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The Battle of Antietam (or as the Confederates called it, the Battle of Sharpsburg) was more than the bloodiest single battle day in American history (including the events of September 11, 2001 and D-day in 1944). And one man who recognized the significance of the coming battle was Abraham Lincoln. Gettysburg is recognized as the most famous battle when people think of the Civil War, but it's casualties were over a three day period. Gettysburg's significance was that it drove off General Lee and the Confederate Army off northern soil for the last time. But had the Battle of Antietam been lost by the Union, the war would have been over and the nation divided forever... The Battle took place on a small creek at Sharpsburg, Maryland on 17 September, 1862. The Union Army's record of successes up to this point were very dismal. Even Washington, D.C. itself was in threat of attack and the President was forced to put General McClellan in charge of the Army of the Potomac once again, under strenuous protests of his Secretary of War. McClellan was popular with his troops, but quite a bit less popular with the Lincoln's administration. It was the habit of President Lincoln to cross the lawn of the White House at least once a day to go to War Department to the telegrapher's room . There President Lincoln reviewed the messages from his Army and how the war was going. And there he heard the dispatches of General George McClellan of why he could not accomplish his mission. Lincoln had to walk lightly during these early times of the war . Several States would have changed allegiance to the Confederacy if emancipation of the slaves took place. He had been forced in 1861 to rebuke General Fremont's emancipation decree in Missouri as a matter on to be dealt with only on a Federal level was the best excuse he could muster to keep the peace. In early July 1862 Lincoln told Senator Sumner that he would have invoked emancipation immediately "if I were not afraid that half the officers would fling down their arms and three more states would rise." Within the Democratic Party there were "War Democrats" and "Peace Democrats" threatening his own political party. And on 10 December 1861 a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War was established by Congress and headed by a strong-willed and very anti-Lincoln Republican named Benjamin Wade. And when General McClellan came down with typhoid fever in early 1862, President Lincoln was brought to the point of reading and studying military tactics textbooks to lead the army himself if he had to. In London, England in July of 1862 the Parliament heard a report that 80,000 textile workers were now out of work because of Union blockade of Confederate sea ports stopping the flow of cotton, and more than 350,000 were now working only part time. The same was occurring in France to which Napoleon III instructed his foreign ministers to inquire of the British Government if the time had not come to put put an end to this American Civil War by recognizing the Confederacy as a legitimate government. The United States consul in Liverpool wrote back to the Secretary of State on 25 July 1862 "From what I see and here I am fully persuaded that if we are not successful in some decisive battle within a short period of time this government will be forced to acknowledge the Confederacy or else be driven from power." Putting it even clearer was a letter from English Statesman Richard Cobden to Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner - "I feel quite convinced that unless cotton comes in considerable quantity before the end of the year the Governments of Europe will be knocking at your door... Such an economic rationale for intervention would nicely disguise the craving of Europe's ruling classes for permanent disunion and an end to that dangerous American experiment in popular democracy. [Parliament] will be glad to find an excuse for voting for the dismemberment of the Great Republic." In July of 1862, when President Lincoln was at one of his visits to the War Department telegraph office, he would ask the telegraph operator for a piece of paper and from time to time he wrote upon it. In a cabinet meeting on July 22, President Lincoln read the draft of what he had been writing in the telegraph office on the future of slavery in the United States. Secretary Seward offered the position that with the war going so badly, it might be taken as a last gasp of a desperate and exhausted government. Lincoln agreed. The message would be delayed until it could be issued from a position of strength. By the summer of 1862 most of the Confederate General's of note had made their reputations. In March Jefferson Davis had appointed Robert E. Lee his military advisor. Stonewall Jackson had already secured his name and place in history. "Old Pete" James Longstreet commanded three-quarters of the Confederate Infantry Brigades. J. E. B. Stuart was being reported in southern newspapers as a folk hero. The south recognized the north's attempts to change the nature of the war from one of independence to one of anti-slavery and they knew that Europe would not support a position sworn to keep slavery intact. They knew the issue of slavery must not be made to come to the forefront. So the Confederate Government was counting on the economics of the cotton blockade to be the item to move Europe. General Lee had just finished up his latest victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run. He needed a new objective. East, West and South the areas had been foraged clean by his Army which needed supplies. On 3 September 1862 he decided to go north across the Potomac and put pressure once again on Washington D.C. and it's new influx of green Union troops. Here Lee saw the potential to force a political end to the war and force a peace and acknowledgment of the Confederacy on the Union. On September 11, 1862 the Confederate Army and Stonewall Jackson were crossing the Potomac into Maryland (north of Washington, D.C.) and on it's way to it's first objective - Harper's Ferry. General Walker approached Louden Heights. On September 13th the find of all finds was given to General McClellan - Lee's Battle orders had been found in an envelope in the grass with three cigars. The Union now knew where the Confederate Army was heading. But it did no good for Harper's Ferry. It fell to the Confederates on September 15th along with it's 13,000 man garrison and it's Union Supply Depot of weapons, ammunition, food and clothing. On September 16th news of the Confederate victory at Second Bull Run two weeks before now reached England. British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell wrote Prime Minister Palmerton suggesting an October meeting for the purpose of recognition of the Confederacy. With the first skirmishes out of the way, the two armies now took positions near the town of Sharpsburg along the Hagerstown Pike, just 35 miles south of