Staff Ride Guide - BATTLE OF ANTIETAM

by Ted Ballard

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY
WASHINGTON, D. C., 2006

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ballard, Ted.
..... Battle of Antietam/ by Ted Ballard.
.......... p. cm. - (Staff ride guide)
      1. Antietam, Battle of, Md., 1862. 2. Antietam National
Battlefield (Md.)-Guidebooks. I. Title. II. Series.

..... E474.65.B325 2006
.....973.7'336-dc22

..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 2006012153

First Printing-CMH Pub 35-3-1

FOREWORD

The U. S. Army has long used the staff ride as a tool for professional development, conveying the lessons of the past to contemporary soldiers. In 1906 Maj. Eben Swift took twelve officer-students from Fort Leavenworth's General Service and Staff School to the Chickamauga battlefield on the Army's first official staff ride. Since that time Army educators have employed staff rides to provide officers a better understanding of past military operations, of the vagaries of war, and of military planning. A staff ride to an appropriate battlefield can also enliven a unit's esprit de corps-a constant objective in peacetime or war.

To support such Army initiatives, the Center of Military History publishes staff ride guides, such as this one on the Battle of Antietam. This account is drawn principally from contemporary and after action reports, as well as from reminiscences of participants, both officers and enlisted men.

The Battle of Antietam provides important lessons in command and control, leadership, and unit training. This small volume should be a welcome training aid for those undertaking an Antietam staff ride and valuable reading for those interested in the Civil War and in the history of the military art.

THE AUTHOR

Ted Ballard has been a historian with the U. S. Army Center of Military History since 1980 and a part of the Center's staff ride program since 1986. Battle of Antietam joins his other battlefield guides to Ball's Bluff and First and Second Bull Run. He was a contributor to the Center's publication The Story of the Noncommissioned Officer Corps; the author of Rhineland, a brochure in the Center's series commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of World War II; and a contributor to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command publication American Military Heritage and to the Virginia Army National Guard publication The Tradition Continues: A History of the Virginia National Guard, 1607-1985.