ANTIETAM: THE FIGHT ON THE LEFT
Ninth Corps positions near Antietam Creek--Rodman's division at
lower ford--Sturgis's at the bridge--Burnside's headquarters on the
field--View from his place of the battle on the right--French's
fight--An exploding caisson--Our orders to attack--The hour--Crisis
of the battle--Discussion of the sequence of events--The Burnside
bridge--Exposed approach--Enfiladed by enemy's
artillery--Disposition of enemy's troops--His position very
strong--Importance of Rodman's movement by the ford--The fight at
the bridge--Repulse--Fresh efforts--Tactics of the
assault--Success--Formation on further bank--Bringing up
ammunition--Willcox relieves Sturgis--The latter now in
support--Advance against Sharpsburg--Fierce combat--Edge of the town
reached--Rodman's advance on the left--A. P. Hill's Confederate
division arrives from Harper's Ferry--Attacks Rodman's flank--A raw
regiment breaks--The line retires--Sturgis comes into the
gap--Defensive position taken and held--Enemy's assaults
repulsed--Troops sleeping on their arms--McClellan's reserve--Other
troops not used--McClellan's idea of Lee's force and plans--Lee's
retreat--The terrible casualty lists.
We have seen that the divisions of the Ninth Corps were conducted by
staff officers of Burnside's staff to positions that had been
indicated by McClellan and marked by members of his staff. The
morning of Wednesday the 17th broke fresh and fair. The men were
astir at dawn, getting breakfast and preparing for a day of battle.
The artillery fire which opened Hooker's battle on the right spread
along the whole line, and the positions which had been assigned us
in the dusk of evening were found to be exposed, in some places, to
the direct fire of the Confederate guns. Rodman's division suffered
more than the others, Fairchild's brigade alone reporting thirty-six
casualties before they could find cover. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 451.] My own tents had been pitched at
the edge of a little grove of forest trees, and the headquarters
mess was at breakfast at sunrise when the cannonade began. The rapid
explosion of shrapnel about us hastened our morning meal; the tents
were struck and loaded upon the wagons, horses were saddled, and
everything made ready for the contingencies of the day. It was not
till seven o'clock that orders came to advance toward the creek as
far as could be done without exposing the men to unnecessary loss.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 424.] Rodman was
directed to acquaint himself with the situation of the ford in front
of him, and Sturgis to seek the best means of approach to the stone
bridge. All were then to remain in readiness to obey further orders.
When these arrangements had been made, I rode to the position
Burnside had selected for himself, which was upon a high knoll
northeast of the Burnside bridge, near a haystack which was a
prominent landmark. Near by was Benjamin's battery of twenty-pounder
Parrotts, and a little further still to the right, on the same
ridge, General Sturgis had sent in Durell's battery. [Footnote:
_Ibid_.] These were exchanging shots with the enemy's guns opposite,
and had the advantage in range and weight of metal. At this point I
remained until the order for our attack came, later in the day. We
anxiously watched what we could see at the right, and noted the
effect of the fire of the heavy guns of Benjamin's battery. We could
see nothing distinctly that occurred beyond the Dunker Church, for
the East and West Woods with farm-houses and orchards between made
an impenetrable screen. A column of smoke stood over the burning
Mumma house, marking plainly its situation.
As the morning wore on, we saw lines of troops advancing from our
right upon the other side of the Antietam, and engaging the enemy
between us and the East Wood. The Confederate lines facing them now
also rose into view. From our position we looked, as it were, down
between the opposing lines as if they had been the sides of a
street, and as the fire opened we saw wounded men carried to the
rear and stragglers making off. Our lines halted, and we were
tortured with anxiety as we speculated whether our men would charge
or retreat. The enemy occupied lines of fences and stone walls, and
their batteries made gaps in the National ranks. Our long-range guns
were immediately turned in that direction, and we cheered every
well-aimed shot. One of our shells blew up a caisson close to the
Confederate line. This contest was going on, and it was yet
uncertain which would succeed, when one of McClellan's staff rode up
with an order to Burnside. The latter turned to me, saying we were
ordered to make our attack. I left the hill-top at once to give
personal supervision to the movement ordered, and did not return to
it. My knowledge by actual vision of what occurred on the right
ceased.
The question at what hour Burnside received this order, has been
warmly disputed. The manner in which we had waited, the free
discussion of what was occurring under our eyes and of our relation
to it, the public receipt of the order by Burnside in the usual and
business-like form, all forbid the supposition that this was any
reiteration of a former order.
