On the morning of September 17, 1862, fog still clung to the ridges and creek bottoms around Sharpsburg, Maryland, when the first Union guns opened fire. What followed was twelve hours of combat so concentrated, and so costly, that the date has never been rivaled in American Military History. The Battle of Antietam—known in the South as Sharpsburg—remains the bloodiest single day ever endured by United States soldiers.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee had brought the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac two weeks earlier, hoping a victory on Northern soil might break Union will and perhaps even draw European recognition. He divided his army, sending Stonewall Jackson to seize the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry while the rest of his force concentrated behind Antietam Creek – at Sharpsburg. Union Major General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, larger and better supplied, closed in after Union soldiers found a copy of Lee’s Special Order 191 wrapped around cigars. McClellan possessed a rare opportunity to destroy Lee’s army in detail. He did not seize it.
The fighting began at dawn on the Union right. Major General Joseph Hooker’s I Corps – including the much vaunted Iron Brigade – advanced south from the North Woods toward a forty-acre cornfield belonging to farmer David Miller. Confederate batteries on the high ground, around the Dunker Church, tore gaps in the blue lines. The corn itself became a killing ground. Regiments surged forward, disappeared into the tall stalks, and emerged shredded. Hooker later wrote that every stalk in the northern part of the field was cut as closely as if a knife had done the work, and the dead lay in rows as they had stood. Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade counterattacked with such fury that the Cornfield changed hands repeatedly. By 9 a.m. both sides had suffered thousands of casualties in that one small space.
The slaughter shifted into the West Woods. Federal Major General Edwin Sumner’s II Corps arrived and sent John Sedgwick’s division forward in compact lines. Confederate brigades, commanded by Lafayette McLaws and John G. Walker – both of Longstreet’s Corps – struck the Federals from three directions at once. In twenty minutes Sedgwick lost more than 2,200 men. Major General Joseph Mansfield, commanding the Union XII Corps, was mortally wounded while trying to rally his troops. Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams would assume command. Hooker himself was shot in the foot and carried from the field. The Union attacks on Lee’s left had been ferocious and poorly coordinated; they had gained little ground at enormous cost.
By mid-morning, the center of the Confederate line became the focus. A sunken farm road, later called Bloody Lane, offered Major General Daniel Harvey (D.H.) Hill’s Rebel brigades a ready-made trench. Wave after wave of Union infantry—Brigadier General William H. French’s division, then Major General Israel B. Richardson’s, which included Thomas Meagher’s Irish Brigade—charged across open fields into rifle and artillery fire. The road filled with Confederate dead and wounded until the position finally broke under flanking fire. Another 5,500 men fell in and around that lane. McClellan, watching from a distant hill, never committed his large reserve to exploit the rupture. (This would be a major controversy for armchair Washington City politicians after the war.)
On the Union left the delay was even more costly. Major General Ambrose Burnside’s IX Corps was ordered to cross Antietam Creek, at a narrow stone bridge, overlooked by a steep bluff (the bridge would later be called Burnside Bridge). A few hundred Georgians, under Brigadier General Robert Toombs, held the high ground for hours. Repeated Union assaults failed until, around 1 p.m., the 51st New York and 51st Pennsylvania regiments finally stormed across. It took nearly two more hours for Burnside to get his corps over the creek and formed for an attack toward Sharpsburg. When his men at last advanced, they threatened Lee’s only line of retreat across the Potomac –Boteler’s Ford. At that moment Major General A.P. Hill’s Light Division, force-marched from Harpers Ferry, slammed into Burnside’s exposed left flank. The Union attack collapsed. Night fell with both armies essentially where they had begun the day.
When the guns finally quieted, more than 22,700 men were killed, wounded, or missing. Union losses totaled 12,401; Confederate losses 10,316. No other day in American arms has produced such a sanguine harvest. Lee’s army, though battered, still held the field on the 18th. McClellan did not renew the assault. That night the Confederates slipped back across the Potomac.
The strategic consequences were immediate. President Lincoln used the incomplete victory to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation,transforming the war’s purpose. (Lincoln had written the Emancipation Proclamation in July, but his Secretary of State, William Seward,suggested he wait for a Union victory before issuing it. He was concerned it would look like the last dying gasp of the country after the staggering Federal loss at Second Bull Run.) Photographers, working for Mathew Brady,soon displayed images of the dead in New York galleries; civilians who had never seen a battlefield confronted the war’s reality for the first time. Antietam did not end the conflict, but it marked the moment when the scale of American sacrifice became undeniable. September 17, 1862, stands alone.
It would not take long, after the Battle of Antietam, before the finger-pointing would start – specifically amongst the anti-war factions – like the Copperheads – led by conservative Democrat Clement L. Vallandigham. Additionally, Lincoln faced criticism from plenty in the Republican Party. Once Mathew Brady’s photographs starting circulating, the brutality of the war was on display for everyone to see. People of every state, north and south, knew soldiers in the ever-lengthening casualty lists – which were published daily in newspapers.
With his Army of the Potomac stalled, north of the Potomac River, Lincoln became increasingly agitated that General McClellan was not pursuing Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. He would travel to visit “Little Mac” on October 1 – nearly two weeks after the battle. His trip was unannounced, but McClellan would end up meeting him at Harpers Ferry, before traveling together to Sharpburg. Once there, Lincoln would review the troops and tour the battlefield. While reviewing the troops, Lincoln would remark to his travel companion, Ozias Hatch, that what they were seeing was not the Army of the Potomac, but rather “General McClellan’s body-guard.”
On October 3rd, Lincoln and McClellan would have a private meeting at McClellan’s headquarters tent. Very little of the conversation is known, but Lincoln would tell his personal secretary, John Hay, that “[he] went up to the field to get McClellan to move.” Little Mac, being Little Mac, only offered excuses for why he couldn’t move. On October 6, acting on orders from Lincoln, General in Chief Henry W. Halleck wrote McClellan: “…cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south.” McClellan was never in a hurry and finally started moving his army on October 26, with portions of Burnside’s IX Corps crossing into Lovettsville, Virginia. With heavy rains impeding travel, it would take a total of nine days to complete the crossing.
Lincoln, upset that McClellan was not moving with alacrity, had had enough. On November 7, with the Army of the Potomac in bivouac, outside Warrenton, Virginia, Major General Ambrose Burnside would deliver Lincoln’s order, of November 5, removing McClellan from command, and placing him in command. Upon receiving the order, McClellan stated, “Well, Burnside, I turn the command over to you.” Interestingly enough, Burnside had refused command of the eastern army twice before – and wanted to turn it down a third time until he was told command would go to Joe Hooker if he refused. Undoubtedly, especially with the future animosity between the two, Burnside took command to prevent Hooker from getting it. With that, the Maryland Campaign was officially closed.
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Additional pictures of Antietam Battlefield (author’s collection)
