DK - The American Civil War

A

t dawn on September 17, as

Joseph Hooker’s corps advanced

up the Hagerstown Pike to slam

into the left flank of General Robert E.

Lee’s army, the prospect for the

Confederates was grim. Union troops

advanced in daunting mass, well

equipped and uniformed, in marked

contrast to the ragged Rebels. There

were no earthworks, so the soldiers

fought in the open or were sheltered

only by trees or terrain from the storm

of artillery and infantry fire that

erupted. Furious fighting raged in the

Cornfield and the West Woods—

locations lost and retaken time and

again at an appalling cost in lives.

Battle for the West Woods

Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s

Texans, reportedly angered at having

their breakfast interrupted, seized the

West Woods back from the Union Iron

Brigade at the expense of 64 percent

BEFORE

After defeat at the Second Battle of Bull
Run, morale in the Union ranks was
low. It was partially restored by the
reappointment of George McClellan as
commander of the Army of the Potomac.

THE CONFEDERATE POSITION
Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign
began well with the capture of the Union
arsenal at Harpers Ferry by General
Stonewall Jackson ❮❮ 126–27. But sooner
or later he was going to have to face McClellan’s
numerically superior Army of the Potomac.
The two forces met at Sharpsburg. Lee took up
a defensive position overlooking Antietam
Creek. With scattered forces still arriving, by
nightfall on September 16 he had just 25,000
men. Lee gave command of the left of his line to
Jackson and the right to James Longstreet, the
two wings meeting at Dunker Church.

UNION STRATEGY
McClellan had some 75,000 troops on the
opposite side of Antietam Creek. On the evening
of September 16, he started moving Joseph
Hooker’s corps across the creek to Lee’s left.
Initial skirmishes allowed the Confederates to
identify the direction of the main Union
thrust of the following morning.

casualties, with the 1st Texas Infantry

Regiment sustaining losses of 82

percent. A Union division ordered

forward by Major General Edwin

Sumner counterattacked from the flank

out of the West Woods, losing more

than 2,000 men in half an hour.

Lee holds his ground

McClellan, in the safety of the Philip

Pry House on the other side of

Antietam Creek, well away from the

savagery of the battlefield, failed to

coordinate the action of his different

corps. Thus, while the Confederates

weathered storm after storm on their

left—at one point even losing Dunker

Church only to retake it later—there

was no pressure on their right or

center. Even when joined by two

more divisions in the course of the

morning, Lee still did not have half

McClellan’s strength. But he was able

to maneuver troops across from his

Union general

Edwin Vose Sumner commanded a corps at Antietam.

He was criticized for alleged blunders that saw a division

cut to shreds at the West Woods.

The Battle of Antietam

September 17, 1862, was the costliest day of fighting in American history. A desperate Confederate

defense against repeated assaults by determined Union troops resulted in 22,700 casualties. Despite

superiority in numbers, however, Union general George B. McClellan failed to destroy the Rebel army.