[Footnote: I leave this as originally written, although the order
itself has since come to light; for the discussion of the
circumstantial evidence may be useful in determining the value of
McClellan's report of 1863 where it differs in other respects from
his original report of 1862 and from other contemporaneous
documents.
"HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
September 17, 1862,--9.10 A. M.
MAJOR-GENERAL BURNSIDE:
GENERAL,--General Franklin's command is within one mile and a half
of here. General McClellan desires you to open your attack. As soon
as you shall have uncovered the upper stone bridge you will be
supported, and, if necessary, on your own line of attack. So far all
is going well.
Respectfully, GEO. D. RUGGLES, Colonel, etc."
This order appears in the supplementary volume of the Official
Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 844. From Pry's house, where McClellan's
headquarters were that day, to Burnside's, was over two miles as the
crow flies. This establishes the accuracy of the original reports of
both, which stated the hour of receipt at ten o'clock. It
corroborates also the time of Franklin's arrival on the field, and
the connection of this with Burnside's advance.]
If then we can determine whose troops we saw engaged, we shall know
something of the time of day; for there has been a general agreement
reached as to the hours of movement of Sumner's divisions during the
forenoon on the right and right centre. The official map settles
this. No lines of our troops were engaged in the direction of Bloody
Lane and the Rullett farm-house, and between the latter and our
station on the hill, till French's division made its attack. We saw
them distinctly on the hither side of the farm buildings, upon the
open ground, considerably nearer to us than the Dunker Church or the
East Wood. In number we took them to be a corps. The place, the
circumstances, all fix it beyond controversy that they were French's
men or French's and Richardson's. No others fought on that part of
the field until Franklin went to their assistance at noon or later.
The incident of their advance and the explosion of the caisson was
illustrated by the pencil of Mr. Forbes on the spot, and was placed
by him at the time Franklin's head of column was approaching from
the direction of Rohrersville, which was about ten o'clock.
[Footnote: Forbes's sketch is reproduced in "Battles and Leaders of
the Civil War," vol. ii. p. 647, and is of historical importance in
connection with the facts stated above.]
It seems now very clear that about ten o'clock in the morning was
the great crisis in this battle. The sudden and complete rout of
Sedgwick's division was not easily accounted for, and, with
McClellan's theory of the enormous superiority of Lee's numbers, it
looked as if the Confederate general had massed overwhelming forces
on our right. Sumner's notion that Hooker's corps was utterly
dispersed was naturally accepted, and McClellan limited his hopes to
holding on at the East Wood and the Poffenberger hill, where
Hooker's batteries were massed and supported by the troops that had
been rallied there. Franklin's corps, as it came on the field, was
detained to support the threatened right centre, and McClellan
determined to help it further by a demonstration upon the extreme
left by the Ninth Corps. At this time, therefore, he gave his order
to Burnside to cross the Antietam and attack the enemy, thus
creating a diversion in favor of our hard-pressed right. His
preliminary report of the battle (dated October 16, 1862) explicitly
states that the order to Burnside to attack was "communicated to him
at ten o'clock A.M." This exactly agrees with the time stated by
Burnside in his official report, and would ordinarily be quite
conclusive. [Footnote: See note, p. 334, _ante_. C. W., pt. i. p.
41; Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 31, 416.]
In the book published in 1864 as his official report of his whole
military career, McClellan says he ordered Burnside to make this
attack at eight o'clock. The circumstances under which his final
published statements were made take away from them the character of
a calm and judicial correction of his first report. He was then a
general set aside from active service and a political aspirant to
the Presidency. His book was a controversial one, issued as an
argument to the public, and the earlier report must be regarded in a
military point of view as the more authoritative unless good grounds
are given for the changes. When he wrote his preliminary report he
certainly knew the hour and the condition of affairs on the field
when he gave the order to Burnside. To do so at eight o'clock would
not accord with his plan of battle. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 30, 55.]
His purpose had been to move the Ninth Corps against the enemy "when
matters looked favorably" on our right, after an attack by Hooker,
Mansfield, and Sumner, supported, if necessary, by Franklin. But
Sumner's attack was not made till after nine, and Franklin's head of
column did not reach the field till ten. McClellan's book, indeed,
erroneously postpones Franklin's arrival till past noon, which, if
true, would tend to explain why the day wore away without any
further activity on the right; but the preliminary report better
agrees with Franklin's when it says that officer reached the field
about an hour after Sedgwick's disaster. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 30, 61, 376.]
