Battle of Antietam
| Battle of Antietam | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the American Civil War | |||||||
 Battle of Antietam by Kurz and Allison. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| United States of America | Confederate States of America | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| George B. McClellan | Robert E. Lee | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 87,000 | 45,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 12,401 (2,108 killed, 9,540 wounded, 753 captured/missing) | 10,318 (1,546 killed, 7,752 wounded, 1,018 captured/missing) | ||||||
The Battle of Antietam (known as the Battle of Sharpsburg to Southerners), fought on September 17 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with almost 23,000 casualties.[1] Although tactically inconclusive, it had a unique significance as a partial victory that gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to announce his Emancipation Proclamation. The battle is commemorated at Antietam National Battlefield.
Prelude
Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia—45,000 men—had entered Maryland following their recent victory at Second Bull Run. Lee's strategy was to seek new supplies and fresh men (from the border, slave-holding state of Maryland, which had considerable pockets of Confederate sympathizers) and to impact public opinion in the North. As it turned out, the social impact of Lee's actions was otherwise mixed; Marylanders were not as thoroughly won over by the sounds of Maryland! My Maryland! from the bands of the Army of Northern Virginia as Lee would have hoped, and the weak strategic victory of the Army of the Potomac at Antietam easily diminished any successes Lee may have had in winning the hearts and minds of the people of Maryland.
While Major General George B. McClellan's 87,000-man Army of the Potomac was moving to intercept Lee, a Union soldier discovered a mislaid copy of the detailed battle plans of Lee's army—General Order number 191—wrapped around three cigars. The order indicated that Lee had divided his army and dispersed portions geographically (to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and Hagerstown, Maryland), thus making each subject to isolation and defeat in detail if McClellan could move quickly enough. McClellan waited about 18 hours before deciding to take advantage of this intelligence and position his forces based on it, thus squandering a golden opportunity to defeat Lee decisively.
There were two significant engagements in the Maryland campaign prior to the major battle of Antietam: Lieutenant General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's capture of Harpers Ferry and McClellan's assault through the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Battle of South Mountain.
Battle
Near the town of Sharpsburg, Lee deployed his army behind Antietam Creek along a low ridge. Jackson defended the left (north) flank, anchored on the Potomac River, James Longstreet the right (south) flank, anchored on the Antietam. This was a precarious position because the Confederate rear was blocked by the Potomac River and only a single ford was available should retreat be necessary. Although McClellan arrived in the area on September 16, his trademark caution delayed his attack on Lee, which gave the Confederates more time to prepare defensive positions and allowed Longstreet's corps to arrive from Hagerstown and Jackson's corps, minus A.P. Hill's division, to arrive from Harpers Ferry. .
On the evening of September 16, McClellan ordered the I Corps under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker to cross Antietam Creek and probe the enemy positions. George G. Meade's division of regulars cautiously attacked Confederates under John B. Hood near the East Woods. After darkness, artillery fire continued as McClellan continued to position his troops. The skirmish in the East Woods served to signal McClellan's intentions to Robert E. Lee, who prepared his defenses accordingly.
The battle the next day can be viewed as essentially three separate, mostly uncoordinated battles: morning in the northern end of the battlefield, mid-day in the center, and afternoon in the south. This lack of coordination and concentration of McClellan's forces almost completely nullified the two-to-one advantage the Union enjoyed and allowed Lee to shift his defensive forces to parry each thrust.
Morning
The battle opened at dawn on September 17 with an attack down the Hagerstown Turnpike by the Union I Corps. Hooker's artillery opened fire on Jackson's men across a cornfield on the Miller farm. The artillery and rifle fire from both sides acted like a scythe, cutting down all the cornstalks and over 8,000 men on both sides. Hooker's report stated:
- "...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 [Confederates] slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before."
According to some accounts, possession of the cornfield changed hands up to fifteen times that morning.
Jackson's defense was reinforced at 7 a.m. by John B. Hood's division, whose Texans attacked with particular ferocity because they were forced to interrupt the first hot breakfast they had had in days. They in turn were driven partially back when the Union XII Corps under Maj. Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield counterattacked. Mansfield was killed in the initial attack and his corps came under strong fire from around the Dunker Church. Soon after, Hooker was wounded in the foot and removed from the field. Command of his I Corps fell to General Meade, with Hooker's senior subordinate, James B. Ricketts, having also been wounded.
In an effort to turn the Confederate left flank and relieve the pressure on Mansfield's men, Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's division of the II Corps (under Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner) advanced into the West Woods. Sumner recklessly launched the division attack en masse without adequate reconnaissance. They were assaulted from three sides, and in less then half an hour their momentum was stopped with over 2,200 casualties.
The morning phase ground to a halt with casualties over 12,000, including two Union corps commanders.
