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6 2 The American Civil WarMajor-General Ambrose Powell Hill, whose 'Light
Division' played a major role in all of the Army of
Northern Virginia's battles in 1862-63. About two
weeks after Antietam, Lee praised Hill highly in a
letter to Jefferson Davis. Apart from Jackson and
Longstreet, wrote Lee. 'I consider A. P. Hill the best
commander with me. He fights his troops well, and
takes good care of them.' (Author's collection)
The battle closed on the Confederate right,
where Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside
orchestrated an unimpressive tactical
offensive against a handful of southern
defenders. Fighting on this part of the field
began just as the action in the Sunken Road
subsided. Two Federal regiments crossed a
stone bridge over Antietam Creek (later
dubbed 'Burnside's Bridge') under fire, after
which Burnside took his time preparing for a
final advance. If successful, Burnside's soldiers
could cut Lee and his army off from the only
available ford over the Potomac. By about
3 pm, Union attackers had approached to
within 250 yards (230m) of the road to the
ford when elements of A. P. Hill's division
slammed into their left flank. A difficult
17-mile (27km) march from Harpers Ferry
had carried Hill's leading brigades to the field
just in time to disrupt Burnside's attacks. The
battle closed as the Federals fell back towards
Antietam Creek.
The exhausted armies had waged the
costliest single day's combat in United States
history. McClellan's loss approached 12,500,
and Lee's exceeded 10,300. Another 2,300
Federals and 2,700 Confederates had fallen
at South Mountain on 14 September. One
southerner remarked that the 'sun seemed
almost to go backwards' during the fighting
on the 17th. A Union soldier counted
himself fortunate that his regiment did not
have to view the shattered landscape in full
daylight. 'We were glad to march over the
field at night,' he told his parents, 'for we
could not see the horrible sights so well. Oh
what a smell[,] some of the men vomit as
they went along.'
The Army of Northern Virginia remained
on the field during 18 September, after
which McClellan permitted Lee to recross
the Potomac unmolested. A Federal foray
across the river at Shepherdstown late on the
19th promised to disrupt Lee's withdrawal,
but A. P. Hill's division counterattacked the
following day and drove the northerners
back to the left bank of the Potomac. The
campaign closed without a determined
Union effort to pursue the Confederates.
McClellan's handling of the campaign
inspired heated debate. While some
applauded his success in stopping Lee's
invasion, others inside the Army of the
Potomac and behind the lines in the North
believed he had lost a tantalizing
opportunity. A newspaper correspondent
voiced a common criticism in wishing
McClellan had attacked again on
18 September: 'We could have driven them
into the river or captured them. ... It was
one of the supreme moments when by
daring something, the destiny of the nation
might have been changed.' No one
experienced more bitter disappointment
than Abraham Lincoln. Although he used
Lee's retreat as a pretext to issue a
preliminary emancipation proclamation on
22 September, a step that signalled a
profound shift in the course of the war, he
nevertheless believed his commander had
once again shown insufficient aggressiveness.
Thousands of Union soldiers had
remained out of the action on 17 September
(Lee, in contrast, had committed every