Still further, matters had at no time "looked favorably" on the
right up to ten o'clock. The condition, therefore, which was assumed
as precedent to Burnside's movement, never existed; and this was
better known to McClellan than to any one else, for he received the
first discouraging reports after Mansfield fell, and the subsequent
alarming ones when Sedgwick was routed. Burnside's report was dated
on the 30th of September, within two weeks of the battle, and at a
time when public discussion of the incomplete results of the battle
was animated. It was made after he had in his hands my own report as
his immediate subordinate, in which I had given about nine o'clock
as my remembrance of the time. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 424.] As I
directed the details of the action at the bridge in obedience to
this order, it would have been easy for him to have accepted the
hour named by me, for I should have been answerable for any delay in
execution after that time. But he then had in his possession the
order which came to him upon the hill-top overlooking the field, and
no officer in the whole army has a better established reputation for
candor and freedom from any wish to avoid full personal
responsibility for his acts. It was not till his report was
published in the Official Records (1887) [Footnote: _Id_., p. 416.]
that I saw it or learned its contents, although I enjoyed his
personal friendship down to his death. He was content to have stated
the fact as he knew it, and did not feel the need of debating it.
The circumstances have satisfied me that his accuracy in giving the
hour was greater than my own. [Footnote: Upon reflection, I think it
probable that the order from McClellan was read to me, and that I
thus got the hour of its date connected in my mind with the
beginning of our attack.]
It will not be wondered at, therefore, if to my mind the story of
the eight o'clock order is an instance of the way in which an
erroneous recollection is based upon the desire to make the facts
accord with a theory. The actual time must have been as much later
than nine o'clock as the period during which, with absorbed
attention, we had been watching the battle on the right,--a period,
it is safe to say, much longer than it seemed to us. The judgment of
the hour which I gave in my report was merely my impression from
passing events, for I hastened at once to my own duties without
thinking to look at my watch; whilst the cumulative evidence seems
to prove, conclusively, that the time stated by Burnside, and by
McClellan himself in his original report, is correct. The order,
then, to Burnside to attack was not sent at eight o'clock, but
reached him at ten; it was not sent to follow up an advantage gained
by Hooker and Sumner, but to create, if possible, a strong diversion
in favor of the imperilled right wing when the general outlook was
far from reassuring.
McClellan truly said, in his original report, that the task of
carrying the bridge in front of Burnside was a difficult one.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 31.] The hill on
which I have placed the station of General Burnside was the bolder
and more prominent crest of the line of hills which skirted the
Antietam on the east, and was broken by depressions here and there,
through which the country roads ran down to the stream. Such a
hollow was just at the south of Burnside's position at the haystack
on the Rohrback farm. In rear of him and a little lower down were
the farm buildings, and from these a road ran down the winding
hollow to the Antietam, but reached the stream several hundred yards
below the bridge. Following the road, therefore, it was necessary to
turn up stream upon the narrow space between the hills and the
water, without any cover from the fire of the enemy on the opposite
side. The bluffs on that side were wooded to the water's edge, and
were so steep that the road from the bridge could not go up at right
angles to the bank, but forked both ways and sought the upper land
by a more gradual ascent to right and left. The fork to the right
ran around a shoulder of the hill into a ravine which there reaches
the Antietam, and thence ascends by an easy grade toward Sharpsburg.
The left branch of the road rises by a similar but less marked
depression.
These roads were faced by stone fences, and the depth of the valley
and its course made it impossible to reach the enemy's position at
the bridge by artillery fire from the hill-tops on our side. Not so
from the enemy's position, for the curve of the valley was such that
it was perfectly enfiladed near the bridge by the Confederate
batteries at the position now occupied by the National Cemetery. The
bridge itself was a stone structure of three arches with stone
parapets on the sides. These curved outward at the end of the bridge
to allow for the turn of the roadway. On the enemy's side, the stone
fences came down close to the bridge.
The Confederate defence of the passage was intrusted to D. R.
Jones's division of six brigades, [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xix. pt. i. p. 804.] which was the one Longstreet himself had
disciplined and led till he was assigned to a larger command.
