Antietam Scenes

James N.

Colonel
Annual Winner
Featured Book Reviewer
Asst. Regtl. Quartermaster Antietam 2021
Joined
Feb 23, 2013
Location
East Texas
First Phase: Morning - Hooker and Mansfield Attack
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Union monuments along Mansfield Avenue near the Poffenberger Farm north of the Cornfield.

After maneuvering into position on the afternoon and evening of September 16, 1862, the Union I Corps commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker began the battle the next morning in the pre-dawn darkness. Successive uncoordinated attacks were made by each of his four divisions whose numbers finally pushed Stonewall Jackson's Confederate defenders south of what became known as the Bloody Cornfield or simply the Cornfield.

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Monument to one of the most colorful New York State Volunteer units, the Fourteenth Brooklyn Chasseurs, distinctive in their red kepis and chasseur pantaloons.

The fight for the Cornfield was much like that of the Wheatfield at Gettysburg the following year, as it drew units endlessly into its vortex where they were successively "chewed up and spit out". Two such units memorialized above and below on either side of Mansfield Avenue were the Union Fourteenth Brooklyn and the famous Texas Brigade, which suffered terrible losses, the 1st Texas suffering the highest regimental percentage loss of any unit in the entire war, 82%.

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The Texas State Monument at Antietam seen above and below is devoted only to the exploits of the regiments in the Texas Brigade, the only units from the state in Lee's army. These views are looking south toward Bloody Lane in the middle distance and in the direction from which Confederate counterattacks came throughout the morning as more units entered the battle.

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It will be noted that the tablets at Antietam like this one for Hood's Division, unlike those at Western battlefields like Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chickamauga-Chattanooga, are neither color-coded nor oriented in the direction the units faced during the battle. Instead, they were placed for convenience to be read from the park roads that criss-cross the still-agricultural landscape. All share this same white-on-black combination and must be at least scanned to determine whether they describe Federal or Confederate units and actions.

Dunker Church and West Woods
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The tiny Dunker Church above served all morning as the objective for Federal attacks, standing in its stark whiteness on the horizon. By mid-morning, however, Fighting Joe had received a painful wound in the foot and his four divisions that had been committed piecemeal were now largely fought-out. Into the void came the fresh Union XII Corps of Maj. Gen. Joseph K. F. Mansefield, only two divisions strong. Though almost sixty, Mansfield had spent his army career as a bureaucrat in Washington and had never commanded troops in battle. At the outset he rode forward to prevent what he thought was an incident of friendly fire at the edge of the North Woods and received a bullet in the stomach for his trouble. Following that incident, his corps lost all cohesion and its units fought independently.

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The Dunker Church remained the focus of Union attacks, however, and George S. Greene's division of the XII Corps managed to advance and remain near it for an hour or more before withdrawing for lack of support. Its interior soon became splotched with blood when it became inevetably a field hospital. Surviving the battle, it was blown down by a windstorm in the 1920's and reconstructed using original materials in time for the centennial of the battle in 1962.

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Following the exhaustion of Hooker's and Mansfield's corps, another soon entered the fray when John Sedgewick's division of Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner's II Corps arrived. Sumner directed Sedgewick into the West Woods where they were met by a stinging attack from two Confederate divisions that had just come up, those of Lafayette McLaws and John G. Walker. Caught in a crossfire, Sedgewick was wounded seriously and his division savaged. The monument above is where Confederate Brig. Gen. William Starke of Louisiana was mortally wounded leading his brigade in this fight.

Next, the fight for Bloody Lane
 
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Second Phase: Afternoon - Bloody Lane
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Edwin V. Sumner's II Corps was composed of three divisions, that of Sedgewick that had been repulsed with heavy loss in the West Woods, and the fresh ones led by Maj. Gen.'s William French and Israel Richardson which had crossed Antietam Creek early that morning and were only now arriving. The sixty-five-year-old Sumner totally lost control of his corps, allowing French and Richardson to veer to the south where they encountered the Confederate division of Daniel Harvey Hill waiting in an eroded or "sunken" farm road that was soon to be christened Bloody Lane. On the marker above, French is at right; his division was first to engage Hill.