Mid-Day
In the center, another division of Sumner's corps, under Maj. Gen. William H. French, moved to support Sedgwick, but took the wrong road and headed south. They encountered the division of Confederate Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill defending a ridge in a sunken road worn down by years of wagon traffic, which formed a natural trench. In a series of four assaults over three hours, French's men, along with the division of Maj. Gen. Israel B. Richardson, battered Hill's improvised breastworks. Finally the Union was able to get enfilade fire into the Confederate line, forcing it to fall back. The carnage from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on the sunken road gave it the name Bloody Lane, leaving about 5,500 casualties along the 800-yard road.
Richardson drove the Confederates from the hills south of Bloody Lane, wrecking the center of Lee's line. Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin of the VI Corps was ready to exploit this breakthrough, but Sumner, the senior corps commander, ordered him not to advance. Franklin appealed to McClellan, who backed Sumner's decision.
Another reserve unit was near the center, the V Corps under Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter. Maj. Gen. George Sykes, commanding his 2nd division, also recommended an attack in the center later in the day, which intrigued McClellan. However, Porter is said to have told McClellan, "Remember, General, I command the last reserve of the last Army of the Republic."; McClellan demurred and another opportunity was lost.
Afternoon
Southeast of the town on the Union left, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's IX Corps had been stalled since 9:30 a.m. in attempts to cross a bridge over Antietam Creek. His orders had been to create a diversion in support of the main attack (Hooker's, on the right), exploiting it if possible. Due to inadequate scouting, he was unaware that several shallow points existed nearby for fording infantry, and over three hours and three assaults were wasted at the bridge, later named Burnside's Bridge. Sharpshooters from Georgia in the division of David R. Jones were the primary impediment to Burnside's progress. His corps finally crossed the creek by 1:00 p.m., but took another two hours to regroup before advancing west towards Sharpsburg and threatening to envelop Lee's right flank. However, by this late hour A.P. Hill's Light Division had just completed a rapid forced march from Harpers Ferry and was able to repulse Burnside. Union Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman was mortally wounded in this attack while leading the 3rd Division of the IX Corps
Aftermath
The battle was over by 5:30 p.m. Losses for the day were heavy on both sides. The Union had 12,401 casualties with 2,108 dead. Confederate casualties were 10,318 with 1,546 dead.[2][3] More Americans died on September 17 1862 than on any other day in the nation's history, including World War II's D-Day and the terrorist assaults of September 11 2001. On the evening of September 18, after a truce for both sides to recover their wounded, Lee's forces began withdrawing across the Potomac to return to Virginia.
Lincoln, also realizing that McClellan's cautious and bumbling actions in the field had forced the battle to a draw rather than a crippling Confederate defeat, relieved McClellan of his command of the Army of the Potomac on November 7.
Some students of history question the designation of "strategic victory" for the Union. After all, McClellan performed poorly in the campaign and the battle itself, and Lee displayed great generalship in holding his own in battle against an army that greatly outnumbered him. Casualties were comparable on both sides, although Lee lost a higher percentage of his army. Lee also withdrew from the battlefield first, the technical definition of the tactical loser in a Civil War battle. However, in a strategic sense, despite being a tactical draw, Antietam is considered a turning point of the war and a victory for the Union because it ended Lee's strategic campaign (his first invasion of the North) and it allowed President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, taking effect on January 1 1863. Although Lincoln had intended to do so earlier, he was advised by his Cabinet to make this announcement after a Union victory to avoid the perception that it was issued out of desperation. The Union victory and Lincoln's proclamation played a considerable role in dissuading the governments of France and Britain from recognizing the Confederacy; some suspected they were planning to do so in the aftermath of another Union defeat. When the issue of emancipation was linked to the progress of the war, neither government had the political will to oppose the United States. Historian James M. McPherson summed up the importance of Antietam in his Crossroads of Freedom:
No other campaign and battle in the war had such momentous, multiple consequences as Antietam. In July 1863 the dual Union triumphs at Gettysburg and Vicksburg struck another blow that blunted a renewed Confederate offensive in the East and cut off the western third of the Confederacy from the rest. In September 1864 Sherman's capture of Atlanta reversed another decline in Northern morale and set the stage for the final drive to Union victory. These also were pivotal moments. But they would never have happened if the triple Confederate offensives in Mississippi, Kentucky, and most of all Maryland had not been defeated in the fall of 1862.
— James M. McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom, p. 155
References
- National Park Service battle description
- Cole, J. R., History of Washington and Kent Counties, Rhode Island, W.W. Preston & Co., 1889.
- McPherson, James M., Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, The Battle That Changed the Course of the Civil War, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-513521-0.
- Sears, Stephen W., Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam, Houghton Mifflin, 1983, ISBN 0-89919-172-X.
Notes
Alissa's home in south carilina. she is dead now thought so.. don't go there hehehe
External links
- Lincoln and Lee at Antietam
- Antietam National Battlefield Park
- Antietam on the Web
- Poetry about the Battle
- USS Antietam
- Online transcription of 1869 record of original Confederate Burials in Washington County, Maryland including Antietam Battlefield {Washington County Maryland Free Library-for reference only}