Toombs's brigade was placed in advance, occupying the defences of
the bridge itself and the wooded slopes above, while the other
brigades supported him, covered by the ridges which looked down upon
the valley. The division batteries were supplemented by others from
the enemy's reserve, and the valley, the bridge, and the ford below
were under the direct and powerful fire of shot and shell from the
Confederate cannon. Toombs's force, thus strongly supported, was as
large as could be disposed of at the head of the bridge, and
abundantly large for resistance to any that could be brought against
it. Our advance upon the bridge could only be made by a narrow
column, showing a front of eight men at most; but the front which
Toombs deployed behind his defences was three or four hundred yards
both above and below the bridge. He himself says in his report:
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 890.] "From the
nature of the ground on the other side, the enemy were compelled to
approach mainly by the road which led up the river near three
hundred paces parallel with my line of battle and distant therefrom
from fifty to a hundred and fifty feet, thus exposing his flank to a
destructive fire the most of that distance." Under such
circumstances the Confederate position was nearly impregnable
against a direct attack over the bridge; for the column approaching
it was not only exposed at almost pistol-range to the perfectly
covered infantry of the enemy and to two batteries which were
assigned to the special duty of supporting Toombs, having the exact
range of the little valley with their shrapnel; but, if it should
succeed in reaching the bridge, its charge across it must be made
under a fire ploughing through its length, the head of the column
melting away as it advanced, so that, as every soldier knows, it
could show no front strong enough to make an impression upon the
enemy's breastworks, even if it should reach the other side. As a
desperate sort of diversion in favor of the right wing, it might be
justifiable; but I believe that no officer or man who knew the
actual situation at that bridge thinks that a serious attack upon it
was any part of McClellan's original plan. Yet, in his detailed
report of 1863, instead of speaking of it as the difficult task the
original report had called it, he treats it as little different from
a parade or march across which might have been done in half an hour.
Burnside's view of the matter was that the front attack at the
bridge was so difficult that the passage by the ford below must be
an important factor in the task; for if Rodman's division should
succeed in getting across there, at the bend of the Antietam, he
would come up in rear of Toombs, and either the whole of D. R.
Jones's division would have to advance to meet Rodman, or Toombs
must abandon the bridge. In this I certainly concurred, and Rodman
was ordered to push rapidly for the ford. It is important to
remember, however, that Walker's Confederate division had been
posted during the earlier morning to hold that part of the Antietam
line, supporting Toombs as well, [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xix. pt. i. p. 914.] and it was probably from him that Rodman
suffered the first casualties that occurred in his ranks. But, as we
have seen, Walker had been called away by Lee only an hour before,
and had made the hasty march by the rear of Sharpsburg to fall upon
Sedgwick. If therefore Rodman had been sent to cross at eight
o'clock, it is safe to say that his column, fording the stream in
the face of Walker's deployed division, would never have reached the
further bank,--a contingency that McClellan did not consider when
arguing, long afterward, the favorable results that might have
followed an earlier attack. As Rodman died upon the field, no full
report for his division was made, and we only know that he met with
some resistance from both infantry and artillery; that the winding
of the stream made his march longer than he anticipated, and that,
in fact, he only approached the rear of Toombs's position from that
direction about the time when our last and successful charge upon
the bridge was made, between noon and one o'clock.
The attacks at the Burnside bridge were made under my own eye.
Sturgis's division occupied the centre of our line, with Crook's
brigade of the Kanawha division on his right front, and Willcox's
division in reserve, as I have already stated. Crook's position was
somewhat above the bridge, but it was thought that by advancing part
of Sturgis's men to the brow of the hill, they could cover the
advance of Crook, and that the latter could make a straight dash
down the hill to our end of the bridge. The orders were accordingly
given, and Crook advanced, covered by the Eleventh Connecticut (of
Rodman's) under Colonel Kingsbury, deployed as skirmishers.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 419, 424.] In
passing over the spurs of the hills, Crook came out on the bank of
the stream above the bridge and found himself under a heavy fire at
short range. He faced the enemy and returned the fire, getting such
cover for his men as he could and trying to drive off or silence his
opponents. The engagement was one in which the Antietam prevented
the combatants from coming to close quarters, but it was none the
less vigorously continued with musketry fire. Crook reported that
his hands were full and that he could not approach closer to the
bridge. Later in the contest, his men, lining the stream, made
experiments in trying to get over, and found a fordable place a
little way above, by which he got over five companies of the
Twenty-eighth Ohio at about the same time as the final and
successful charge. But on the failure of Crook's first effort,
Sturgis ordered forward an attacking column from Nagle's brigade,
supported and covered by Ferrero's brigade, which took position in a
field of corn on one of the lower slopes of the hill opposite the
head of the bridge. The whole front was carefully covered with
skirmishers, and our batteries on the heights overhead were ordered
to keep down the fire of the enemy's artillery. Nagle's effort was
gallantly made, but it failed, and his men were forced to seek cover
behind the spur of the hill from which they had advanced. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 444.] We were constantly
hoping to hear something from Rodman's advance by the ford, and
would gladly have waited for some more certain knowledge of his
progress, but at this time McClellan's sense of the necessity of
relieving the right was such that he was sending reiterated orders
to push the assault. Not only were these forwarded to me, but to
give added weight to my instructions, Burnside sent direct to
Sturgis urgent messages to carry the bridge at all hazards.
