At Sharpsburg (Antietam) was sprung the keystone of the arch upon
which the Confederate cause rested.--_James Longstreet,
Lieutenant-General C. S. A., in "Battles and Leaders of the Civil
War."_
A battle remarkable in its actualities but more wonderful in its
possibilities was that of Antietam, with the preceding capture of Harper's
Ferry and the other interesting events that marked the invasion of
Maryland by General Lee. It was one of the bloodiest and the most
picturesque conflicts of the Civil War, and while it was not all that the
North was demanding and not all that many military critics think it might
have been, it enabled President Lincoln to feel that he could with some
assurance issue, as he did, his Emancipation Proclamation.
Lee's army, fifty thousand strong, had crossed the Potomac at Leesburg and
had concentrated around Frederick, the scene of the Barbara Frietchie
legend, only forty miles from Washington. When it became known that Lee,
elated by his victory at Second Bull Run, had taken the daring step of
advancing into Maryland, and now threatened the capital of the Republic,
McClellan, commanding the Army of the Potomac, pushed his forces forward
to encounter the invaders. Harper's Ferry, at the junction of the Potomac
and the Shenandoah rivers, was a valuable defense against invasion through
the Valley of Virginia, but once the Confederates had crossed it, a
veritable trap. General Halleck ordered it held and General Lee sent
"Stonewall" Jackson to take it, by attacking the fortress on the Virginia
side.
Jackson began his march on September 10th with secret instructions from
his commander to encompass and capture the Federal garrison and the vast
store of war material at this place, made famous a few years before by old
John Brown. To conceal his purpose from the inhabitants he inquired along
the route about the roads leading into Pennsylvania. It was from his march
through Frederick that the Barbara Frietchie story took its rise. But
there is every reason to believe that General Jackson never saw the good
old lady, that the story is a myth, and that Mr. Whittier, who has given
us the popular poem under the title of her name, was misinformed. However,
Colonel H. K. Douglas, who was a member of Jackson's staff, relates, in
"Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," an interesting incident where his
commander on entering Middletown was greeted by two young girls waving a
Union flag. The general bowed to the young women, raised his hat, and
remarked to some of his officers, "We evidently have no friends in this
town." Colonel Douglas concludes, "This is about the way he would have
treated Barbara Frietchie."
On the day after Jackson left Frederick he crossed the Potomac by means of
a ford near Williamsport and on the 13th he reached Bolivar Heights.
Harper's Ferry lies in a deep basin formed by Maryland Heights on the
north bank of the Potomac, Loudon Heights on the south bank, and Bolivar
Heights on the west. The Shenandoah River breaks through the pass between
Loudon and Bolivar Heights and the village lies between the two at the
apex formed by the junction of the two rivers.
As Jackson approached the place by way of Bolivar Heights, Walker occupied
Loudon Heights and McLaws invested Maryland Heights. All were unopposed
except McLaws, who encountered Colonel Ford with a force to dispute his
ascent. Ford, however, after some resistance, spiked his guns and retired
to the Ferry, where Colonel Miles had remained with the greater portion of
the Federal troops. Had Miles led his entire force to Maryland Heights he
could no doubt have held his ground until McClellan came to his relief.
But General Halleck had ordered him to hold Harper's Ferry to the last,
and Miles interpreted this order to mean that he must hold the town
itself. He therefore failed to occupy the heights around it in sufficient
strength and thus permitted himself to be caught in a trap.
During the day of the 14th the Confederate artillery was dragged up the
mountain sides, and in the afternoon a heavy fire was opened on the doomed
Federal garrison. On that day McClellan received word from Miles that the
latter could hold out for two days longer and the commanding general sent
word: "Hold out to the last extremity. If it is possible, reoccupy the
Maryland Heights with your entire force. If you can do that I will
certainly be able to relieve you.... Hold out to the last." McClellan was
approaching slowly and felt confident he could relieve the place.
On the morning of the 15th the roar of Confederate artillery again
resounded from hill to hill. From Loudon to Maryland Heights the firing
had begun and a little later the battle-flags of A. P. Hill rose on
Bolivar Heights. Scarcely two hours had the firing continued when Colonel
Miles raised the white flag at Harper's Ferry and its garrison of 12,500,
with vast military stores, passed into the hands of the Confederates.
Colonel Miles was struck by a stray fragment of a Confederate shell which
gave him a mortal wound. The force of General Franklin, preparing to move
to the garrison's relief, on the morning of the 15th noted that firing at
the Ferry had ceased and suspected that the garrison had surrendered, as
it had.