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This view shows Bloody Lane which is the path between the two rail fences as the men of French's division saw it as they came over a rise in the rolling field in front of it. Hill's men purposely withheld their fire until French was in point-blank range, then blasted them with volleys that sent them reeling. Rallying below the cover of the rise, they again came on and were again repulsed; this continued for some time.

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Above, looking from the position of Hill's brigades in Bloody Lane toward the rise that French repeatedly crested; the monument is to a Union infantry regiment. The view below looks southeast to the Observation Tower which stands where the sunken road makes a sharp right-angle turn to the south.

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French's repeated assaults had done little to dislodge Hill's men from the Sunken Road that was rapidly becoming Bloody Lane. Finally Sumner's third division, led by one of the best division commanders in McClellan's army, Israel B. Richardson began to arrive to add its weight to the attacks. Richardson tried his best to keep his attack going, at one point roaring "God d**n the field officers!" when he was told one of his colonels was hiding behind a haystack; but it was too little, and Richardson soon fell to a bullet in the stomach, as memorialized by the inverted cannon below.

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One of Richardson's best units was the justly famous Irish Brigade, which has finally received its own monument at Antietam. The sculpture by Ron Tunison as seen in detail below is remarkably realistic and faithful in every detail and makes a fine addition to the monuments here.

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So far D. H. Hill's men had held out successfully, but were by now running low on ammunition and becoming tired. They received the reenforcement of the division of Richard H. Anderson, but even this was too little to save them when the Brigade of Robert E. Rodes mistook an order and left the lane. Another of Hill's fighting colonels, John B. Gordon, fell with several wounds and the Confederate line began to give way. They retreated through Piper's Cornfield seen below in the background; another mortuary monument shows where Brig. Gen. George B. Anderson received a wound from which he later died.

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The retreating Confederates left the sunken lane filled with their dead and wounded; below, looking down the length from the vicinity of the Observation Tower on what was a ghastly scene of carnage.
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Victorious troops of the Union II Corps finally crossed Bloody Lane to menace Lee's center but stopped short of final victory. The place of the fallen Richardson was filled on the spot by McClellan who sent Winfield Scott Hancock from his brigade in the VI Corps reserve to take charge of the battered division.

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Next, Burnside finally assaults his bridge.
 
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beautiful shots......

that is my favorite field to walk, so quiet and somber. Beautiful country there as well.

Awesome monument to the Irish Brigade, love how those soldiers appear to be charging right out of it.

I was happy to be able to devote a bit more time than on previous visits to walking, like on the NPS trail covering French's approach to Bloody Lane. I also walked much the length of the Lane, but declined to climb the Observation Tower at its end!
 
Outstanding, James!

Bill

* I sent you a couple of Personal Messages regarding the Cross Keys Tavern.
 
Thanks to all for your kind comments and likes; and now on the 152d anniversary of the Bloodiest Day, here's the rest of the story!

Final Phase: Afternoon/Evening - Burnside and His Bridge
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According to Antietam historian Stephen Sears, George McClellan intended his attacks to be en echelon from north to south, much like Lee ordered Longstreet to attack on July 2 at Gettysburg the following year, accounting for the lapses between them that had allowed his opponent to use his interior lines to switch units to newly-threatened areas. Unfortunately and despite prodding by Little Mac, Ambrose Burnside took more time than necessary to ponderously deploy his force against the weakly held Confederate right flank at Antietam Creek. Lee had even obliged McClellan by gradually stripping that flank throughout the day, exactly as was intended, by sending the small division of D. R. Jones to Jackson's aid and leaving the weak Georgia brigade of Robert Toombs at the only bridge in the vicinity. Above is the view of the bridge as seen by the Georgians from their position on the bluff overlooking it.

