A Year of Glory
June 1862 - June 1863
The Sharpsburg Campaign
(Antietam)
On the heels of his stunning victory over Maj Gen John Pope in the Second Manassas (Second Bull Run) Campaign, General Robert E. Lee determined to keep the initiative by boldly striking into Maryland. On September 4, 1862, he ordered his 40,000 man army to cross the Potomac River. Early on September 5, lead elements traversed White's Ford, some five miles east of Leesburg, Virginia, thus opening the Sharpsburg Campaign.
Certainly, none of Lee's alternatives offered better promise than an invasion of the North at this time. The Union Army, although badly beaten at Manassas, still outnumbered Lee in and around Washington, D.C. The Confederate Army, had stripped Northern Virginia of grain, and although in exceptionally fine spirits, was in desperate need of supplies. Lee could fall back on the Shenandoah Valley, but that would mean giving up the territory his weary army had fought so gloriously for. He therefore chose to go north.
Finding sustenance for his troops was not his only goal. Maryland, as a border state, had supplied many of her native sons to the Southern cause, and Lee hoped to persuade more to join him. The invasion would also draw the Union Army away from Virginia and give the Virginia population a respite from Northern occupation. Finally, the South's recent victories in The Peninsula Campaign and at Manassas had been acclaimed around the world, and a Confederate victory in the North, could bring the foreign recognition the South so badly desired.
As Lee was preparing to cross the Potomac, President Lincoln was once again concerning himself with the command of the Union Army in the East. General George B. McClellan, having initially been ordered to take command of the defenses of Washington, D.C., found himself, on September 2, once again commanding the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln felt, that if nothing else, McClellan would restore confidence to an army which truly loved it's former commander. In reality, the army was no less disorganized by it's defeat at Manassas than the Confederates were by their victory. Nor was it demoralized. McClellan provided that element of command it so badly needed, and finally, after weeks of retreat, the army was once again moving to meet the enemy.
Lee's plan of attack was based on his now familiar and highly successful tactic of splitting his forces. The Confederates began converging on Frederick, Maryland on September 6. Lee had expected the Federals to evacuate the Shenandoah Valley once his invasion had begun. When this didn't occur, concern for his lines of communication forced him to direct General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson to seize Harper's Ferry, Va., approximately fifteen miles to the west/southwest. He therefore issued Special Orders 191 on September 9, directing Jackson's attack with six divisions, while General James Longstreet simultaneously proceeded with four divisions towards Boonsboro, ten miles to the northwest.
Union troops began arriving at Frederick on September 11, one day after Lee's departure. While encamped there on the thirteenth, soldiers from the 27th Indiana discovered an envelope wrapped around some cigars. The envelope contained a Confederate staff officer's copy of Order 191. The Indiana soldiers took it to their company commander and it soon found it's way to McClellan.
McClellan was initally skeptical, but a staff officer recognized the signature of Lee's adjutant general R.H. Chilton, and suddenly McClellan began issuing his own orders. He determined to hasten to Boonsboro and destroy Longstreet while Jackson was busy at Harper's Ferry. Then he would turn his attention on Jackson and the rebellion would be swiftly and mercilessly crushed.
Meanwhile, Jackson's Corps had departed Frederick on the 10th, in three columns. Jackson himself, with three divisions, headed northwest through Williamsport, recrossed the Potomac, turned southwest through Martinsburg, Virginia, and encamped north of Harper's Ferry on the 12th.
General Lafayette McLaws, with two divisions, moved west through Jefferson, Maryland, and followed Pleasant Valley to the Potomac. At this point, the Maryland Heights command the river and the town of Harper's Ferry. Federal troops retreated into the town from the approaching McLaws, and as the Confederate guns were brought into position, not only was any Federal escape to the east cutoff, but the town itself was untenable.
