovered it was due to the Southern rounds falling around them like hail. On the far side of the ridge, the men of the 108th New York lay prone. Kimball had his adjunct, a Lieutenant Frederick Hitchcock, order their commander, Colonel Oliver Palmer, to get the men moving. Palmer simply looked at the young lieutenant without comment and without any indication of having heard a word he said. Kimball told Hitchcock to repeat the order – at gunpoint. If the colonel did not respond, Hitchcock was to shoot him. Whether or not Hitchcock would have had to shoot did not come up. Palmer’s subordinates bypassed the colonel and got the men moving into the fray. Federal troops were falling at an alarming rate. It did not help that the Southern soldiers were reinforced with 3,400 fresh troops. The Confederates prepared for an assault, but at 10:30 AM the Union army was likewise reinforced with troops that had sat out of the fighting thus far. These were the men McClellan had held in reserve until the V Corps could replace them. One of the best-known brigades of the fresh Union troops, the Irish Brigade, spearheaded the charge. They marched toward the sunken road with banners flying and were met with a rain of bullets. They hunkered down and returned fire until the ammunition was spent and they were ordered to retreat, leaving more than 500 of their number dead on the field. The Irish were replaced by more of Richardson’s men, who charged within thirty feet of the road. The Confederates there had been in close-quarter fighting for more than two hours, and the strain was beginning to show on the defensive line. The toll on the officers was devastating, as one commander after another was killed or wounded and then removed from the field. George B. Anderson took a hit on his right foot that seemed minor and later proved to be fatal. Colonel John Gordon took two balls in the right leg, one in the left arm, and another in his shoulder and still refused to go to the rear. He was still giving orders with another musket ball tore into his face. Amazingly he survived despite all of this. As their leadership diminished, the organization of the Confederates began to fall apart. The deciding crack came from Union Colonel Francis C. Barlow, who took two understrength regiments to the bend in the road where it was not so deep. Mounting a knoll that looked down into the bend, his 350 men poured fire into the pass, turning the natural shelter into a death trap. General Rhodes ordered Lt. Colonel James Lightfoot to wheel left to face the new threat. Instead of yelling “left face” however, he called out “about face; forward march!” One of his subordinates who heard the original order asked if Lightfoot’s order meant the entire brigade. When Lightfoot said “yes” all five regiments turned and climbed out of the trench and headed for the rear. Much as Lightfoot tried to reverse the command, the Confederates were more than ready to retreat despite the fact that this exposed them entirely to unfriendly fire. The Federals were certainly not about to pass up the chance to do some serious damage. They took the road and knelt on the dead Confederates, piled in some places two or three deep. From this position they fired on the retreating army, causing heavy losses. In all, they took 300 Confederate prisoners. Longstreet was not ready to give up. He reorganized the line along Hagerstown road. From here, in order to hold the advance of the North, General Longstreet ordered up two twelve-pounders that opened up on the Union with canister. Hill gathered up 200 men and defended the gap while Longstreet put 20 more guns into place. The sustained fire stopped the Union troops. Things were in chaos, and when Captain Graham rode to the rear to speak to General Richardson, Richardson was mortally wounded by canister fire. By this point, the fighting in what later came to be called “Bloody Lane” was pretty well over. The final toll of just this segment alone was as follows: The Confederates lost somewhere around 2,600 men on the road. The Union lost 3,000. Longstreet had virtually no defenses left other than the cannon. If McClellan had brought the V reserve to the front at this time, Lee’s forces would have crumbled and the incursion into Maryland would have been turned into a rout. McClellan did not call the reserves forward. Chapter Eight Burnside’s Bridge “…but they discharged their duty most heroically — Regiment after regiment, and even brigades were brought up against them; and yet they held their ground, and the bridge too, until they had fired their last cartridge.” —Unknown Southerner at Burnside Bridge As the fighting in The Cornfield wound down, attention shifted to a 125-foot long elegant bridge which spanned the Antietam. It was then called the Rohrbach Bridge, named for the family that farmed the area. After today it would become known as Burnside’s Bridge. Major General Ambrose Burnside was by nature a jovial man. He was also modest and not prone to