Americas Great Loop

Today is serious. I'm going to visit the scene of the bloodiest combat of the entire American Civil War - Antietam. I've actually been driving backwards through this Civil War saga. If I'd been able, I'd have started in Washington D.C., not ended there as I shall in a couple of days. I'd have recounted how the Confederate army set out to invade the north and how their the subsequent carnage at Antietam resulted in a retreat back to Virginia. And I'd have recounted Lee's second foray into the north and how the loss at Gettysburg precipitated another withdrawal that culminated in the surrender that I portrayed also in Civil War 4.

The drive from Brunswick to Sharpsburg and the Antietam Battleground, through rolling, forested countryside with corn and soybeans thick in the fields is as good a reason as any to be in this area. Frederick County is also known for various specialty crops such as cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, tomatoes, melons, squash, and peas, and for dairying (this county apparently leads the state in milk production).

I’m pleased if there are people following my blog who are interested in or even entertained by the content. But the blog is also a personal record for me. I’ve always had an abiding interest in the story of the development of the American republic, especially the 4-year Civil War, and these past couple of weeks have been a wonderful opportunity for me to gain a more practical appreciation of how some of the major episodes in the great ‘Civil War story’ happened and especially ‘what’ happened. So, this history lesson is MY record, created to cement MY understanding. If you enjoy it too, then that’s a bonus for me. For references to the North, you may see me use the terms, ‘Union’, ‘US (United States)’, or Federal. For the South I mostly use ‘Confederate’, ‘Confederacy’, and sometimes ‘Secessionist(s)’.

Jamestown, established on May 14, 1607, on the northeast bank of the James River, about 2½ miles southwest of present-day Williamsburg, VA, was the first permanent English settlement in North America, and became the Colony of Virginia. In 1619 an English sea-captain sold African captives to the colony of Jamestown in exchange for supplies.

Over the next 246 years, the economy of the United States relied on the oppression and unpaid labour of African Americans, but this had never sat comfortably with all colonists and later, many Unionists. As the US expanded during the first half of the 1800s, designated ‘territories’ were being admitted to the nascent Union as states, and tensions mounted. Would the new states continue with slavery or would they outlaw it? Pro- and anti-slavery radicals stoked the fires of conflict. It should be acknowledged that whereas the North had developed--thanks in large part to immigration from Europe--to become an industrial manufacturing powerhouse with employment opportunities for (almost) all, this was not the case in the South. The southern states had developed as an agrarian economy--with large plantations growing crops such as indigo, rice, and cotton--that needed a large manual employment effort which was necessarily satisfied by the introduction of forced labour. This economy had also created a (very) wealthy elite business ownership cadre that, naturally, desired to maintain this status.

In 1859, the abolitionist John Brown failed in his plan to arm enslaved African Americans with weapons stolen from the U.S. armoury in the strategic town of Harpers Ferry, VA. Before they could fulfil their goals, Brown and his group were captured at Harpers Ferry by U.S. Marines under the command of one Colonel Robert E. Lee after barricading themselves in the armoury’s engine house. Lee's U.S. Marines (this was prior to secession and the Civil War) stormed the building, ending the raid and taking Brown and his group captive. Brown was the first of them to be tried and executed. Robert E Lee would later return to Harpers Ferry, but this time, not as the leader of U.S. forces. The debate over slavery is its own story and would ultimately split the nation in two.

Jumping ahead in this many-faceted history, some of the Southern states had seceded from the Union, had established themselves as a ‘Confederacy’, and the Civil War was well under way. In 1861, President Lincoln had appointed General George McClellan as commander of the Military Division of the Potomac, the main Union force responsible for the defence of Washington. Early in his career, McClellan had been opposed to federal interference with slavery, his view being that since slavery was an institution recognised in the Constitution, it (slavery) was entitled to federal protection wherever it existed (note: Lincoln having also held the same public position until August 1862) and he might well have been inveigled by the south to join the Confederacy. Trouble was, he also opposed the concept of secession. Like many Northers he saw the growing nation as having to be totally united as one country in order to be valid and viable.

It is generally acknowledged among Civil War historians—based on his actions and known strategic thinking—that General George McClellan had three key objectives that influenced his campaigns against Lee. They being;
1. To capture the Confederate capital, Richmond
2. To defeat or destroy the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia
3. To ensure that Washington D.C. was protected

These objectives, though, were heavily influenced and mitigated somewhat by his inherent caution and a tendency to overestimate Confederate strength. This latter predisposition was considered to have been strongly influenced by the exaggerated enemy strength estimates made by McClellan’s secret service chief, detective Allan Pinkerton. The resultant extreme caution displayed by McClellan is said to have sapped the initiative of McClellan's army and dismayed the government. So, McClellan was never a favourite of Lincoln, but he was a field commander much admired by his troops, and propitious circumstances saw him eventually promoted to general-in-chief of all the Union armies. A complex character, whose terrific strength of purpose had seen him experience both success and failure in his pre-Civil War military career, McClellan was one of a cadre of military officers of the time who fancied posing for photographers with the pretentious Napoleonic ‘hand-in-the-tunic’ pose. McClellan was not without a healthy ego.

