The Battle of Sharpsburg

The Battle of Antietam, also called the Battle of Sharpsburg, occurred on September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. It pitted Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia against Union General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and was the culmination of Lee’s attempt to invade the north. The battle’s outcome would be vital to shaping America’s future, and it remains the deadliest one-day battle in all of American military history.

 

 

Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle in American military history, showed that the Union could stand against the Confederate army in the Eastern theater. It also gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at a moment of strength rather than desperation. The Battle of Antietam pitted Union General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac against General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia.  The Maryland Campaign was Lee's first attempt to take the war North and it was McClellan who was tasked by President Abraham Lincoln with stopping him.  Outnumbered, Lee was able to use the rolling terrain and the experience of his men to make up for the numerical disadvantage he faced at Sharpsburg. Over the course of the first three hours of the fight, the two sides struggled over possession of a twenty-four-acre cornfield. The Union I Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, and later the XII Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Mansfield, ran head long into Confederate troops led by Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. At least six times did the Cornfield change hands as each side attacked, fell back and rallied, only to attack again. By 8:45 a.m., neither side held a distinct advantage. At approximately 9:00 a.m, a lull provided both sides an opportunity to catch their breaths, but within a few short minutes, a third major Federal assault was unfolding. Over 5,000 troops of the II Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Edwin Sumner, marched towards the West Woods to eventually sweep south, driving the Confederates from the field. Shortly after moving into the woods, a Confederate attack struck the flank of the Union soldiers and in twenty minutes, 2,200 out of 5,300 men had fallen killed or wounded. Following the struggle in the West Woods, by 10:00 a.m., the heavy action on the north end of the field subsided. Close to 10,000 soldiers had been killed or wounded during those first four hours of fighting. Due to confusion on the side of the Union and the fact there were no infantry men to push into the battle at this point, the attack sputtered out. By 1:00 p.m., the Federal forces had fallen back through the sunken road, known also as the Bloody Lane, and returned to the fields where their attacks originated from. 5500 more Union and Confederates had been killed or wounded during these three hours of combat in and around the Bloody Lane. While the fight for the Sunken Road was unfolding, a little over one mile to the south, the Union IX Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, was struggling to cross the Antietam Creek. Burnside and his men were tasked with crossing the Antietam and then attacking the right flank of the Confederate line. 500 men from Georgia and a few from South Carolina put up a strong defense and kept Burnside at bay for close to three hours. Around 1:00 p.m., Union forces finally carried the bridge, as the Confederates fell back towards the high ground, just south of Sharpsburg. At approximately 3:30 p.m., Burnside started his attack on the south end of Lee's line. 8000 men started the assault, 4000 men made it to a halfway point, and only 2000 troops pushed up to the end of the Confederate line because of mounting causalities and the difficult terrain. Just as the Federals reached the end of Lee's line, Confederate infantry, led by Gen. A.P. Hill, arrived on the field. These troops had been involved in the capture of Harpers Ferry, on September 15, and had marched approximately fifteen miles on the day of the battle to arrive on the flank of the Union line. They smashed into the Federals, causing the line to fall back toward Antietam Creek. After twelve hours of combat, the roar of battle started to fade away. 23,000 men had been killed, wounded, or listed as missing, the single bloodiest day in the history of the United States. R.E. Lee's first invasion of the North ended as he retreated into Virginia on the night of September 18. Inconclusive. General Robert E. Lee committed his entire force to the battle, while Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan sent in less than three quarters of his. With the full commitment of McClellan’s troops, which outnumbered the Confederates two to one, the battle might have had a more definitive outcome. Instead, McClellan’s half-hearted approach allowed Lee to hold ground by shifting forces from threat to threat. Most importantly, Union victory at Antietam provided President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity he had wanted to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, making the Battle of Antietam one of the key turning points of the American Civil War.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why did Lincoln lose faith in George McClellan’s command after Antietam?

 

Lincoln and McClellan had a tortured relationship. McClellan’s letters reveal his contempt for his commander-in-chief (whom he sometimes referred to as “the Gorilla”), and the historical record shows that as the war slogged on, Lincoln became increasingly frustrated with his general’s timidity and excuses. He believed McClellan spent too much of his command drilling troops and little of it pursuing Lee. Lincoln called the general’s “condition” a bad case of “the slows.”

 

Though well-liked by his men, McClellan could be vain and boastful. After he failed to attack Lee’s depleted troops as they fled Sharpsburg on September 18, he wrote to his wife, Ellen, that, ''those in whose judgment I rely tell me that I fought the battle splendidly & that it was a masterpiece of art.''  Lincoln disagreed. He could not understand why his general was not on the tail of the Confederates, and he went to McClellan’s headquarters at Antietam to light a fire under him. In a letter to his wife, Mary, Lincoln joked, “We are about to be photographed. . . [if] we can sit still long enough. I feel Gen. M. should have no problem.”

 

Six weeks after Antietam, McClellan finally heeded his boss’s advice and led the Army of the Potomac into Virginia, but at a snail’s pace. Even before the nine-day trek, Lincoln had all but given up on the man who had once been christened “Young Napoleon” for his military promise. The president relieved McClellan of his duties on November 7 and appointed Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside to be his replacement.

 

After losing his command, McClellan took up a new career—politics. In the 1864 election he was the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. His opponent, Abraham Lincoln, was reelected for another term.

 

Why is nurse Clara Barton considered a hero of Antietam?

 

Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton was a former teacher and patent clerk who became a nurse on the front lines during the Civil War. Despite having no prior experience and receiving no payment for her services, she bravely drove her cart of medical supplies into the fray at many battles, including Antietam. She saw the desperation of the wounded and dying and did what she could to aid and comfort them. Dr. James Dunn, a surgeon at the Battle of Antietam lauded her efforts:

 

The rattle of 150,000 muskets, and the fearful thunder of over 200 cannon, told us that the great battle of Antietam had commenced. I was in the hospital in the afternoon, for it was then only that the wounded began to come in. We had expended every bandage, tore up every sheet in the house, and everything we could find, when who should drive up but our old friend, Miss Barton, with a team loaded down with dressings of every kind, and everything we could ask for. . . .In my feeble estimation, General McClellan, with all his laurels, sinks into insignificance beside the true heroine of the age, the angel of the battle field.

 

Later in the war, Lincoln authorized Barton to form the Office of Correspondence with Friends of Missing Men in the United States Army, an effort that eventually identified 22,000 missing Union soldiers. In 1881 Barton founded the American Red Cross.