Army of Northern Virginia under strength for Antietam campaign

The timeline is not clear to me right at the moment. Did Lee move into Maryland immediately after 2nd Manassas? Wasn't one of his reasons for doing so to try to keep the Army Of The Potomac from regrouping after their defeat? Seems to me he wouldn't have had much time to take on replacements.

In the case of the NC troops, the conscripts were assembled in Raleigh and dispatched at the order of NC authorities, independent of Lee. Both the 1st and 3rd NC Infantry received large lots of replacements shortly after the Battle of Malvern Hill.
 
I think some of Hill's men also crossed at the mouth of the Monocacy River, as well.

In addition, J.G. Walker crossed at Cheek's Ford.

Ryan

Yes, Cheek's Ford is at the mouth of the Monocacy. If you check the map above you can see where Walker re-crossed to the Virginia side: That is the Point of Rocks ford site.

I am hoping top get down to Point of Rocks sometime this Spring/Summer. It's also the site of some of the activity of Mosby's Rangers in 1864.
 
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Yes, Cheek's Ford is at the mouth of the Monocacy. If you check the map above you can see where Walker re-crossed to the Virginia side: That is the Point of Rocks ford site.

I am hoping top get down to Point of Rocks sometime this Spring/Summer. It's also the site of some of the activity of Mosby's Rangers in 1864.
Sounds like a good trip.
 
White's Ford near Leesburg, Virginia (Where the ferry Jubal Early is in operation today)



Maryland Son of Confederate Veterans has an annual celebration at White's Ford, where celebrants wade the river. It's in August:

08/26/2017 (Saturday)
Annual Potomac River Crossing

Cross the Potomac at Historic White’s Ford. We will step off at 12:00 P.M. in Dickerson Park for this Norris Camp Non-Period event! Bring swimming clothes and nylon flags! 2014 is the 150th Anniversary of the 1864 crossing! Come on and all!

Directions:
From Poolesville and points South; follow Whites Ferry Road, MD RT 107, west out of Poolesville, 3.4 miles to Martinsburg Road, Turn right, a church is at the intersection. Go 2 plus miles to sign on left to Dickerson Regional Park. Turn left to parking lot less than a mile down the road, just short of the Canal.

From Frederick and points North; take MD RT 85 to MD RT 28, go through Dickerson, bare right on to Martinsburg Road at flashing light by the power plant. Go about 1-1/2 miles turn right to parking lot less than a mile down the road, just short of the Canal.
 
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New conscripts, in summer in Virginia. Walked from Richmond to Sharpsburg with a lot of fighting along the way.

In the case of 1st and 3rd NC Infantry Regts. there wasn't a lot of fighting along the way. They were ordered into action at Second Manassas, but arrived too late to be involved in the fighting. They were out of position for the fight at Chantilly. And while they were ordered into battle at South Mountain, confusion and mismanagement (or possible cowardice on the part of Gen. Ripley) meant they never became fully engaged.

Even so, the fighting at Mumma's Farm and The Cornfield were severe indeed, so those two regiments certainly did their part in the Maryland campaign.
 
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The timeline is not clear to me right at the moment. Did Lee move into Maryland immediately after 2nd Manassas? Wasn't one of his reasons for doing so to try to keep the Army Of The Potomac from regrouping after their defeat? Seems to me he wouldn't have had much time to take on replacements.

The reinforcements the consisted of the infantry divisions of DH Hill, Walker, and McClaws plus the cavalry brigade under Hampton and the reserve artillery under Pendleton left Richmond in August before 2nd Manassass but didnt reach Lee until just after 2nd Manassass.
 
New conscripts, in summer in Virginia. Walked from Richmond to Sharpsburg with a lot of fighting along the way.

I checked my notes and discovered that D.H. Hill's Division took "the cars" from Richmond to Orange Court House, Va., in late August, meaning that those troops were spared the long and exhausting march between those two points. The Confederate rail line was in good working order at that time and apparently handled this volume of troops easily.

Once at Orange Court House, they marched to Culpeper and then to Manassas, before beginning the march in to Maryland at the beginning of September. .
 
There's a chapter in "The Antietam Effect" that discusses why the rebels had major problems.

The tale starts with the 1861 eruption of Mount Dubbi, the largest volcanic eruption on the African continent. The Mt Dubbi eruption threw up huge quantities of matter into the atmosphere and massively disrupted global weather patterns. A few months later the California megastorm resulted. The unusual storms continue, and disrupt British reinforcements during the Trent Affair. Even in mid-1862 there is still residual disruption to the weather that compromises the Peninsula campaign.

One of the effects was that the harvests were poor. In the area of operations of Bull Run the harvest had effectively failed, and there was a major disruption of food supplies, as Lee was expecting to find harvested wheat in the area. Even before they crossed the Potomac the troops with Lee were suffering serious malnutrition. When they found food in the fields at Maryland it caused dysentery - when malnourished for a prolonged period the GI tract becomes unable to absorb nutrients, and hence when the troops gorged themselves on animal feed corn it went straight through them.

Now, DH Hill's and McLaws' divisions arrived they'd been regularly fed with army rations and hadn't started to succumb to malnutrition. They ate the corn fine, and didn't suffer from dysentery much.
 
There's a chapter in "The Antietam Effect" that discusses why the rebels had major problems.

The tale starts with the 1861 eruption of Mount Dubbi, the largest volcanic eruption on the African continent. The Mt Dubbi eruption threw up huge quantities of matter into the atmosphere and massively disrupted global weather patterns. A few months later the California megastorm resulted. The unusual storms continue, and disrupt British reinforcements during the Trent Affair. Even in mid-1862 there is still residual disruption to the weather that compromises the Peninsula campaign.

One of the effects was that the harvests were poor. In the area of operations of Bull Run the harvest had effectively failed, and there was a major disruption of food supplies, as Lee was expecting to find harvested wheat in the area. Even before they crossed the Potomac the troops with Lee were suffering serious malnutrition. When they found food in the fields at Maryland it caused dysentery - when malnourished for a prolonged period the GI tract becomes unable to absorb nutrients, and hence when the troops gorged themselves on animal feed corn it went straight through them.

Now, DH Hill's and McLaws' divisions arrived they'd been regularly fed with army rations and hadn't started to succumb to malnutrition. They ate the corn fine, and didn't suffer from dysentery much.
Very interesting. I had not heard of the volcano before.
 
I'm still a little confused about this post.

Is the premise that the size of the ANV at the Battle of Antietam was much larger than commonly estimated?
 
Very roughly Lee had about 76,000 combatants in ranks on crossing the Potomac.

Steiner estimated 72,000 rebels marched through Frederick. He counted them past. This excludes Walker's division, GB Anderson's brigade and the cavalry, who didn't go through Frederick.

The depletion seems to have happened mainly in the units that went down to Harper's Ferry, and mainly in the forced march to Sharpsburg. Certainly going to "add back" counting - taking the complete returns after stragglers were in and adding back the casualties confirms the strength (ca. 76,000).

Taking the immediate field return after Antietam (22nd September) and adding campaign casualties shows about 60,000 at Antietam, with about 25,000 stragglers.

These numbers don't seem to add up...or am I missing something?

If there were 25,000 stragglers, wouldn't that mean there were about 50,ooo Confederates at Antietam?

P.S. Thanks for the Steiner link. That's a very interesting historical document!
 
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