Following a string of victories in the spring and summer of 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee decided it was time to carry the war north. In early September, he entered Maryland with 50,000 soldiers, hoping to achieve a decisive victory and end the war. Union forces commanded by General McClellan marched from Washington, D.C. and caught up with Lee's scattered troops on September 14 at the Battle of South Mountain, resulting in a Union victory.

However, McClellan was unable to save the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry that surrendered to Lee's forces on September 15, and the Union victory at South Mountain followed by this Confederate victory at Harpers Ferry led both armies to converge on the town of Sharpsburg, MD, through which ran a stream called Antietam Creek (from a word in the Algonquian language likely meaning "swift water" or "swift-flowing stream"). Here is a précis of the events leading up to the bloody Battle of Antietam;

THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN - 1862
30 August:
The Confederate forces were victorious at the 2nd Battle of Manassas in northern Virginia and General Lee quickly devised a campaign to take the war into the North. On September 4, Lee and his nearly 50,000-strong Army of Northern Virginia commenced to cross the Potomac River into Maryland. The events of the next 13 days would lead to an epic clash of two great armies at Antietam.

7 September
The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia concentrated its forces in Frederick, MD. General George McClellan, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, moved out of Washington, D.C. to engage them (remember his objective No. 3 above). Two days later, Lee divided his army to capture the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry. This was a risky gamble that Lee won.

14 September
The Army of the Potomac attacked the Confederates on South Mountain (a forested ridge north of Brunswick and Harpers Ferry), driving them from all three passes. More than 5,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or went missing on the mountain.

15 September
Twelve thousand Union soldiers at Harpers Ferry surrendered to Confederate Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Lee therefore moved to concentrate his forces on Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, MD.

17 September
The battle's first shots were fired in the early morning fog. Heavy fighting resulted in 16,000 casualties by I:00 pm. On the south end of the battlefield, Union soldiers captured a key bridge over Antietam Creek, only to be turned back by the last Confederate soldiers to arrive from Harpers Ferry as the sun set. Nearly 100,000 troops were engaged on this battlefield. After 12 hours of fighting, th ere were approximately 23,000 casualties. Farmer David Miller's cornfield witnessed some of the battle's bloodiest fighting over a span of just three hours starting at dawn. Regiments on both sides suffered great losses. Over 60 percent of Confederate General Harry T. Hays' Louisiana Brigade became casualties in just 30 minutes of action. Union forces claimed victory despite heavy losses. I could describe how the prevailing manner of combat in the field during this era was conducted, but that isn't a necessary subject for this blog.

[Note: "Casualty" does not necessarily equal "dead". Casualties include three categories: dead, wounded, and missing or captured. In general terms, casualties of Civil War battles included 20 percent dead and 80 percent wounded. About one out of seven wounded soldiers died from his wounds. Over two-thirds of the 622,000 men who gave their lives in the Civil War died from disease, not from battle. Because of the catastrophic nature of the Battle of Antietam, exact casualty numbers were impossible to compile.]

18 September
Beaten at Antietam, Lee began his retreat back to Virginia.

19-20 September
Union forces pursued and attacked Lee's army retreating across the Potomac River into Virginia. The Confederates turned at Shepherdstown and counterattacked the following day, halting the Union pursuit. This battle was the final engagement of Lee's unfortunate 1st Maryland Campaign.

The Battle of Antietam, followed by Lee's withdrawal to Virginia, was the decisive moment Abraham Lincoln had been waiting for. It also satisfied General McClelland's 2nd goal (see my previous reference above). Five days after the battle, on 22 September, the President issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation declaring freedom for enslaved people in areas under rebellion if the Confederacy did not rejoin the United States by the end of the year. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation gave the Confederate states 100 days to peaceably return to the United States or face a direct assault on the institution of slavery, which would undermine the southern economy and its society. When the South failed to return by January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, declaring “free all enslaved people within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." From the moment that the Emancipation Proclamation was officially issued, the war for Union was inseparable from the war to end human bondage.

Thus, the war evolved from a struggle to preserve the Union into a fight to end slavery and reunite the country. The Proclamation also allowed thousands of African Americans to enlist in the US Army and Navy and fight for their own freedom. Slavery died along with the Confederacy in 1865, but the fight for equality had only just begun.

ABOUT THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM - some notes
Canister ammunition was lethal at close range, as the can tore apart when fired and the deadly iron balls blasted enemy troops like a giant shotgun shell. Cannon fired approximately 50,000 rounds of artillery during the battle - close to 3,000 rounds per hour. Spherical ammunition fired from these weapons devastated its targets. Some shot was solid, while some carried iron balls and gunpowder inside their metal shells. The addition of rifled grooves inside muskets gave bullets a spin, increasing their range and accuracy. Both Confederate and U.S. forces used this ammunition during the Civil War.

"There was a sense of impending doom. We knew--everyone knew--that two great armies of 80,000 men were lying there face to face, only waiting for dawn to begin the battle. It gave a terrible sense of oppression."
Nurse CLARA BARTON (who later established the American red Cross Society), described the night before the Battle of Antietam.