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Sears thinks part of the problem was that Burnside was sulking because he had been removed from his position as commander of McClellan's temporary Right Wing formation with the removal from it of Joe Hooker's I Corps. Burnside should have reverted to command of his own IX Corps, but insisted on still acting through a corps commander, now after the death of Jesse Reno at Fox's Gap three days earlier, Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox who was new and unused to the job. This added another unnecessary level to the chain of command, thereby slowing orders. Burnside and Cox seemed stymied by the tiny bridge before them, unsuccessfully sending waves of units to attempt to storm it. About 1 PM two regiments from Samuel Sturgis' division, the 151st N. Y. and the 151st Pa., finally did so after being promised by Sturgis a keg of whiskey each.

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Burnside had also sent the division of Isaac Rodman to the south looking for Snavely's Ford, which was located around the time Sturgis' men crossed the bridge. With the Federals now on his side of the river and his men almost out of ammunition, Toombs and his tiny brigade, now no bigger than an early-war regiment, retreated from the bluff; above is the position of their supporting artillery overlooking Antietam Creek. Burnside took two hours to get his men across the narrow creek and formed for the advance on Sharpsburg and Lee's line of retreat to the Potomac. In the best Hollywood tradition, just as his final assault was beginning, the Confederate division of A. P. Hill arrived on a forced march from Harpers Ferry where Hill had been paroling the garrison of Federals surrendered there on Sept. 15. Hill was squarely on Burnside's flank and in the ensuing battle two additional generals were added to the list of those killed, Rodman for the North and Lawrence O'B. Branch, one of Hill's brigadiers, making a total of six, three on each side. Burnside was driven in the twilight back to the bluff overlooking the bridge which has borne his name ever since.

The Grove Farm
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Robert E. Lee took a tremendous gamble the following day, September 18, that McClellan would not resume the battle, and remained all day where his lines had been drawn at the end of the battle. That night he withdrew his army back across the Potomac, much to the relief of McClellan and disgust of his president, Abraham Lincoln. When for several days McClellan's army remained on the battlefield, Lincoln made a special visit from Washington to attempt to goad his general into action. They met and were famously photographed here on the grounds of the Grove Farm, headquarters of Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter commanding the V Corps which had largely remained in reserve or pointlessly remained inactive in the Union center during the battle. The house remains a private residence, mostly hidden within its eponymous grove of trees.
 
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The first time I was at Antietam, there was a bluebird perched on the tip of the flagpole held by the soldier statue in Bloody Lane. It was the first bluebird I had ever seen and to see it there at that beautiful park was so special for me!
Thanks for the lovely photos and the reminder of that day.
 
The first time I was at Antietam, there was a bluebird perched on the tip of the flagpole held by the soldier statue in Bloody Lane. It was the first bluebird I had ever seen and to see it there at that beautiful park was so special for me!
Thanks for the lovely photos and the reminder of that day.

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I don't know what kind of bird it is, but if you'll notice one's perched atop the kepi of this soldier statue at Bloody Lane as well!
 
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I don't know what kind of bird it is, but if you'll notice one's perched atop the kepi of this soldier statue at Bloody Lane as well!

I have been to this spot three time, and there has always been a bird of some variety on this statue. There is a theory that birds are the souls of our dead that return to show us that they are okay. Interesting thought in this place!
 
The Dunker Church structure is an artful reproduction. Horrified by the events at the battle, the Dunkers sold the building and it was used thereafter for various commercial purposes, including as a gas station in the 1920s and 30s.

The building collapsed in a heavy windstorm in the 1930s. but the surviving structural members were preserved. The NPS later re-assembled the building. I can't recall the detail exactly, but I believe the reaasembly was done in the early 1960s as part of the Civil War Centennial.
 
The Dunker Church structure is an artful reproduction. Horrified by the events at the battle, the Dunkers sold the building and it was used thereafter for various commercial purposes, including as a gas station in the 1920s and 30s.

The building collapsed in a heavy windstorm in the 1930s. but the surviving structural members were preserved. The NPS later re-assembled the building. I can't recall the detail exactly, but I believe the reaasembly was done in the early 1960s as part of the Civil War Centennial.

It was - here's my photo of it from 1961; by my return in 1964 it had been rebuilt. There has also been a thread here in the forums about the church and its history.

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