Moe Daoust
Corporal
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2018
It was while reading James V. Murfin's "The Gleam of Bayonets" that I was struck by a passage dealing with George B. McClellan's September 17, 1862 "9:10 a.m." order to Ambrose Burnside, instructing him to open his attack on the Confederate right. By all accounts, it had taken the dispatch rider fifty or so minutes to deliver that order to Burnside whose headquarters were barely two miles from McClellan's. Murfin tried to explain this inordinate time span but his reasoning wasn't very convincing.
Not satisfied, I went through a few more accounts, none of which provided a logical explanation. Finally, I picked up Stephen W. Sears's "Landscape Turned Red" to see what he had to say on the matter. In that regard, Sears wrote, "Why some forty-five minutes elapsed before the message reached Burnside's headquarters, only two miles from the Pry House as the crow flies, is unclear. In any case, it was in Burnside's hands by ten o'clock . . ." With that, Sears moved on to an unrelated matter. "In any case!" Was that was the best Sears was able to offer on such a critical issue, I remember thinking to myself? Should a historian not make it his business to know such things?
And so it was that I decided to find out precisely why it had taken that rider so long to deliver the order. It would take me several years and a considerable amount of research to uncover the answers to that riddle. To summarize, Burnside claimed that the order to open his attack did not reach him until 10 a.m. The evidence, however, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Burnside lied about those events and moreover, that the order which prompted him to open his attack reached him at "about 9 o'clock." In fact, the evidence also points to the very strong possibility that Burnside set out to sabotage McClellan's plans at Antietam.
The results of my research were published by Civil War Times Magazine in 2007. Some of you may have read the article but I now offer it for those of you who did not.
It's my sincere hope that many of you will take the time to read the article.
http://www.historynet.com/burnside-bridge
Not satisfied, I went through a few more accounts, none of which provided a logical explanation. Finally, I picked up Stephen W. Sears's "Landscape Turned Red" to see what he had to say on the matter. In that regard, Sears wrote, "Why some forty-five minutes elapsed before the message reached Burnside's headquarters, only two miles from the Pry House as the crow flies, is unclear. In any case, it was in Burnside's hands by ten o'clock . . ." With that, Sears moved on to an unrelated matter. "In any case!" Was that was the best Sears was able to offer on such a critical issue, I remember thinking to myself? Should a historian not make it his business to know such things?
And so it was that I decided to find out precisely why it had taken that rider so long to deliver the order. It would take me several years and a considerable amount of research to uncover the answers to that riddle. To summarize, Burnside claimed that the order to open his attack did not reach him until 10 a.m. The evidence, however, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Burnside lied about those events and moreover, that the order which prompted him to open his attack reached him at "about 9 o'clock." In fact, the evidence also points to the very strong possibility that Burnside set out to sabotage McClellan's plans at Antietam.
The results of my research were published by Civil War Times Magazine in 2007. Some of you may have read the article but I now offer it for those of you who did not.
It's my sincere hope that many of you will take the time to read the article.
http://www.historynet.com/burnside-bridge
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