The Confederate Colonel Douglas, whose account of the surrender is both
absorbing and authoritative, thus describes the surrender in "Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War":
"Under instructions from General Jackson, I rode up the pike and into the
enemy's lines to ascertain the purpose of the white flag. Near the top of
the hill I met General White and staff and told him my mission. He replied
that Colonel Miles had been mortally wounded, that he was in command and
desired to have an interview with General Jackson.... I conducted them to
General Jackson, whom I found sitting on his horse where I had left
him.... The contrast in appearances there presented was striking. General
White, riding a handsome black horse, was carefully dressed and had on
untarnished gloves, boots, and sword. His staff were equally comely in
costume. On the other hand, General Jackson was the dingiest,
worst-dressed and worst-mounted general that a warrior who cared for good
looks and style would wish to surrender to.
"General Jackson ... rode up to Bolivar and down into Harper's Ferry. The
curiosity in the Union army to see him was so great that the soldiers
lined the sides of the road.... One man had an echo of response all about
him when he said aloud: 'Boys, he's not much for looks, but if we'd had
him we wouldn't have been caught in this trap.'"
McClellan had failed to reach Harper's Ferry in time to relieve it because
he was detained at South Mountain by a considerable portion of Lee's army
under D. H. Hill and Longstreet. McClellan had come into possession of
Lee's general order, outlining the campaign. Discovering by this order
that Lee had sent Jackson to attack Harper's Ferry he made every effort to
relieve it.
The affair at Harper's Ferry, as that at South Mountain, was but a prelude
to the tremendous battle that was to follow two days later on the banks of
the little stream called Antietam Creek, in Maryland. When it was known
that Lee had led his army across the Potomac the people were filled with
consternation--the people, not only of the immediate vicinity, but of
Harrisburg, of Baltimore, of Philadelphia. Their fear was intensified by
the memory of the Second Bull Run of a few weeks earlier, and by the fact
that at this very time General Bragg was marching northward across
Kentucky with a great army, menacing Louisville and Cincinnati.
As one year before, the hopes of the North had centered in George B.
McClellan, so it was now with the people of the East. They were ready to
forget his failure to capture Richmond in the early summer and to contrast
his partial successes on the Peninsula with the drastic defeat of his
successor at the Second Bull Run.
When McClellan, therefore, passed through Maryland to the scene of the
coming battle, many of the people received him with joy and enthusiasm. At
Frederick City, he tells us in his "Own Story," he was "nearly overwhelmed
and pulled to pieces," and the people invited him into their houses and
gave him every demonstration of confidence.
The first encounter, a double one, took place on September 14th, at two
passes of South Mountain, a continuation of the Blue Ridge, north of the
Potomac. General Franklin, who had been sent to relieve Harper's Ferry,
met a Confederate force at Crampton's Gap and defeated it in a sharp
battle of three hours' duration. Meanwhile, the First and Ninth Army
Corps, under Burnside, encountered a stronger force at Turner's Gap seven
miles farther up. The battle here continued many hours, till late in the
night, and the Union troops were victorious. General Reno was killed.
Lee's loss was nearly twenty-seven hundred, of whom eight hundred were
prisoners. The Federals lost twenty-one hundred men and they failed to
save Harper's Ferry.
Lee now placed Longstreet and D. H. Hill in a strong position near
Keedysville, but learning that McClellan was advancing rapidly, the
Confederate leader decided to retire to Sharpsburg, where he could be more
easily joined by Jackson. September 16th was a day of intense anxiety and
unrest in the valley of the Antietam. The people who had lived in the
farmhouses that dotted the golden autumn landscape in this hitherto quiet
community had now abandoned their homes and given place to the armed
forces. It was a day of marshaling and maneuvering of the gathering
thousands, preparatory to the mighty conflict that was clearly seen to be
inevitable. Lee had taken a strong position on the west bank of Antietam
Creek a few miles from where it flows into the Potomac. He made a display
of force, exposing his men to the fire of the Federal artillery, his
object being to await the coming of Jackson's command from Harper's Ferry.
It is true that Jackson himself had arrived, but his men were weary with
marching and, moreover, a large portion of his troops under A. P. Hill and
McLaws had not yet reached the field.
McClellan spent the day arranging his corps and giving directions for
planting batteries. With a few companions he rode along the whole front,
frequently drawing the fire of the Confederate batteries and thus
revealing their location. The right wing of his army, the corps of
Generals Hooker, Mansfield, and Sumner, lay to the north, near the village
of Keedysville. General Porter with two divisions of the Fifth Corps
occupied the center and Burnside was on the left of the Union lines. Back
of McClellan's lines was a ridge on which was a signal station commanding
a view of the entire field. Late on the afternoon of the 16th, Hooker
crossing the Antietam, advanced against Hood's division on the Confederate
left. For several hours there was heavy skirmishing, which closed with the
coming of darkness.