I directed Sturgis to take two regiments from Ferrero's brigade,
which had not been engaged, and make a column by moving them
together by the flank, the one left in front and the other right in
front, side by side, so that when they passed the bridge they could
turn to left and right, forming line as they advanced on the run. He
chose the Fifty-first New York, Colonel Robert B. Potter, and the
Fifty-first Pennsylvania, Colonel John F. Hartranft (both names
afterward greatly distinguished), and both officers and men were
made to feel the necessity of success. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] At the
same time Crook succeeded in bringing a light howitzer of Simmonds's
mixed battery down from the hill-tops, and placed it where it had a
point-blank fire on the further end of the bridge. The howitzer was
one we had captured in West Virginia, and had been added to the
battery, which was partly made up of heavy rifled Parrott guns. When
everything was ready, a heavy skirmishing fire was opened all along
the bank, the howitzer threw in double charges of canister, and in
scarcely more time than it takes to tell it, the bridge was passed
and Toombs's brigade fled through the woods and over the top of the
hill. The charging regiments were advanced in line to the crest
above the bridge as soon as they were deployed, and the rest of
Sturgis's division, with Crook's brigade, were immediately brought
over to strengthen the line. These were soon joined by Rodman's
division, with Scammon's brigade, which had crossed at the ford, and
whose presence on that side of the stream had no doubt made the
final struggle of Toombs's men less obstinate than it would
otherwise have been, the fear of being taken in rear having always a
strong moral effect upon even the best of troops.
It was now about one o'clock, and nearly three hours had been spent
in a bitter and bloody contest across the narrow stream. The
successive efforts to carry the bridge had been as closely following
each other as possible. Each had been a fierce combat, in which the
men with wonderful courage had not easily accepted defeat, and even,
when not able to cross the bridge, had made use of the walls at the
end, the fences, and every tree and stone as cover, while they
strove to reach with their fire their well-protected and nearly
concealed opponents. The lulls in the fighting had been short, and
only to prepare new efforts. The severity of the work was attested
by our losses, which, before the crossing was won, exceeded 500 men,
and included some of our best officers, such as Colonel Kingsbury of
the Eleventh Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel Bell of the Fifty-first
Pennsylvania, and Lieutenant-Colonel Coleman of the Eleventh Ohio,
two of them commanding regiments. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xix. pt. i. p. 427.] The proportion of casualties to the number
engaged was much greater than common; for the nature of the combat
required that comparatively few troops should be exposed at once,
the others remaining under cover.
Our next task was to prepare to hold the heights we had gained
against the return assault of the enemy which we expected, and to
reply to the destructive fire from the enemy's abundant artillery.
Light batteries were brought over and distributed in the line. The
men were made to lie down behind the crest to save them from the
concentrated cannonade which the enemy opened upon us as soon as
Toombs's regiments succeeded in reaching their main line. But
McClellan's anticipation of an overwhelming attack upon his right
was so strong that he determined still to press our advance, and
sent orders accordingly. The ammunition of Sturgis's and Crook's men
had been nearly exhausted, and it was imperative that they should be
freshly supplied before entering into another engagement. Sturgis
also reported his men so exhausted by their efforts as to be unfit
for an immediate advance. On this I sent to Burnside the request
that Willcox's division be sent over, with an ammunition train, and
that Sturgis's division be replaced by the fresh troops, remaining,
however, on the west side of the stream as support to the others.