The third column of Confederate troops, under General John Walker, had gone south from Frederick, recrossed the Potomac near Linksville, and come upon Harper's Ferry from the south. On the morning of the 13th, Walker occupied the Loudon Heights, and upon learning that McLaws sat atop the Maryland Heights, placed his regiments so as to prevent the Union Army from escaping down the right bank of the Potomac.
Harper's Ferry was surrounded. On September 14, as Union troops were departing Frederick to chase him, Jackson was setting up the final disposition of his artillery. Early on the 15th the bombardment began. Federal artillery responded, but within an hour their guns were silent. As Jackson launched his infantry attack, the Federal guns started once more, but when the Southern cannon fired again, the white flag went up in Harper's Ferry. The 11,000 man Union garrison surrendered.
McClellan, on the evening of the 13th, directed General William B. Franklin, commander of the Union VI Corps, to march west, cut off, surround, and destroy McLaws, and relieve Harper's Ferry. Unfortunately, for the Union garrison at Harper's Ferry, he allowed Franklin to delay his march until the morning of the 14th. This delay, in typical McClellan fashion, proved costly.
Had Franklin proceeded on the evening of the 13th he may have successfully split Jackson's Corps, if not saved Harper's Ferry. As it was, McLaws, in response to cavalry reports, managed to place a small force in Franklin's way. Franklin's route took him through Crampton's Gap, in the South Mountain west of Frederick. Running into McLaws about noon, he was delayed about three hours before pushing through into Pleasant Valley. McLaw's forces retreated, and Franklin stopped for the night.
It was about this time that Lee realized he had a problem. He was somewhat surprised by the relative speed of McClellan's pursuit, until he learned through General Jeb Stuart that the Union Commander had somehow come into possesion of a copy of Order 191. General D.H. Hill was currently at Turner's Gap defending the main route from Frederick to Hagerstown, Maryland through the South Mountain.
This was the route being taken by General Joseph Hooker's Union I Corps and General Jesse L. Reno's Union IX Corps of McClellan's Army, which together with Generals Edwin V. Sumner's Union II Corps and Joseph K. Mansfield's Union XII Corps, formed the Union Right Wing under General Ambrose E. Burnside. Lee directed Longstreet, who was on his way to Hagerstown, to turn about and come to the aid of Hill. He notified McLaws of the threat to his rear, and sent a message to Jackson urging him to hurry and complete the attack on Harper's Ferry
Shortly after dawn on the 14th, General Jacob D. Cox's division of Reno's Corps, tried to outflank Hill by taking Fox's Gap, two miles to the south. Within two hours, the Federals were through the pass and headed north. Hooker's I Corps attacked Turner's Gap from the north but was stubbornly met by Hill and Longstreet's reinforcements. Union Generals Gibbon, Hatch, and Meade eventually forced the gap but were halted by darkness, which allowed Hill and Longstreet to slip away.
With the Union breakthrough at South Mountain, Lee considered abandoning his Northern invasion and began to issue orders for a retreat back to Virginia. But he then received word from Jackson that Harper's Ferry had fallen and his combativness returned. He directed the scattered branches of his army to gather at the Maryland town of Sharpsburg and prepare to inflict damage on the Union Army.
By dawn on the 15th, most of his army was deployed on a ridge north and east of the town. Jackson held the left flank, while Longstreet held the center. The right flank would be manned by General A.P. Hill who had been left at Harper's Ferry to conclude operations there.
McClellan arrived at Antietam Creek, east of the town, on the afternoon of the 15th, but didn't begin issuing orders until late on the 16th. He directed Generals Hooker and Mansfield to cross the creek and attack the Rebel left from the north. Generals Edwin V. Sumner's Union II Corps and Fitz-John Porter's Union V Corps would hold the center, while General Burnside, with the Union IX Corps, staged a diversion on the Confederate right.