The two great armies now lay facing each other in a grand double line
three miles in length. At one point (the Union right and the Confederate
left) they were so near together that the pickets could hear each other's
tread. It required no prophet to foretell what would happen on the morrow.
Beautiful and clear the morning broke over the Maryland hills on the
fateful 17th of September, 1862. The sunlight had not yet crowned the
hilltops when artillery fire announced the opening of the battle. Hooker's
infantry soon entered into the action and encountered the Confederates in
an open field, from which the latter were presently pressed back across
the Hagerstown pike to a line of woods where they made a determined stand.
Hooker then called on General Mansfield to come to his aid, and the latter
quickly did so, for he had led his corps across the Antietam after dark
the night before. Mansfield, however, a gallant and honored veteran, fell
mortally wounded while deploying his troops, and General Alpheus S.
Williams, at the head of his first division, succeeded to the command.
There was a wood west of the Sharpsburg and Hagerstown turnpike which,
with its outcropping ledges of rock, formed an excellent retreat for the
Confederates and from this they pushed their columns into the open fields,
chiefly of corn, to meet the Union attacks. For about two hours the battle
raged at this point, the lines swaying to and fro, with fearful slaughter
on both sides. At length, General Greene, who commanded a division of the
fallen Mansfield's corps, gained possession of part of the coveted forest,
near a little white church, known as the Dunker's Chapel. This was on high
ground and was the key to the Confederate left wing. But Greene's troops
were exposed to a galling fire from D. H. Hill's division and he called
for reënforcements.
General Sumner then sent Sedgwick's division across the stream and
accompanied the troops to the aid of their hard-pressed comrades. And the
experience of this body of the gallant Second Corps during the next hour
was probably the most thrilling episode of the whole day's battle.
Sedgwick's troops advanced straight toward the conflict. They found Hooker
wounded and his and Williams' troops quite exhausted. A sharp artillery
fire was turned on Sedgwick before he reached the woods west of the
Hagerstown pike, but once in the shelter of the thick trees he passed in
safety to the western edge. Here the division found itself in an ambush.
Heavy Confederate reënforcements--ten brigades, in fact--Walker's men, and
McLaws', having arrived from Harper's Ferry--were hastening up, and they
not only blocked the front, but worked around to the rear of Sedgwick's
isolated brigades. Sedgwick was wounded in the awful slaughter that
followed, but he and Sumner finally extricated their men with a loss of
two thousand, over three hundred left dead on the ghastly field. Franklin
now sent forward some fresh troops and after obstinately fighting, the
Federals finally held a cornfield and most of the coveted wood over which
the conflict had raged till the ground was saturated with blood.
Before the close of this bloody conflict on the Union right another,
almost if not quite as deadly, was in progress near the center. General
French, soon joined by General Richardson, both of Sumner's corps, crossed
the stream and made a desperate assault against the Southerners of D. H.
Hill's division, stationed to the south of where the battle had previously
raged--French on a line of heights strongly held by the Confederates,
Richardson in the direction of a sunken road, since known as "Bloody
Lane." The fighting here was of a most desperate character and continued
nearly four hours. French captured a few flags, several hundred prisoners,
and gained some ground, but he failed to carry the heights. Richardson was
mortally wounded while leading a charge and was succeeded by General
Hancock; but his men finally captured Bloody Lane with the three hundred
living men who had remained to defend it. The final Federal charge at this
point was made by Colonel Barlow, who displayed the utmost bravery and
self-possession in the thickest of the fight, where he won a
brigadier-generalship. He was wounded, and later carried off the field.
The Confederates had fought desperately to hold their position in Bloody
Lane, and when it was captured it was filled with dead bodies. It was now
about one o'clock and the infantry firing ceased for the day on the Union
right, and center.
Let us now look on the other part of the field. Burnside held the Federal
left wing against Lee's right, and he remained inactive for some hours
after the battle had begun at the other end of the line. In front of
Burnside was a triple-arched stone bridge across the Antietam, since known
as "Burnside's Bridge." Opposite this bridge, on the slope which extends
to a high ridge, were Confederate breastworks and rifle-pits, which
commanded the bridge with a direct or enfilading fire. While the Federal
right was fighting on the morning of the 17th, McClellan sent an order to
Burnside to advance on the bridge, to take possession of it and cross the
stream by means of it. It must have been about ten o'clock when Burnside
received the order as McClellan was more than two miles away.