This was done as rapidly as was practicable, where everything had to
pass down the steep hill-road and through so narrow a defile as the
bridge. [Footnote: As a mode of ready reckoning, it is usual to
assume that a division requires an hour to march past a given point
by the flank. With the crossing of an ammunition train, the interval
of time is more than accounted for.] Still, it was three o'clock
before these changes and preparations could be made. Burnside had
personally striven to hasten them, and had come over to the west
bank to consult and to hurry matters, and took his share of personal
peril, for he came at a time when the ammunition wagons were
delivering cartridges, and the road at the end of the bridge where
they were was in the range of the enemy's constant and accurate
fire. It is proper to mention this because it has been said that he
did not cross the stream. The criticisms made by McClellan as to the
time occupied in these changes and movements will not seem forcible
if one will compare them with any similar movements on the field;
such as Mansfield's to support Hooker, or Sumner's or Franklin's to
reach the scene of action. About this, however, there is fair room
for difference of opinion: what I personally know is that it would
have been folly to advance again before Willcox had relieved
Sturgis, and that as soon as the fresh troops reported and could be
put in line, the order to advance was given. McClellan is in accord
with all other witnesses in declaring that when the movement began,
the conduct of the troops was gallant beyond criticism.
Willcox's division formed the right, Christ's brigade being north,
and Welsh's brigade south of the road leading from the bridge to
Sharpsburg. Crook's brigade of the Kanawha division supported
Willcox. Rodman's division formed on the left, Harland's brigade
having the position on the flank, and Fairchild's uniting with
Willcox at the centre. Scammon's brigade was the reserve for Rodman
at the extreme left. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i.
pp. 425, 430.] Sturgis's division remained and held the crest of the
hill above the bridge. About half of the batteries of the divisions
accompanied the movement, the rest being in position on the
hill-tops east of the Antietam. The advance necessarily followed the
high ground toward Sharpsburg, and as the enemy made strongest
resistance toward our right, the movement curved in that direction,
the six brigades of Jones's Confederate division being deployed
diagonally across our front, holding the stone fences and crests of
the cross-ridges and aided by abundant artillery, in which arm the
enemy was particularly strong.
The battle was a fierce one from the moment Willcox's men showed
themselves on the open ground. Christ's brigade, taking advantage of
all the cover the trees and inequalities of surface gave them,
pushed on along the depression in which the road ran, a section of
artillery keeping pace with them in the road. The direction of
movement brought all the brigades of the first line in echelon, but
Welsh soon fought his way up beside Christ, and they together drove
the enemy successively from the fields and farm-yards till they
reached the edge of the village. Upon the elevation on the right of
the road was an orchard in which the shattered and diminished force
of Jones made a final stand, but Willcox concentrated his artillery
fire upon it, and his infantry was able to push forward and occupy
it. They now partly occupied the town of Sharpsburg, and held the
high ground commanding it on the southeast, where the National
Cemetery now is. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p.
431.] The struggle had been long and bloody. It was half-past four
in the afternoon, and ammunition had again run low, for the wagons
had not been able to accompany the movement. Willcox paused for his
men to take breath again and to fetch up some cartridges; but
meanwhile affairs were taking a serious turn on the left.
As Rodman's division went forward, he found the enemy before him
seemingly detached from Willcox's opponents, and occupying ridges on
his left front, so that he was not able to keep his own connection
with Willcox in the swinging movement to the right. Still, he made
good progress in the face of stubborn resistance, though finding the
enemy constantly developing more to his left, and the interval
between him and Willcox widening. The view of the field to the south
was now obstructed by fields of tall Indian corn, and under this
cover Confederate troops approached the flank in line of battle.
Scammon's officers in the reserve saw them as soon as Rodman's
brigades echeloned, as these were toward the front and right. This
hostile force proved to be A. P. Hill's division of six brigades,
the last of Jackson's force to leave Harper's Ferry, and which had
reached Sharpsburg since noon. Those first seen by Scammon's men
were dressed in the National blue uniforms which they had captured
at Harper's Ferry, and it was assumed that they were part of our own
forces till they began to fire. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xix. pt. i. p. 468.] Scammon quickly changed front to the left,
drove back the enemy before him, and occupied a line of stone
fences, which he held until he was afterward withdrawn from it.
[Footnote: _Id._, p. 466.] Harland's brigade was partly moving in
the corn-fields. One of his regiments was new, having been organized
only three weeks, and the brigade had somewhat lost its order and
connection when the sudden attack came. Rodman directed Colonel
Harland to lead the right of the brigade, while he himself attempted
to bring the left into position. In performing this duty he fell,
mortally wounded. Harland's horse was shot under him, and the
brigade broke in confusion after a brief effort of its right wing to
hold on. Fairchild also now received the fire on his left, and was
forced to fall back and change front. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 451,
453.]
Being at the centre when this break occurred on the left, I saw that
it would be impossible to continue the movement to the right, and
sent instant orders to Willcox and Crook to retire the left of their
line, and to Sturgis to come forward into the gap made in Rodman's.
