Posted on 09/17/2013 9:40:39 AM PDT by central_va
Beginning early on the morning of this day in 1862, Confederate and Union troops in the Civil War clash near Maryland's Antietam Creek in the bloodiest one-day battle in American history.
The Battle of Antietam marked the culmination of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the Northern states. Guiding his Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River in early September 1862, the great general daringly divided his men, sending half of them, under the command of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, to capture the Union garrison at Harper's Ferry.
President Abraham Lincoln put Major General George B. McClellan in charge of the Union troops responsible for defending Washington, D.C., against Lee's invasion. McClellan's Army of the Potomac clashed first with Lee's men on September 14, with the Confederates forced to retreat after being blocked at the passes of South Mountain. Though Lee considered turning back toward Virginia, news of Jackson's capture of Harper's Ferry reached him on September 15. That victory convinced him to stay and make a stand near Sharpsburg, Maryland.
Over the course of September 15 and 16, the Confederate and Union armies gathered on opposite sides of Antietam Creek. On the Confederate side, Jackson commanded the left flank with General James Longstreet at the head of the center and right. McClellan's strategy was to attack the enemy left, then the right, and finally, when either of those movements met with success, to move forward in the center.
When fighting began in the foggy dawn hours of September 17, this strategy broke down into a series of uncoordinated advances by Union soldiers under the command of Generals Joseph Hooker, Joseph Mansfield and Edwin Sumner. As savage and bloody combat continued for eight hours across the region, the Confederates were pushed back but not beaten, despite sustaining some 15,000 casualties. At the same time, Union General Ambrose Burnside opened an attack on the Confederate right, capturing the bridge that now bears his name around 1 p.m. Burnside's break to reorganize his men allowed Confederate reinforcements to arrive, turning back the Union advance there as well.
By the time the sun went down, both armies still held their ground, despite staggering combined casualties--nearly 23,000 of the 100,000 soldiers engaged, including almost 4,000 dead. McClellan's center never moved forward, leaving a large number of Union troops that did not participate in the battle. On the morning of September 18, both sides gathered their wounded and buried their dead. That night, Lee turned his forces back to Virginia. His retreat gave President Lincoln the moment he had been waiting for to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, a historic document that turned the Union effort in the Civil War into a fight for the abolition of slavery.
On this day in 1944, General Browning of the First Allied Airborne Army, upon landing in the 82nd Airborne DZ, ran across the field to the Reichwald Forest, just inside the German Border, because he wanted to be the first British officer to pee in Germany.
Awesome post!
Thanks for the ping.
Churchill later did the same thing in March of 1945. Seriously though, Market-Garden was a bloody disaster.
I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. I was at Manassas several years ago, talking to a couple Rangers at the visitor center, and a family comes in all excited and wanting to know where the reenactment is. Rangers tell them there’s no reenactment that day, but the father (with wife and two sons nodding in agreement) is adamant that they heard massed musket and cannon fire coming from the direction of Chin Ridge. The Rangers tell him again, no reenactment, and one of them leaves to go investgate the reported gunfire. The other one looks at me and says “we get these every week or two”.
Apparantly the big occurances are the people either thrilled or absolutely apalled at the realism of the Civil War medicine living history demos at the Stone House that happen regularly, but again without any such thing being on the schedule ...
Very interesting post. I live in Lynchburg and have been to Appomattox but never Sailor’s Creek.
Thanks for the ping!
Our family lost a descendant in the fighting at antietam (49th Penn volunteers, I think) so I understand what you mean.
Just found this link ... looks good:
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/antietam/maps/antietam-animated-map.html
Excellent video showing the Battle of Antietam:
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/antietam/maps/antietam-animated-map.html
Great stuff, and thanks for posting! This place is on the bucket list.
TYVM for this. I learned recently that my ancestor was one of the six generals killed that day. In reading further about him, quite an accomplished man he was. Also, that Antietam was the bloodiest day in US Military History.
I can only get the intro to play.
That was so interesting. Thanks!
Noooooo ........
So sorry if you can’t get it .... have you tried clicking on the individual segments at the bottom of the video (where sound control etc. is)? Maybe you have to manually go to the next section. When I played it, after the intro it stopped ....and I thought is that all? Then it finally continued to play after a few seconds. I just went to it and while the intro was playing, clicked the next segment and it played.
My kin, John Kirkpatrick, a private and carpenter from western Pennsylvania, was the only KIA from his unit during the battle. He died some three days after the action.
Yay! Glad it worked for you. :-)
The subsequent treatment of the 600 is a good deal less justifiable.
True!
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