Burnside's chief officer at this moment was General Jacob D. Cox
(afterward Governor of Ohio), who had succeeded General Reno, killed at
South Mountain. On Cox fell the task of capturing the stone bridge. The
defense of the bridge was in the hands of General Robert Toombs, a former
United States senator and a member of Jefferson Davis' Cabinet. Perhaps
the most notable single event in the life of General Toombs was his
holding of the Burnside Bridge at Antietam for three hours against the
assaults of the Federal troops. The Confederates had been weakened at this
point by the sending of Walker to the support of Jackson, where, as we
have noticed, he took part in the deadly assault upon Sedgwick's division.
Toombs, therefore, with his one brigade had a heavy task before him in
defending the bridge with his small force, notwithstanding his advantage
of position.
McClellan sent several urgent orders to advance at all hazards. Burnside
forwarded these to Cox, and in the fear that the latter would be unable to
carry the bridge by a direct front attack, he sent Rodman with a division
to cross the creek by a ford some distance below. This was accomplished
after much difficulty. Meanwhile, in rapid succession, one assault after
another was made upon the bridge and, about one o'clock, it was carried,
at the cost of five hundred men. The Confederates fell back. A lull in the
fighting along the whole line of battle now ensued.
Burnside, however, received another order from McClellan to push on up the
heights and to the village of Sharpsburg. The great importance of this
move, if successful, was that it would cut Lee out from his line of
retreat by way of Shepherdstown.
After replenishing the ammunition and adding some fresh troops, Cox
advanced at three o'clock with the utmost gallantry toward Sharpsburg. The
Confederates disputed the ground with great bravery. But Cox swept all
before him and was at the edge of the village when he was suddenly
confronted by lines in blue uniforms who instantly opened fire. The
Federals were astonished to see the blue-clad battalions before them. They
must be Union soldiers; but how did they get there? The matter was soon
explained. They were A. P. Hill's division of Lee's army which had just
arrived from Harper's Ferry, and they had dressed themselves in the
uniforms that they had taken from the Federal stores.
Hill had come just in time to save Lee's headquarters from capture. He
checked Cox's advance, threw a portion of the troops into great confusion,
and steadily pressed them back toward the Antietam. In this, the end of
the battle, General Rodman fell mortally wounded. Cox retired in good
order and Sharpsburg remained in the hands of the Confederates.
Thus, with the approach of nightfall, closed the memorable battle of
Antietam. For fourteen long hours more than one hundred thousand men, with
five hundred pieces of artillery, had engaged in titanic combat. As the
pall of battle smoke rose and cleared away, the scene presented was one to
make the stoutest heart shudder. There lay upon the ground, scattered for
three miles over the valleys and the hills or in the improvised hospitals,
more than twenty thousand men. Horace Greeley was probably right in
pronouncing this the bloodiest day in American history.
Although tactically it was a drawn battle, Antietam was decisively in
favor of the North inasmuch as it ended the first Confederate attempt at a
Northern invasion. General Lee realized that his ulterior plans had been
thwarted by this engagement and after a consultation with his corps
commanders he determined to withdraw from Maryland. On the night of the
18th the retreat began and early the next morning the Confederate army had
all safely recrossed the Potomac.
The great mistake of the Maryland campaign from the standpoint of the
Confederate forces, thought General Longstreet, was the division of Lee's
army, and he believed that if Lee had kept his forces together he would
not have been forced to abandon the campaign. At Antietam, he had less
than forty thousand men, who were in poor condition for battle while
McClellan had about eighty-seven thousand, most of whom were fresh and
strong, though not more than sixty thousand were in action.
The moral effect of the battle of Antietam was incalculably great. It
aroused the confidence of the Northern people. It emboldened President
Lincoln to issue five days after its close the proclamation freeing the
slaves in the seceded states. He had written the proclamation long before,
but it had lain inactive in his desk at Washington. All through the
struggles of the summer of 1862 he had looked forward to the time when he
could announce his decision to the people. But he could not do it then.
With the doubtful success of Federal arms, to make such a bold step would
have been a mockery and would have defeated the very end he sought.
The South had now struck its first desperate blow at the gateways to the
North. By daring, almost unparalleled in warfare, it had swung its
courageous army into a strategical position where with the stroke of
fortune it might have hammered down the defenses of the National capital
on the south and then sweep on a march of invasion into the North. The
Northern soldiers had parried the blow. They had saved themselves from
disaster and had held back the tide of the Confederacy as it beat against
the Mason and Dixon line, forcing it back into the State of Virginia where
the two mighty fighting bodies were soon to meet again in a desperate
struggle for the right-of-way at Fredericksburg.
[Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS
ACCORDING TO HIS WIDOW THE ONLY WAR-TIME PHOTOGRAPH OF THE PRESIDENT OF
THE CONFEDERACY