ambition. He had twice turned down President Lincoln’s offer to command the Army of the Potomac. In pre-war years, “Burn” and “Mac” were closer friends, and when Burnside left the army to try and patent for a breech-loading rifle that he had invented, McClellan got Burnside a job at the railroad when that patent came to nothing. Just now, however, McClellan was giving Burnside the cold shoulder. Burnside had lost control of Hooker and his troops when McClellan reorganized the army, which Burnside took as a personal affront. The usually jovial general now awaited orders to advance, unwilling to take any initiative. That morning he moved his 11,000 men and 50 cannon to the hills east of the bridge and waited. But McClellan had intended for Burnside to create a diversion. Burnside refused to take command of the IX Corps, professing to be a “wing commander” and leaving overall command to General Cox. Cox offered to step down in favor of Burnside, but Burnside would hear none of it. Thus the IX Corps effectively had two commanders. Burnside’s decision left Cox in a difficult place. Both Cox and Burnside knew that marching 1,100 men across a 12-foot bridge under enemy fire would be impractical at best. Four drastically understrength Confederate divisions guarded a front a mile long, from Sharpsburg to the bridge. One of these, under Brigadier General Robert Toombs, guarded the west bank back at the bridge. Toombs was a Georgian politician who was looking for a battle in which to make a name for himself, with the goal being retirement from the army the day after that battle, presuming he survived. Toombs had 550 men against Burnside’s 1,100, but Toombs had an enormous advantage. There was a steep wooded bluff rising 100 feet high, with a slope riddled with boulders to hide behind and covered in oak trees for snipers to sit in the branches. At about 10:00 AM, Burnside and Cox received the longawaited orders to advance. Cox and Burnside had decided to attack Toombs by fording the Antietam a half mile downstream where the water was only waist deep. The 11th Connecticut drew the job as skirmishers. They were to hold the Confederates so that Brigadier General George Crook’s Ohioans could cross over. The 11th ’s commander was a young colonel named Henry W. Kingsbury, the son of a friend of Burnside’s. Kingsbury’s sister was married to a Confederate general. The Connecticut over on the right was pinned down by enemy fire, but two companies on the left made it to the river bank and inched toward the bridge. The 11th finally had to withdraw, as the enemy barrage proved too much for them. In 15 minutes, the company lost one-third of its strength, including the young Colonel. Crook’s charge went bad from the start. For the two days they had sat idle, Crook had not examined the terrain he would be fighting on, and instead of charging down the hill to the bridge, he blundered into a strip of woods and emerged a quarter mile upstream from it. Instead of carrying on the attack, he had his forces lay down on the bank and exchange fire with the Confederates on the opposite side of the creek. Downstream, Brigadier General Isaac Rodman found that the crossing McClellan’s engineers had recommended had banks so steep as to make it unusable. Rodman sent scouts ahead to search for a passage some locals had mentioned. In the meantime, Cox and Burnside arranged another assault on the bridge, two regiments lined up in ranks of four and pointed towards it. The marching order made them vulnerable to sniper fire, and the assault failed far short of the bridge. McClellan was growing exasperated. He sent five messengers to Burnside with the same orders: “Take the bridge.” One dispatch said, “even if it takes 10,000 men, he must go now.” Burnside was getting angrier as well, telling McClellan’s Inspector General, “McClellan seems to think I am not trying my best to carry this bridge.” For the third attempt, Burnside chose the 51st New York and the 51st Pennsylvania, under the command of Colonel Edward Ferrero. Ferrero was an inexperienced commander, and not a particularly able one. Before the war, he was a dancing master at West Point and had used his military and political connections to achieve his rank. The men under his command were still angry at him for being denied their nightly shot of whiskey, so when Ferrero brought his horse around and loudly proclaimed, “It is General Burnside’s special request that the two 51st s take that bridge, will you do it?” he was met with an uncomfortable silence A corporal finally piped up, “If we do sir, will you give us our whiskey?” Ferrero replied, “Yes, by God, as much as you want!” At 12:30 pm, finally set in motion by the promise of drink, Ferrero’s men marched down the hill under the cover of Union artillery. The withering fire from the defenders scattered the ranks, and the men dropped to find cover behind rocks and fencing. Ferrer’s men were less than twenty-five yards from the enemy. Suddenly the fire slackened. Toombs’ men were running low on ammunition, and Toombs himself had word that Rodman had found the passage through the stream. Toombs withdrew his men. The Georgians cost the North 500 men, themselves only losing 160 Georgians. They had also delayed the North for two hours. If McClellan was to press against Lee, he would have to use the bridge, but another issue arose. In their eagerness to take the bridge, no one had considered supplies. The men were nearly out of ammunition and were too exhausted to use what they still had. Reinforcements were available but they were an hour out, and sending thousands of men across the bridge would create a bottleneck. Ironically, no one thought to use the ford Crook had discovered. Lee made no move to strengthen the defenses from the bridge, using his men on the front lines and counting on Hill’s men to come from Harper’s Ferry. Hill’s men, after two days of grabbing Northern, stores would be well rested and well fed. Hill was pushing them relentlessly to the battlefield, going on ahead himself to report to Lee. In the meantime, Burnside was ready to move again. He managed to get 8,000 fresh troops and 22 cannons moving to Sharpsburg to cut off Lee’s retreat. It was now 3:00 PM and Hill’s men were still on their way. The Union advance soon understood that every rock and haystack concealed skirmishers. Then a brigade swooped down on them from Cemetery Hill, where the south had set up artillery. Two hundred yards from Sharpsburg, the Union called a halt. Ammunition was almost spent. Here they waited for resupply. Chapter Nine The End of the Fight “Toombs, cool in the hour of danger, but impetuous in the charge, seemed to court death by the exposure of his person and the intrepid manner in which he rushed at the head of the column, apparently, into the very jaws of death.” —Newspaper Reporter for the “Federal Union” Lee would have met with complete disaster, but it was at this propitious time that Hill’s forces returned from Harper’s Ferry. The advancing Union men had separated when only one brigade heard the order to advance and the rest failed to keep up. This left a large gap in the Union front. Hill split his men into two parts, sending one section of 2,000 men straight into the opening. The Confederates attacked without so much as redressing their lines. General Maxcy Gregg ordered them to “fire and form the line as you fight.” In The Cornfield, the 16th Connecticut had never seen action, in fact, until the night before. Most had never loaded their muskets before. When the fire erupted from the cornfield, 185 of them died almost immediately and the line broke. They were reinforced by the 4th Rhode Island, but the smoke from the black powder made it difficult to tell friend from foe. To make matters worse, some of the Confederates had swapped out their gray rags for Union blue uniforms taken from Harper’s Ferry. The Connecticut and Rhode Island troops fled, leaving the 8th Connecticut far in advance and cut off. These men were driven back down the hill and to the creek. Burnside pleaded for reinforcements, but McClellan would only send a single battery. He had two divisions in reserve for the counterattack he was sure would come. Had those divisions been committed to the battle, Lee would have been vastly outnumbered. They never were. It was during this part of the battle that night fell. The battle ended, with the expectation that it would begin the following morning again. The next day McClellan did nothing. With two lines facing off, he gave no orders to advance. Instead the task of dealing with the wounded and dead commenced, while in the meantime, considerable fresh troops arrived from Washington. Again, had McClellan ordered an attack at this point, they would have completely wiped Lee’s army out. Instead the day passed uneventfully. That night, the Army of Virginia slipped quietly away. McClellan was overjoyed, as to him, this meant a clear victory for the Union. He chose to not pursue Lee’s battered troops though, with little more than a handful of men and even that was given up quickly. As he had throughout the battle, he still clung to the sincere belief that Lee’s men outnumbered his own. Obviously such a move would be disastrous. Better instead to end the battle here, at Antietam. To him, this was a solid victory, one to be proud of. As McClellan later wrote: I feel some little pride, in having with a beaten and demoralized army defeated Lee so utterly, & saved the North so completely. Well—one of these days will I trust do me justice. Chapter Ten The Aftermath “Alas I cannot. Words are inadequate to the task. Piles of heads, arms, legs and fragments of other portions of humanity all thrown together promiscuously. It is over now, and we laugh at our fears, that is human, so am I.” —William Relyea, a member of the 16th CT At the end of the battle, the loss of life was unprecedented. Nearly one out of every four soldiers was either killed or injured. In rough terms, this