Tag: Maryland campaign

North Carolina monument Fox gap battlefield

The North Carolina monument on South mountain is on Wise’s farm in Fox’s gap about 1.000 feet south of the Garland and Reno monuments along Reno monument road. Continue reading “North Carolina monument Fox gap battlefield”

battle of Antietam or Sharpsburg

source : ‘the american civil war – the war in the east 1861-may 1863’ essential histories 004, Osprey publishing

The climactic clash came on 17 september at the battle of Antietam (called Sharpsburg by most confederates). Straggling and desertion had reduced Lee’s army to fewer than 40.000 men. McClellan’s army numbered more than 80.000, though a quarter had been in service only a few weeks. The battle unfolded from north to south in three distinct phases. Between about 6 and 9.30 am, federals from three corps pounded the confederate left under Stonewall Jackson. Lee shifted troops from his right, commanded by Longstreet, to shore up his harried left. Particularly vicious action occurred in a 23-acre (9.3ha) cornfield owned by a farmer named David R. Miller. Some 8.000 men, including more than 80 percent of one Texas regiment, fell in the midst of cornstalks cut down by musketry and cannon fire. This part of the fighting ended with the near destruction of a Union division that stumbled into a deadly crossfire in woods near a modest brick church that served a Dunker congregation.

The second phase focused on the middle of Lee’s position and lasted from 9.30 am until about 1 pm. Two confederate brigades situated in a sunken country lane held this section of the line. Together with other units that came to their aid, these brigades beat back a series of Union attacks before being flanked and driven out at great loss. Lee had no reinforcements at hand, and his army teetered on the edge of utter defeat. Union division commander Israel Richardson, whose soldiers had broken the rebel line, pleaded with McClellan to send in reinforcements. Thousands of uncommitted federals stood nearby, but McClellan chose not to send them forward lest he leave himself without a substantial reserve. A staggering opportunity slipped away as action died down along what the soldiers later christened the ‘bloody lane’.

The battle closed on the confederate right, where major-general Ambrose E. Burnside orchestrated an unimpressive tactical offensive against a handful of Southern defenders. Fighting on this part of the field began just as the action in the ‘sunken road’ subsided. Two federal regiments crossed a stone bridge over Antietam creek (later dubbed ‘Burnside’s bridge’) under fire, after which Burnside took his time preparing for a final advance. If successful, Burnside’s soldiers could cut Lee and his army off from the only available ford over the Potomac. By about 3 pm, Union attackers had approached to within 250 yards (230m) of the road to the ford when elements of A.P. Hill’s division slammed into their left flank. A difficult 17-mile (27km) march from Harpers Ferry had carried Hill’s leading brigades to the field just in time to disrupt Burnside’s attacks. The battle closed as the federals fell back towards Antietam creek.

The exhausted armies had waged the costliest single day’s combat in United States history. McClellan’s loss approached 12.500, and Lee’s exceeded 10.300. Another 2.300 federals and 2.700 confederates had fallen at South mountain on 14 september. One Southerner remarked that the ‘sun seemed almost to go backwards’ during the fighting on the 17th. A Union soldier counted himself fortunate that his regiment did not have to view the shattered landscape in full daylight. ‘We were glad to march over the field at night‘, he told his parents, ‘for we could not see the horrible sights so well. Oh what a smell, some of the men vomit as they went along‘.

The army of northern Virginia remained on the field during 18 september, after which McClellan permitted Lee to recross the Potomac unmolested. A federal foray across the river at Shepherdstown late on the 19th promised to disrupt Lee’s withdrawal, but A.P. Hill’s division counterattacked the following day and drove the Northerners back to the left bank of the Potomac. The campaign closed without a determined Union effort to pursue the confederates.

McClellan’s handling of the campaign inspired heated debate. While some applauded his success in stopping Lee’s invasion, others inside the army of the Potomac and behind the lines in the North believed he had lost a tantalizing opportunity. A newspaper correspondent voiced a common criticism in wishing McClellan had attacked again on 18 september: ‘We could have driven them into the river or captured them. … It was one of the supreme moments when by daring something, the destiny of the nation might have been changed‘. No one experienced more bitter disappointment

than Abraham Lincoln. Although he used Lee’s retreat as a pretext to issue a preliminary emancipation proclamation on 22 september, a step that signalled a profound shift in the course of the war, he nevertheless believed his commander had once again shown insufficient aggressiveness.

Thousands of Union soldiers had remained out of the action on 17 september (Lee, in contrast, had committed every available man) and reinforcements had reached the field on the 18th, yet still McClellan refused to advance. He insisted that his men were worn out, too few in number to harass the rebels, and poorly supplied. Secretary of the navy Gideon Welles likely mirrored Lincoln’s attitude when he wrote on 19 september that he had no news from the army, ‘except that, instead of following up the victory, attacking and capturing the rebels‘, McClellan was allowing Lee to escape across the Potomac. An obviously unhappy Welles added: ‘McClellan says they are crossing, and that Pleasonton is after them. Oh dear!‘.

