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Battle of Antietam
Antietam Plaques
U.S. Civil War Home
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After his great victory at Manassas in August, Lee had marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland, hoping to find vitally needed men and supplies. McClellan followed, first to Frederick (where through rare good fortune a copy of the Confederate battle plan, Lee's Special Order No. 191, fell into his hands), then westward 12 miles to the passes of South Mountain. There on September 14, at Turner's, Fox's, and Crampton's gaps, Lee tried to block the Federals. But because he had split his army to send troops under Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to capture Harper's Ferry, Lee could only hope to delay the Northerners. McClellan forced his way through, and by the afternoon of September 15 both armies had established new battlelines west and east of Anteitam Creek near the town of Sharpsburg. When Jackson's troops reached Sharpsburg on the 16th, Harper's Ferry having surrendered the day before, Lee consolidated his position along the low ridge that runs north and south of the town.
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Click picture for larger version
3-inch Ordinance Rifle
This was one of the most accurate weapons used here.
It was preferred over the hearier 10-pounder Parrott which fire
the same size ammunition.
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General Hooker launched the initial Union attack from this point.
It was stopped by Jackson's troops in The Cornfield.
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The battle opened at dawn on the 17th when Union Gen. Joseph Hooker's artillery began a murderous fire on Jackson's men in the Miller cornfield north of town. "In the time I am writing" Hooker reported, "every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before." Hooker's troops advanced, driving the Confederates before them, and Jackson reported that his men were "exposed for near an hour to a terrific storm of shell, canister, and musketry."
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About 7 a.m. Jackson was reenforced and succeeded in driving the Federals back. An hour later Union troops under Gen. Joseph Mansfield counterattacked and by 9 o'clock had regained some of the lost ground. Then, in an effort to extricate some of Mansfield's men from their isolated position near the Dunker Church, Gen. John Sedgwick's division of Edwin V. Sumner's corps advanced into the woods. There Confederate troops struch Sedgwick's men on both flanks, inflicting appalling casualities.
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Union Gen. John Sedgwick's division lost more than 2,200 men in less
than half an hour in a ill-fated charge into these woods agains Jackson's troops.
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