Part 4

The Antietam National Battlefield is a part of the National Park System, owned by the people of the United States and administered for them by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Communications should be addressed to the Superintendent, Antietam National Battlefield, P.O. Box 158, Sharpsburg, Maryland 21782.

_Suggested Readings_

Bradford, Ned, editor, _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1956.

These selections from the original four volume 1887-88 edition are excellent for on-the-spot impressions of participants. Should be used with caution concerning historical accuracy.

Catton, Bruce, _Mr. Lincoln’s Army_. Doubleday & Company, Garden City, 1951.

Popular well-written interpretive study with colorful battle accounts. Descriptions of camplife are very good.

Commager, Henry S., editor, _The Blue and the Gray_. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., New York, 1950.

Fine selection of readings from the pens of participants. Again, as with _Battles and Leaders_, these accounts suffer from immediacy and should be used with caution.

Freeman, D. S., _R. E. Lee_, Vol. II. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1934.

Outstanding as biography and as military history. Detailed analysis of Lee’s actions as commander with vivid battle descriptions. Excellent footnotes for further reference.

Hassler, Warren W., Jr., _General George B. McClellan, Shield of the Union_. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1957.

Interesting interpretation of McClellan’s actions as Federal commander. His difficulties with subordinates, especially Burnside, are used to explain Federal failure to take advantage of opportunities at Antietam.

Henderson, G. F. R., _Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War_. Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1955 reprint.

This is a modern reprint of Henderson’s classic military biography, first printed in 1898; it is still a standard work on the legendary Jackson.

Longstreet, James, _From Manassas to Appomattox_. J. B. Lippincott and Company, Philadelphia, 1896.

Written many years after the war, this account by a leading participant emphasizes his own point of view.

APPENDIX _The Emancipation Proclamation_

On August 22, 1862, just one month before Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, he wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, abolitionist editor of the New York Tribune. The letter read in part:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time _save_ Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time _destroy_ Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle _is_ to save the Union, and is _not_ either to save or destroy Slavery.... I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free....

For some months before the Battle of Antietam, as his letter to Greeley indicates, Lincoln had been wrestling with the problem of slavery and its connection with the war. He became convinced that a new spiritual and moral force—emancipation of the slaves—must be injected into the Union cause, else the travail of war might dampen the fighting spirit of the North. If this loss of vitality should come to pass, the paramount political objective of restoring the Union might never be attained.

Another compelling factor in Lincoln’s thinking was the need to veer European opinion away from its sympathy for the South. A war to free the slaves would enlist the support of Europe in a way that a war for purely political objectives could not.

Thus, slowly and with much soul searching, Lincoln’s official view of his duty came to correspond with his personal wish for human freedom. The outcome of these deliberations was the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Federal victory at Antietam gave Lincoln the opportunity to issue the proclamation—a dramatic step toward eliminating slavery in the United States.

By this act, Lincoln stretched the Constitution to the limit of its meaning. His interpretation of presidential war powers was revolutionary. It would become a precedent for other Presidents who would similarly find constitutional authority for emergency action in time of war.

More important, the proclamation was to inaugurate a revolution in human relationships. Although Congress had previously enacted laws concerning the slaves that went substantially as far as the Emancipation Proclamation, the laws had lacked the dramatic and symbolic import of Lincoln’s words. Dating from the proclamation, the war became a crusade and the vital force of abolition sentiment was captured for the Union cause, both at home and abroad—especially in England.

The immediate practical effects of the Emancipation Proclamation were negligible, applying as it did only to those areas “in rebellion” where it could not be enforced. But its message became a symbol and a goal which opened the way for universal emancipation in the future. Thus the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution are direct progeny of Lincoln’s proclamation.

Any document with the long-term importance of the Emancipation Proclamation deserves to be read by those who experience its effects. Following is the text of the formal Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863:

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A Proclamation.

Whereas on the 22d day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

“That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States.”

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Paquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgement of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1986 0 - 157-109: QL 3

Antietam National Battlefield Maryland National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

The Bloodiest Day of the Civil War

The Battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg) on September 17, 1862, climaxed the first of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s two attempts to carry the war into the North. About 40,000 Southerners were pitted against the 87,000-man Federal Army of the Potomac under Gen. George B. McClellan. And when the fighting ended, the course of the American Civil War had been greatly altered.

After his great victory at Manassas in August, Lee had marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland, hoping to find vitally needed men and supplies. McClellan followed, first to Frederick (where through rare good fortune a copy of the Confederate battle plan, Lee’s Special Order No. 191, fell into his hands), then westward 12 miles to the passes of South Mountain. There on September 14, at Turner’s, Fox’s, and Crampton’s gaps, Lee tried to block the Federals. But because he had split his army to send troops under Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson to capture Harpers Ferry, Lee could only hope to delay the Northerners. McClellan forced his way through, and by the afternoon September 15 both armies had established new battlelines west and east of Antietam Creek near the town of Sharpsburg. When Jackson’s troops reached Sharpsburg on the 16th, Harpers Ferry having surrendered the day before, Lee consolidated his position along the low ridge that runs north and south of the town.

The battle opened at dawn on the 17th when Union Gen. Joseph Hooker’s artillery began a murderous fire on Jackson’s men in the Miller cornfield north of town. “In the time I am writing,” Hooker reported, “every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before.” Hooker’s troops advanced, driving the Confederates before them, and Jackson reported that his men were “exposed for near an hour to a terrific storm of shell, canister, and musketry.”

About 7 a.m. Jackson was reenforced and succeeded in driving the Federals back. An hour later Union troops under Gen. Joseph Mansfield counterattacked and by 9 o’clock had regained some of the lost ground. Then, in an effort to extricate some of Mansfield’s men from their isolated position near the Dunker Church, Gen. John Sedgwick’s division of Edwin V. Sumner’s corps advanced into the West Woods. There Confederate troops struck Sedgwick’s men on both flanks, inflicting appalling casualties.