means that more than 22,000 were listed as casualties. And for the first time the world was invited to view the carnage. Two days after the battle, Alexander Gardner and his assistant traveled to Antietam and visually recorded what they saw there. These photographs were later used in an exhibition in New York City, allowing the citizens to see, for the first time, what the results of a battle of this nature looked like. The world was shocked and appalled. While morale for the soldiers and the Union as a whole had rebounded with the victory, a growing outrage blossomed that paved the way for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and also for his re- election. World opinion also changed after Antietam. England and France had been thinking about stepping into the war on the side of the South, and had only needed a good excuse to acknowledge the Confederacy as a fledgling country. This defeat decided the matter for them, and when England resolved to not become involved, so too did France. Back at home, the focus was on the casualties. The dead needed to be buried; the wounded, tended. The death toll would rise by another two thousand by the end of the month, so terrible were the conditions of medical care at the time. As a side note, the burial of bodies was done so hastily, and so overwhelmed were the survivors, that several of the mass graves were too shallow. When troops marched through the area again months later, they told of horrors of decomposed dead rising out of the earth and being devoured by local wildlife. Even without the grisly reminders of the battle, there were plenty still left to raise questions. A lot of them. Why hadn’t McClellan acted sooner? Why had waited so long to reinforce areas that were falling, or to move when the battle changed? This battle would mark the beginning of the end of his career in the military. Even the Southerners criticized McClellan’s handling of the affair and took it as a good sign that he hadn’t pursued Lee after the battle. As was written in the Dispatch on September 30: If we have been thus badly beaten, why is no use made of the victory? Why has McClellan not crossed the river and destroyed the army of General Lee? Why has the latter been allowed to refresh and recruit as his leisure? The truth is this: The victory, though not so decisive as that at Manassas, was certainly a Confederate victory. Indeed, the Battle of Antietam might have been called a “draw” more than a victory. Whichever it was, it cannot be argued that this was, in fact, a turning point in the Civil War. Conclusion Such an extreme loss of human life had rarely been seen in the world before or since the Battle of Antietam. The mistakes made were many; one could go over and over the details second-guessing the decisions made and make predictions how the war would have gone if only things had gone differently. …If only McClellan had acted a lot quicker on the information he’d gotten. …If only Lee had turned back when he had resolved to. …If only all the Northern forces had been engaged in the battle. …If only there had been more of a pursuit of the Lee’s army afterwards. Regardless, for whatever the reason, each General approached the war in the method he thought best. McClellan, who feared making mistakes, wound up making many with his hesitation to act and commit the troops. Lee, who was rash and a risk-taker, would take one risk too many in confronting the Union forces on their home turf. Maybe there are lessons here for ourselves as well. It is surely something to think about. The Battle of Antietam brought about significant change on many levels. With the Emancipation Proclamation coming only two weeks later, the entire tenor of the Civil War changed. This point here gave a new direction and a new purpose to the Union, and redefined everything. Could these things have been accomplished without Antietam? This question is a little harder. Had it not been immortalized so graphically for the public to see, had there not been so many people dead, maybe the outrage would not have been enough to make such a sweeping statement in regards to slavery. Perhaps though, it was only a matter of time. Another place, another battle might have done much the same. In the long run, does it matter? To the men who fought at Antietam, their world changed one September day in 1862. To those who lived in slavery, this would be the day where their world began to change as well. Can I Ask A Favor? If you enjoyed this book, found it useful or otherwise then I’d really appreciate it if you would post a short review on Amazon. I do read all the reviews personally so that I can continually write what people are wanting. If you’d like to leave a review then please visit the link below: Click Here to Leave a Review Thanks for your support! Your Free eBooks! As a way of saying thank you for reading our book, we're offering you a free copy of the below e-Books. Happy Reading! >> Click Here << >> To Get Your FREE eBook <<