Hooker's Union I Corps, launched the Federal attack at 5:30am on the 17th. From right to left, the divisions of Generals Abner Doubleday, George G. Meade, and James B. Ricketts came down the Hagerstown Turnpike and Smoketown Road. The attack fell on Wofford's and Laws brigades of General John B. Hood's division of Longstreet's First Corps, who were soon assisted by Lawton. Ferocious fighting centered around the East Woods and the Cornfield until a lull occurred around 7am.
To the west, Doubleday's division, with Gibbon in the lead, came down the turnpike and entered the West Woods. Jackson was on the verge of collapse when Hood's division charged the Federal right and center while D.H. Hill attacked the left. Meade managed to stop the ensuing Union retreat, and fighting again came to a halt at the edge of the Cornfield.
General Joseph Mansfields Union XII Corps began it's advance on the Confederate left around 7:30am. Two divisions pushed Hood's exhausted troops from the East Woods and the Cornfield before coming to a standstill in front of D.H. Hill. A breakthrough occurred when McRae's Confederate brigade broke and ran. General George Greene's Union division pushed them several miles to the south in the vicinity of the Dunker Church, when the attack faltered and fighting subsided. It was now about 9:00 am.
The last Federal attack on the Confederate left began around 9:15 when elements of Sumner's Union II Corps crossed Antietam Creek and charged the West Woods. Walker and McLaws had been sent as reinforcments by Lee and they hit the left flank of the Union attack annihilating General Sedgewick's division. Gordon's brigade of the XII Corps tried to come to Sedgewick's aid and also was heavily hit. French's division, next across the Antietam, turned south and ran headlong into the brigades of Robert Rodes and George Anderson, who were hidden in a sunken road. The Federal troops could make no headway until General Caldwell's brigade came up on a rise perpendicular to the road and poured a murderous fire on the Confederate troops.
The Confederate line gave way, and by noon the Confederate center was in disarray. McClellan failed to capitilize however, and under the bombardment of Longstreet's artillery, the Union troops pulled back.
Burnside didn't get the word to attack the Confederate right until 10:00am. Well placed regiments of General Toombs brigade held off a decidedly superior force until about 1:00 pm when the 51st New York and 51st Pennsylvania stormed across what would everafter be known as "Burnside's Bridge". Just as they began smashing into Lee's right and cutting off his line of retreat, A.P. Hill arrived from Harper's Ferry and attacked Burnside's left flank.
The series of disjointed attacks, although inflicting heavy casualties, failed to dislodge Lee's forces. The battle came to an end around 5:30pm. Nearly 23,000 dead, wounded and missing - one fourth of the total number engaged - were lost in this, the bloodiest day of the war. Despite his incredible losses, Lee was not persuaded to retreat until the afternoon of the 18th, when both Jackson and Longstreet convinced him that counterattack was impossible.
McClellan, despite having some 20,000 troops that hadn't been used the day before (Porter's and Franklin's Corps) and two fresh divisions which had arrived that morning, was convinced that Lee had another 100,000 troops hidden, just waiting for McClellan's next attack. So, he did nothing, and Lee slipped away back to Virginia.
With Lee's withdrawal, the Sharpsburg (Antietam) Campaign came to an end. The northern invasion, which had come as a result of Lee's crushing victory over Pope at Second Manassas (Second Bull Run),was over, and Washington, D. C. was safe. The retreat allowed McClellan to claim a victory and Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln had drafted the document in July, but when he read it to his cabinet, he was urged to wait. By freeing the slaves in the rebelling states, the Emancipation Proclamation would, in effect, shift the war's focus from preserving the Union, to reordering the entire social structure of the South. U.S. Secretary of State William Seward felt that a military victory might serve as a better backdrop for presenting such an issue to the public. Sharpsburg (Antietam), while not decisive, was a victory.
Secondly, the issue of foreign recognition of the Confederacy, was again put on hold. No foreign nation dared alienate a United States that might still win the war. The South would have to wait for another opportunity. That opportunity would come, in mid-December, at Fredericksburg.
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