The troops on the right swung back in perfect order; Scammon's
brigade hung on at its stone wall at the extreme left with
unflinching tenacity till Sturgis had formed on the curving hill in
rear of them, and Rodman's had found refuge behind. Willcox's left
then united with Sturgis, and Scammon was withdrawn to a new
position on the left flank of the whole line. That these manoeuvres
on the field were really performed in good order is demonstrated by
the fact that although the break in Rodman's line was a bad one, the
enemy was not able to capture many prisoners, the whole number of
missing, out of the 2349 casualties which the Ninth Corps suffered
in the battle, being 115, which includes wounded men unable to leave
the field. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 200,
427.]
The enemy were not lacking in bold efforts to take advantage of the
check we had received, but were repulsed with severe punishment, and
as the day declined were content to entrench themselves along the
line of the road leading from Sharpsburg to the Potomac at the mouth
of the Antietam, half a mile in our front. The men of the Ninth
Corps lay that night upon their arms, the line being one which
rested with both flanks near the Antietam and curved outward upon
the rolling hill-tops which covered the bridge and commanded the
plateau between us and the enemy. With my staff, I lay upon the
ground behind the troops, holding our horses by the bridles as we
rested, for our orderlies were so exhausted that we could not deny
them the same chance for a little broken slumber.
The Ninth Corps occupied its position on the heights west of the
Antietam without further molestation, except an irritating picket
firing, till the Confederate army retreated on the 19th of
September. But the position was one in which no shelter from the
weather could be had, nor could any cooking be done; and the troops
were short of rations. My division wagon-train, which I had brought
from the West, here stood us in good stead, for the corps as a whole
was very short of transportation. The energy of Captain Fitch, my
quartermaster, forced the train back and forth between us and the
nearest depot of supplies, and for several days the whole corps had
the benefit of the provisions thus brought forward. Late in the
afternoon of Thursday the 18th, Morell's division of Porter's corps
was ordered to report to Burnside to relieve the picket line and
some of the regiments in the most exposed position. One brigade was
sent over the Antietam for this purpose, and a few of the Ninth
Corps regiments were enabled to withdraw far enough to cook some
rations, of which they had been in need for twenty-four hours.
[Footnote: General Porter in his report says Morell took the place
of the whole Ninth Corps. In this he is entirely mistaken, as the
reports from Morell's division, as well as those of the Ninth Corps,
show.] Harland's brigade of Rodman's division had been taken to the
east side of the stream to be reorganized, on the evening of
Wednesday the 17th. The sounds heard within the enemy's lines by our
pickets gave an inkling of their retrograde movement in the night of
Thursday, and at break of day on Friday morning the retreat of Lee's
whole army was discovered by advancing the picket line.
Reconnoissances sent to the front discovered that the whole
Confederate army had crossed the Potomac.
The conduct of the battle on the left has given rise to several
criticisms, among which the most prominent has been that Porter's
corps, which lay in reserve, was not put in at the same time with
the Ninth Corps. It has been said that some of them were engaged or
in support of the cavalry and artillery at the centre. This does not
appear to have been so to any important extent, for no active
fighting was going on elsewhere after Franklin's corps relieved
Sumner's about noon. McClellan's reports do not urge this. He
answered the criticism by saying that he did not think it prudent to
divest the centre of all reserve troops. No doubt a single strong
division, marching beyond the left flank of the Ninth Corps, would
have so occupied A. P. Hill's division that our movement into
Sharpsburg could not have been checked, and, assisted by the advance
of Sumner and Franklin on the right, would apparently have made
certain the complete rout of Lee. As troops are put in reserve, not
to diminish the army, but to be used in a pinch, I am convinced that
McClellan's refusal to use them on the left was the result of his
rooted belief, through all the day after Sedgwick's defeat, that Lee
was overwhelmingly superior in force, and was preparing to return a
crushing blow upon our right flank. He was keeping something in hand
to fill a gap or cover a retreat, if that wing should be driven
back. Except in this way, also, I am at a loss to account for the
inaction of the right during the whole of our engagement on the
left. Looking at our part of the battle as only a strong diversion
to prevent or delay Lee's following up his success against Hooker
and the rest, it is intelligible. I certainly so understood it at
the time, as my report witnesses, and McClellan's original report
sustains this view. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i.
pp. 31, 426.] If he had been impatient to have our attack delivered
earlier, he had reason for double impatience that Franklin's fresh
troops should assail Lee's left simultaneously with our assault of
his other wing, unless he regarded action there as hopeless, and
looked upon our movement as a sort of forlorn hope to keep Lee from
following up his advantages.