“To those who have not been witnesses of a great battle like this, where more than a hundred thousand men ... are engaged in the work of slaughtering each other, it is impossible by the power of words to convey an adequate idea of its terrible sublimity.”
JOHN G. WALKER, Major General, CSA, Longstreet's Command

“The slaughter was more awful than anything I ever read of... there is no place which you can stand and not see the field black with dead bodies as far as the eye can reach.”
HENRY ROPES, Lieutenant, 20th Massachusetts Infantry, letter to his father, September 20, 1862

“If slavery is not broken, the war will last long, supported and fed by it - and the loss of life on both sides will be frightful.”
HUGH B. EWING, Colonel, 30th Ohio Infantry, August 10, 1862

Drummers, buglers, and fifers all played on the battlefields of the Civil War. Drummers marched to the right of a marching column and had to learn 38 different beats - 14 for general use and 24 for marching pace.

“The courage and heroism of Negro citizens [today] is only a further effort to affirm that democratic heritage so painfully won upon the grassy battlefields of Antietam, Lookout Mountain, and Gettysburg.”
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., writing to President John F. Kennedy, May 17, 1962

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution freed millions of African Americans from slavery at the end of 1865. But freedom is not the same thing as equality. The Constitution's 14th and 15th Amendments provided equal protection under federal law and ensured Black voting rights. Following the end of Reconstruction, White southerners instituted campaigns of local, terror (think of the Ku Klux Klan) and passed "Jim Crow" laws that restricted the civil rights of Black Americans and created a segregated society. Even so, African Americans have continued to demand their rights as citizens and fight for equal treatment.

The losses at Antietam were enormous. Deceased soldiers lay across a five-mile stretch of cornfields, woods, and roads. Burial crews dug hasty graves - burying some soldiers alone, and others in mass trenches. The Roulette family had over 700 soldiers buried on their farm. Wild pigs soon began rooting through the shallow graves and heavy rainfall also washed away the earthen cover. Hundreds of dead horses were dragged into piles and burnt... the fires lasting for weeks. Some of the equine bone remains were even repurposed! (look this up yourself). As the national media reported on the devastation at Antietam, loved ones wrote letters seeking to find out if soldiers they knew had been injured, gone missing, or lived to fight another day.

PRESERVING THE BATTLEFIELD
“When we look on yon battlefield, I think of the brave men who fell in the fierce struggle of battle, and who sleep silent in their graves.”
PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON, dedicating Antietam National Cemetery, September 17, 1867

Antietam National Cemetery was the first land preserved at the battlefield and reflected how divided the nation was. The Maryland legislation that created the cemetery allowed for the burial of US and Confederate soldier remains. Lasting bitterness over the conflict, combined with the devastated South's inability to raise funds, resulted in a decision to bury only Federal soldiers there. Cemeteries in Frederick, Hagerstown, and Shepherdstown hold Confederate soldier remains. In addition to Civil War dead, soldiers and veterans who fought in later wars are also buried there. These include African American soldiers from World Wars I and II, some of whom were laid to rest in segregated areas of the cemetery. I saw these groups of ‘segregated’ graves at Antietam.

On August 30, 1890, Congress set aside funding for the United States War Department to "preserve" and "mark" the lines of battle at Antietam. The US War Department managed this landscape until August 10, 1933, when it transferred the site to the Department of the Interior. Together, these federal organisations transformed the battlefield by adding roads, commemorative tablets, monuments, an observation tower, and a superb visitor centre. Today, the National Park Service continues to maintain this site to preserve the historic battlefield and its legacy.

There are almost 100 monuments at Antietam National Battlefield. Built primarily by Northern states and veterans in the late 1800s and early 1900s to commemorate their sacrifices here, the monuments are often located exactly where the troops fought during the battle. The site's handful of Confederate monuments were erected in the 20th century, mainly during the Civil War Centennial in the 1960’s.

“There are no better teachers for those who come after us than the silent monuments on the battlefields.”
WELLS SPONABLE [Spanneknabel], Major, dedicating the 34th New York Monument, 1902

I drove around the extensive battlefield, with explanations of the specific sites of combat conveyed via a bluetooth CarPlay connection. It was a solemn personal tour.

AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE
For the civilians living in this area, the traumatic events at Antietam lasted long after the fighting ended. They had to overcome financial and material losses, disruptions to their livelihoods, and fear of the ongoing war. Bodies and debris covered the landscape. Farmers ploughed up shells and bullets. Houses and barns took damage and bore battle scars.

“Every building that is suitable is filled with wounded. The farms between here and there are completely desolated - fences and trees destroyed and everything moveable and of value stolen.
DR. WILLIAM CHILD, September 30, 1862

THE COMPOSITION OF A CIVIL WAR ARMY
Regiment:
Colonel + 800 soldiers

Brigade:
Brigadier General + 2,600 soldiers
There were 2-5 regiments in a brigade

Division:
Major General + 8,000 soldiers
There were 2-4 x brigades in a division

Corp:
Major General + 26,000 soldiers
There were 2-3 x divisions in a corp

Army:
Major General + 80,000 soldiers

From www.battlefields.org;Les mer