Antietam Battlefield in Sharpsburg, MD

Antietam National Battlefield
Sharpsburg, MD 21782

Success helps to develop confidence. Successful execution of a pair of daring campaigns waged against an advantaged foe encourages even greater confidence, and brings support and adulation from the leader’s constituents. In September 1862, Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia had much to be pleased with.

The year had started out well for Union forces. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac had invaded the Virginia Peninsula, and by June stood only a few miles outside the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Fortunes reversed after Robert E. Lee assumed command on June 1. Lee fought McClellan aggressively, causing McClellan to lose his nerve and lead his army in retreat. Lee then launched the Northern Virginia Campaign, in which he outmaneuvered and defeated Major General John Pope and his Army of Virginia, driving them all the way back to Washington, D.C.

Lee decided that his army was ready for an invasion of the North, despite the Union’s overwhelming advantages in manpower and manufacturing capability. His goal was to reach the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and to cut off the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line that supplied Washington, D.C, thereby threatening both Washington and Baltimore. The Confederacy did not have to defeat the North militarily in order to attain independence; it merely needed to make the Northern populace unwilling to continue the fight.

Lee moved north with 55,000 men through Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley into Maryland, while McClellan led 84,000 men out from Washington to cross the Appalachian Mountains. By the time McClellan caught up, Lee had concentrated most of his army at Sharpsburg, Maryland. The armies met and fought west of Antietam Creek on September 17, 1862, and the awesome collisions that occurred there became known as the Battle of Antietam. That day was the bloodiest one in American military history, with over 22,000 combined casualties.

Despite the fact that Lee was outnumbered by almost two to one, McClellan’s attacks failed to achieve sufficient concentration of mass, allowing Lee to shift forces along interior lines and counter every assault. McClellan never deployed all of his reserves to capitalize on localized successes and destroy the Confederates, enabling Lee to withdraw his troops across the Potomac River and return to Virginia.

A visit to the Antietam National Battlefield starts at the Visitor Center, where there’s a 26 minute introductory film which is quite good. You get to watch portrayals of the tense relations that existed between Abraham Lincoln and General McClellan, to see reenactments of important stages of the battle, and to better understand the larger context in which the Battle of Antietam took place. By watching the video before going out and seeing the battlefield, you can better envision the events that took place on the spot where you’re standing. The best way to view the battlefield is to take the self-guided auto tour. The tour road is 8½ miles long with 11 stops, and excellent interpretive panels greet visitors at each stop. The panels include maps of background information, troop movements and personal stories, all relevant to the location that you are viewing at the moment.

Following are some interesting-looking photographs from the visit. Most of the battlefield is rather plain looking; in order to appreciate it you have to actually be there, take in the entire landscape, look over the interpretive panels and envision what once took place.

The battle opened at dawn with an attack by the Union troops approaching from the north. Their objective was the plateau on which the Dunker Church (top photo) sat. The slight Union advantage in quantity of troops was more than offset by the Confederates’ strong defensive positions. Later that morning the center of the conflict shifted to nearby Miller Cornfield (second photo). This plot of land became a scene of intense warfare and indescribable destruction; it was later estimated that the Cornfield changed hands no fewer than 15 times over the course of the morning.

Later that morning Federal attacks shifted south, towards a well-protected line of over 2,200 Confederates hunkered down behind piled-up fence rails in this well-worn sunken road. The defenders held their fire until the last possible second. For more than three hours thousands of men blazed away at point blank range. Eventually, overwhelming Union numbers and confusion in the Confederate ranks forced the defenders to retreat. When the fighting subsided, 5,500 soldiers lay dead or wounded on the field or in the road. From that day forward, the road has been known as Bloody Lane.

The second photograph is one I took of an interpretive panel which displays a photograph taken after the battle’s conclusion. The third photo was taken from the Observation Tower, which is visible in the background of the top photo in this set. It shows the same Sunken Road, this time facing northwest.

These are two photographs of Burnside Bridge. The first is facing south, and the second faces east. Three bridges crossed Antietam Creek, and the Confederates were positioned to the west of the creek. At the time of the battle this southernmost bridge was known as the Lower Bridge; it was dominated by Confederate positions on the bluffs overlooking it from the west. The Upper Bridge was the most easily accessible to Union forces, so the Federal attack was launched from the north.

As the battle wore on, action shifted to the southern end of the battlefield. Major General Ambrose Burnside (after whom the bridge was later renamed) had 12,500 troops and 50 guns east of Antietam Creek. Facing them were fewer than 500 Confederate troops, a force that had been greatly depleted by Lee’s movement of units to bolster the Confederate left flank. Three Federal assaults were launched to take the bridge, each resulting in great slaughter. After defending their position for three hours, the Confederates began to run low on ammunition and were pushed back to await the final Union attack.