Gettysburg, along the small creek there named Antietam. General McClellan divided his Union army into three groups there. On September 16th General Lee had spread his army out 4 miles long parallel to the Hagerstown Pike. The 13th Pennsylvania was first to engage, finishing off a skirmish from the night before, and they were eager for revenge - their Colonel had been killed, but they soon ran out of ammunition and withdrew. The 107th Pennsylvania now took the field and Confederate artillery opened up with Shells and Solid Shot rounds. Scores of Union troops were taken out in less than 5 minutes. At 6am Colonel Abram Duryea's 1,100 man Brigade, made of two New York Regiments and one Pennsylvania took the field. Regiment after Regiment now took the field, each in turn wilting under the cross-fire that Confederate cannon had established with ruthless precision. Among them were the 12th Massachusetts and they were chewed to bits within minutes by the Louisiana "Tigers" - only 32 men of 334 who took the field returned with the Regimental colors. The Union artillery now concentrated on the Louisiana troops and caught them in their own cross-fire - it was now about 7am. The 12th Massachusetts had now gone into history taking the highest casualties of any Federal Unit that day - 67%. The Louisiana Tigers suffered 61% casualties including every one of it's Regimental Officers. The 6th Wisconsin now took the field along with the 2nd and 7th Wisconsin and 19th Indiana. They met an unseen line of Confederate troops hidden in a pasture who jumped up and opened fire - men by the dozens were knocked out of the ranks. The 84th New York was added to the fray. The combined units of Wisconsin, Indiana and New York now fused into one unit facing three Georgia regiments. The Georgians began to break, when 1,150 men from the remaining Confederate brigades reinforced them and now the Union troops swayed. But the price to the Confederates was annihilation from a three point cross-fire of Federal sharpshooters and artillery firing case shot, and musket fire from the pasture. - Captain R. P. Jennings of the 23rd Virginia was the only survivor of his entire Company, and he was wounded. The Confederates were now so close to the union lines that the Federal artillery in and around the Corn Field took to shortening the fuses on their shells so they would go off only one and one-half seconds after leaving their muzzles. They could not fire canisters, as their were scores of their own wounded under the front of their guns. The 90th Pennsylvania, with half its strength now dead or wounded, withdrew and left the field. The color bearer walking backwards the whole way out of the cornfield, believing that a gunshot in his back would be the ultimate disgrace on the battlefield. An entire Union Division was now effectively no longer functioned. The battle became an artillery duel. Guns were firing at each other from distances of less than 200 yards. Guns took to firing double canisters . At the end of the battle the survivors found piles of dead, one on top of the other, from this carnage. The 1st Texas foolishly advanced following a retreating Union unit and within twenty minutes lost two complete companies. Four out of every five men of the 1st Texas was killed or wounded. - it was now 7:30am. Of the three Confederate brigades commanded by General Lawton, one out of every two men had been killed or wounded. Stonewall Jackson's old Division had taken 30% casualties. When General Hood was asked where his Division was, he replied "Dead on the field." - He had taken 60% casualties. Union losses were no less. General Hooker's Corp had taken 30% casualties. Of the 3,150 men that General Rickett's took on the field, about 300 remained. The 128th Pennsylvania now took the field and came out to the Corn Field. They were a newly organized unit with green troops, and they quickly broke in the withering fire. By the time they reorganized themselves in the fray enough to get off the field they had taken 118 casualties. The Confederate troops were still issued smooth bore rifles. And now with the fighting at close range they took to using "buck and ball" loads - the result was multiple wounds from one round fired. Two thousand fresh Union troops were put into the line to bolster the attack. Pennsylvania and Ohio companies were now engaged in hand to hand combat among the tramped down cornstalks. The 6th Georgia now had 24 men left of it's 250 it had started with that morning. There were now nearly 8,000 casualties - and it was only 9am. The Pennsylvania "Philadelphia Brigade" now took to the field and were swept away in a swell of retreat from a flanking movement near the Dunker Church. They lost 550 men in about ten minutes. The 42nd New York on the left flank was also swept away taking 181 casualties. The 15th Massachusetts took 318 casualties, many from friendly fire, when they were mistaken by a green New York Regiment for Confederate in the smoky-haze of the battle. Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. of the 20th Massachusetts witnessing one of his troops firing into the rear of the line hit him with the flat edge of his sword and cursed him to stop firing on his own men, only to learn a minute later that the man knew what he was doing. The 20th Massachusetts had been flanked and the enemy was now behind them! About 2,300 casualties, mostly Pennsylvanians, were taken in a ten to fifteen minute period in the confusion. - it was 9:45am. The 2nd Massachusetts and the 13th New Jersey now were ordered in. The Massachusetts men were veterans, but the the 13th New Jersey under Colonel Ezra Ayres Carman was a green unit never having loaded their muskets in battle before. They were sent into the Cornfield. Approaching the Hagerstown Pike they were met by Confederates lying in prone position behind a ledge of limestone at the edge of the woods. Colonel Carman wrote "The men were being shot by a foe they could not see, so perfectly did the ledge protect them." The 2nd Massachusetts flag took twenty new holes from the fire before the two units recognized the impossibility of this attack and both units did an about-face and marched back the way they came "in perfect order". At 10am the Confederates advanced. This time the Union troops waited until the Confederates were within 70 yards and opened fire. One soldier of the 102nd New York wrote in his diary "it seemed as if whole companies were wiped out of existence." He was pretty much correct, the 30th Virginia lost 160 of the 236 men they started out with. The Union now attempted a bayonet charge across a ridge. The Confederates were waiting for them. In five minutes the Union Brigade took more than 450 casualties. General Longstreet now ordered a counterattack and Union artillery chewed them to pieces. But another Union Division was used up with 1,750 casualties. The 63rd and 69th New York each lost 60% of their number. Most within the first few minutes of battle. - it was now 10:30am.