But even these are not all the troublesome questions requiring an
answer. It will be remembered that Franklin's corps, after forcing
Crampton's Gap, had remained in Pleasant Valley between Rohrersville
and Boonsboro until Tuesday night (16th September). McClellan then
ordered Couch's division to be sent to occupy Maryland Heights and
observe the enemy in Harper's Ferry, whilst Franklin with Smith's
and Slocum's divisions should march to the battle-field at daybreak
of Wednesday. Why could not Couch be called up and come on our left
as well as A. P. Hill's division, which was the last of the
Confederate troops to leave the ferry, there being nothing to
observe after it was gone? Couch's division, coming with equal pace
with Hill's on the other side of the river would have answered our
needs as well as one from Porter's corps. Hill came, but Couch did
not. Yet even then, a regiment of horse, watching that flank and
scouring the country as we swung forward, would have developed
Hill's presence and enabled the commanding general either to stop
our movement or to take the available means to support it. The
cavalry was put to no such use. It occupied the centre of the whole
line, only its artillery being engaged during the day. It would have
been invaluable to Hooker in the morning, as it would have been to
us in the afternoon.
McClellan had marched from Frederick City with the information that
Lee's army was divided, Jackson being detached with a large force to
take Harper's Ferry. He had put Lee's strength at 120,000 men.
Assuming that there was still danger that Jackson might come upon
our left with his large force, and that Lee had proven strong enough
without Jackson to repulse three corps on our right and right
centre, McClellan might have regarded his own army as divided also
for the purpose of meeting both opponents, and his cavalry would
have been upon the flank of the part with which he was attacking
Lee; Porter would have been in position to help either part in an
extremity or to cover a retreat; and Burnside would have been the
only subordinate available to check Lee's apparent success. Will any
other hypothesis intelligibly account for McClellan's dispositions
and orders? The error in the above assumption would be that
McClellan estimated Lee's troops at nearly double their actual
numbers, and that what was taken for proof of Lee's superiority in
force on the field was a series of partial reverses which resulted
directly from the piecemeal and disjointed way in which McClellan's
morning attacks had been made.
The same explanation is the most satisfactory one that I can give
for the inaction of Thursday, the 18th of September. Could McClellan
have known the desperate condition of most of Lee's brigades, he
would also have known that his own were in much better case, badly
as they had suffered. I do not doubt that most of his subordinates
discouraged the resumption of the attack, for the belief in Lee's
great preponderance in numbers had been chronic in the army during
the whole year. That belief was based upon the inconceivably
mistaken reports of the secret-service organization, accepted at
headquarters, given to the War Department at Washington as a reason
for incessant demands of reinforcements, and permeating downward
through the whole organization till the error was accepted as truth
by officers and men, and became a factor in their morale which can
hardly be overestimated. The result was that Lee retreated
unmolested on the night of the 18th of September, and that what
might have been a real and decisive success was a drawn battle in
which our chief claim to victory was the possession of the field.
The numbers engaged and the losses on each side have been the
subject of unending dispute. If we take the returns of Lee at the
beginning of his campaign against Pope, and deduct his acknowledged
losses, he crossed the Potomac with over 72,000 men. [Footnote: See
my review of Henderson's Stonewall Jackson, "The Nation," Nov. 24,
1898, p.396.] If we take his returns of September 22, and add the
acknowledged losses of the month, he had over 57,000. [Footnote: See
my review of Allan's Army of Northern Virginia, "The Nation," Feb.
2, 1893, p.86. Also reply to General Fitzhugh Lee, _Id_., Dec. 20,
1894, p.462; Confederate Statistics, _Id_., Jan. 24, 1895, p.71;
Review of Ropes's Story of the Civil War, _Id_., March 9, 1899,
p.185.] McClellan's 87,000 present for duty is accepted by all,
though various causes considerably reduced the number he brought
into action. The best collation of reports of casualties at Antietam
gives 12,410 as those on the National side, and 11,172 on the
Confederate. [Footnote: Century War Book, vol. ii. p.603.]
Longstreet, comparing the fighting in the fiercest battles of the
war, says "on no single day in any one of them was there such
carnage as in this fierce struggle." [Footnote: From Manassas to
Appomattox, p.239.]