Meanwhile, Gen. William H. French’s division of Sumner’s corps moved up to support Sedgwick but veered south into Confederates under Gen. D. H. Hill posted along an old sunken road separating the Roulette and Piper farms. For nearly 4 hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., bitter fighting raged along this road (afterwards known as Bloody Lane) as French, supported by Gen. Israel B. Richardson’s division, also of Sumner’s corps, sought to drive the southerners back. Confusion and sheer exhaustion finally ended the battle here and in the northern part of the field generally.

Southeast of town, Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s troops had been trying to cross a bridge over Antietam Creek since 9:30 a.m. Some 400 Georgians had driven them back each time. At 1 p.m. the Federals finally crossed the bridge (now known as Burnside Bridge) and, after a 2-hour delay to reform their lines, advanced up the slope beyond. By late afternoon they had driven the Georgians back almost to Sharpsburg, threatening to cut off the line of retreat for Lee’s decimated Confederates. Then about 4 p.m. Gen. A. P. Hill’s division, left behind by Jackson at Harpers Ferry to salvage the captured Federal property, arrived on the field and immediately entered the fight. Burnside’s troops were driven back to the heights near the bridge they had earlier taken. The Battle of Antietam was over. The next day Lee began withdrawing his army across the Potomac River.

More men were killed or wounded at Antietam on September 17, 1862, than on any other single day of the Civil War. Federal losses were 12,410, Confederate losses 10,700. Although neither side gained a decisive victory, Lee’s failure to carry the war effort effectively into the North caused Great Britain to postpone recognition of the Confederate government. The battle also gave President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which, on January 1, 1863, declared free all slaves in States still in rebellion against the United States. Now the war had a dual purpose: to preserve the Union and end slavery.

About Your Visit

Antietam National Battlefield lies north and east of Sharpsburg, along Md. 34 and 65. Both routes intersect either U.S. 40 or 40A and Int. 70. The visitor center is north of Sharpsburg on Md. 65 and is open daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day. All visitor center facilities and most tour route exhibits are wheelchair accessible.

There are interpretive markers at Turner’s, Fox’s, and Crampton’s Gaps on South Mountain (scenes of preliminary fighting) and at the Shepherdstown (W. Va.) Ford where Lee’s army recrossed the Potomac.

While touring the park, stay alert to all traffic. Bicyclists should use caution while descending hills. Please use trails to avoid contact with stinging nettles, ticks, and snakes. Do not climb on cannons, monuments, fences, or trees. Don’t spoil your visit with an accident. Note: Relic hunting is prohibited.

Antietam National Battlefield and Cemetery are administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. A superintendent, whose address is Box 158, Sharpsburg, MD 21782, is in charge. Phone: (301) 432-5124.

Touring Antietam Battlefield

Before starting your tour, stop at the visitor center where exhibits and audio-visual programs provide an introduction to the battle and the Maryland Campaign. The numbered tour stops below are arranged according to the sequence of the battle.

Morning Phase (6 a.m. to 9 a.m.)

1 Dunker Church This was the focal point of repeated clashes as both armies sought to occupy and hold the high ground around it. Leveled by a storm in 1921, the church was rebuilt in 1962.

2 North Woods General Hooker launched the initial Union attack from this point. It was stopped by Jackson’s troops in The Cornfield, ½ mile south.

3 East Woods Union Gen. Joseph Mansfield was fatally wounded here as he led his XII Corps into battle.

4 The Cornfield More fighting took place here in the Miller cornfield than anywhere else at Antietam. The battlelines swept back and forth across the field for three hours.

5 West Woods Union Gen. John Sedgwick’s division lost more than 2,200 men in less than half an hour in an ill-fated charge into these woods against Jackson’s troops.

6 Mumma Farm Burned by the Confederates to prevent their use by Union sharpshooters, the Mumma farm buildings were the only civilian property purposely destroyed during the battle.

Midday Phase (9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.)

7 Roulette Farm Union troops under French and Richardson crossed these fields on their way to meet the Confederates posted in the Sunken Road.

8 Sunken Road (Bloody Lane) For nearly 4 hours, Union and Confederate infantry contested this sunken country road, resulting in over 5,000 casualties. Thus the name “Bloody Lane”.

Afternoon Phase (1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.)

9 Lower Bridge (Burnside Bridge) The fighting here was a key factor in McClellan’s failure at Antietam. Called Burnside Bridge after the Union general whose troops were held off most of the day by a few hundred Georgia riflemen, it is the battlefield’s best-known landmark.

10 The Final Attack After taking the Lower Bridge and reforming his corps, Burnside marched his men across these hills toward Sharpsburg, threatening to cut off Lee’s line of retreat. Just as the Federals reached this area, A. P. Hill’s Confederate division arrived from Harpers Ferry and drove them back.

11 Antietam National Cemetery The remains of 4,776 Federal soldiers, including 1,836 unknowns, are buried in this hilltop cemetery near town. Most of the Confederate dead are buried in Hagerstown and Frederick, Md., Shepherdstown, W. Va., and in local church and family cemeteries.

The battle of Antietam, fought over an area of 12 square miles, consisted of the three basic phases—morning, midday, and afternoon—shown on the maps at right. During the morning phase, three piecemeal Union attacks drove back Jackson’s line, but did not break it. The midday phase saw two Union divisions break D. H. Hill’s line in the sunken road, but McClellan’s failure to follow it up lost him the advantage that had been gained. In the afternoon phase, Burnside’s slow pincer movement beyond the lower bridge was broken by A. P. Hill’s timely arrival.

Transcriber’s Notes

—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.