McClellan typically lavished praise on himself. ‘I feel some little pride‘, he wrote to his wife on 20 september, ‘in having, with a beaten and demoralised army, defeated Lee so utterly and saved the North so completely. Well – one of these days history will I trust do me justice in deciding that it was not my fault that the campaign of the peninsula was not successful‘. The next day he complained that Lincoln and the secretary of war had not congratulated him sufficiently. But he assured his wife that a higher power had blessed his work: ‘I have the satisfaction of knowing that god has in his mercy a second time made me the instrument for saving the nation & am content with the honor that has fallen to my lot‘.

If McClellan erred on the side of caution in september 1862, Robert E. Lee might have been too audacious. Thousands of confederates had fallen at Antietam when Lee stood to gain very little either tactically or strategically. The decision to remain on the field on the 18th, with a powerful enemy in his front and just a single ford available to reach Virginia, might have jeopardized his entire army. He had driven his worn army relentlessly, misjudging the men’s physical capacity and watching thousands fall out of the ranks from hunger, debility or a simple unwillingness to be pushed any further. The army had survived, however, and as it lay in camps near Winchester, Lee congratulated the soldiers who had discharged their duty. History offered ‘few examples of greater fortitude and endurance than this army has exhibited‘, he assured them, ‘to your tried valor and patriotism the country looks with confidence for deliverance and safety‘.

Lee did not exaggerate how important his soldiers’ activities would be to future confederate morale. No one could claim a clear-cut success for the army. Marylanders had not rushed to the confederate colors, and the army fell back to Virginia long before Lee had expected. Yet he had accomplished many of his logistical goals by virtue of McClellan’s failure to press him after 17 september. More significantly, between june and september 1862, the army of northern Virginia had crafted spectacular victories that helped cancel the effects of defeats in other theaters. The retreat from Maryland, itself counterbalanced by the capture of thousands of federals at Harpers Ferry and the tidy success at Shepherdstown, did not detract appreciably from laurels won at Richmond and second Manassas. Similarly, the bitter contest at Sharpsburg, seen by most confederates as a bloody drawn battle, confirmed the gallantry of Lee’s soldiers. In the space of less than three months, the confederate people had come to expect good news from Lee and the army of northern Virginia, investing ever more emotional capital in them. That investment led to a belief in possible victory that would be as important as any other factor in lengthening the life of the Confederacy.

Abraham Lincoln lost all patience with McClellan in the wake of Antietam. The outspoken general reiterated his opposition to emancipation, angering republican politicians already eager to see him relieved. The principal problem from Lincoln’s standpoint lay in McClellan’s refusal to mount a new campaign into Virginia. In mid-october, an exasperated Lincoln asked whether his general was ‘over-cautious when you assume that you can not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?‘. McClellan finally began crossing the Potomac on 26 october. His army took six days to make the passage (Lee’s had done it in one night after Antietam) and then marched slowly towards Warrenton. Nearly seven weeks had elapsed since Lee’s retreat, and Lincoln had reached his breaking point. On 5 november, the day after the northern off-year elections (elections held in between presidential elections), Lincoln issued orders replacing McClellan with Ambrose E. Burnside. Little Mac received the orders late in the evening on 7 november. He took an emotional leave from the army three days later, having played his final scene in the war’s military drama.

battle of Antietam (september 17 1862)

source : ‘the atlas of the civil war’ by James M. McPherson, Courage Books, 2005

With the majority of Stonewall Jackson’s command arriving from Harper’s Ferry, Lee posted his 38.000 troops on a four mile line along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg. Continue reading “battle of Antietam (september 17 1862)”

Antietam campaign : phase 1 (september 4-20 1862)

source : ‘the atlas of the civil war’ by James M. McPherson, Courage Books, 2005

General Lee confederate army of 45.000 crossed the Potomac river into Maryland, riding a tide of victory. Continue reading “Antietam campaign : phase 1 (september 4-20 1862)”

69th New York : battle of Antietam creek

source : ‘69th New York & it’s place in the irish brigade’ by Claire Morris

In september, Lee’s army of northern Virginia invaded Maryland, and the army of the Potomac followed in hot pursuit. Continue reading “69th New York : battle of Antietam creek”

14th Brooklyn monument Antietam battlefield

The monument to the 14th Brooklyn (84th New York infantry) at Antietam is on the north side of cornfield avenue. It was dedicated in 1915.  Continue reading “14th Brooklyn monument Antietam battlefield”