The Sunken Road was later renamed "Bloody Lane" by the Veterans of Antietam. James Hope of the 2nd Vermont made sketches during the battle and later made them into a large oil paintings. Over 5,600 dead Union and Confederate filled the road by 1 pm of that fateful day.
The 9th Alabama was now ordered to charge across the Cornfield. The 5th New Hampshire was waiting for them, kneeling among the dead on the Sunken Road. The 5th New Hampshire would hold the distinction of having the highest casualty statistics of any Union unit during the Civil War, one-third of them being inflicted at Antietam. The Confederacy took 2,600 casualties trying to take the Sunken Road that day, and still failed. The Union lost nearly 3,000 defending it. In total nearly 18,500 Confederate and Union casualties had been taken in about seven hours of the battle. - it was now about 1pm. The battle lines were now shifting to the stone bridge under siege by General Burnside. The carnage continued. By sunset the fighting began to subside. While not a Union victory, it was not a Union defeat either and General Lee thought it best to withdraw from the field. General McClellan, as usual, did not press the Confederates, losing the opportunity to finish off Lee. The total casualties of the Battle of Antietam will never be known, because of a lack of Confederate record keeping. The best estimates are for the Army of the Potomac: 2,108 dead, 9,540 wounded and 753 missing (most more than likely killed) for a total of 12,401 men - twenty-five percent of all Union troops who stepped into battle that day. Confederate casualties are estimated as 1,546 dead, 7,752 wounded, and 1,018 missing for a total of 10,318 men. Combined casualties for 12 hours of fighting were 22,719. The noted photographer Mathew Brady had sent two photographers to the battle to record it. The results was an exhibit at the Brady Gallery in New York City titled "The Dead at Antietam". It was reviewed in the New York Times as follows:
The Battle of Antietam had one more distinction - In the afternoons fighting Charlie King had been killed by an artillery shell fragment. He was the drummer boy for the 49th Pennsylvania - and 13 years old. The youngest soldier to die at Antietam.
Dead Confederate Soldiers lined up for burial
Six days later, on September 22, Abraham Lincoln finished the wording he had started on the piece of paper he had stuffed in his pocket in the telegraph office back in July. The timing was now right. The next day he released it to the newspapers and ordered 15,000 copies printed for the units of the Army - The Emancipation Proclamation. On September 27, the news of the Battle of Antietam reached London, England. Prime Minister Palmerton informed Foreign Secretary Russell "... that we must continue merely to be lookers-on till the war shall have taken a more decided turn." The planned meeting of the British Cabinet for the purpose of forcing an end to the Civil War and recognition the Confederate States of America - was postponed, and finally cancelled altogether. No man on that field that day, the bloodiest single day in American History, knew it when it started . But their sacrifices that day saved the United States from being forced by Britain and France to let the South leave the Union. Had the Confederates won the day at Antietam, a peace treaty would have been forced upon the United States and the Confederate States of America would have been recognized as a legitimate and independent nation.
"As Bachelder was to Gettysburg, so Ezra Ayers Carman was to Antietam and William T. Rigby to Vicksburg. Veterans themselves, Carman and Rigby pursued extended correspondence with other participants, accumulating abundant data on troop movements and personal experiences at their sites for the government. Some of this trove is now at the National Archives. A small but significant collection of Carman's documentation, labeled "Antietam Studies," is in an un-inventoried series in RG 94. More voluminous records of Rigby are at the Vicksburg National Military Park and in the National Archives-Southeast Region in East Point, Georgia. The regionalized records are part of RG 79, Records of the National Park Service, identified as records of the Vicksburg National Military Park, Correspondence of the Resident Commissioner and Commission Chairman, 1899-1927. They also include minutes of the Vicksburg Commission." - United States National Archives General Ezra Ayes Carman's manuscripts will finally be published and cataloged in 2007.
08/19/2007 |
