189 Antietam (1862)
Battlefield of Sharpsburg,
Wednesday Evening, Sept 17, 1862.
Fierce and desperate battle between 200,000 men has raged since daylight, yet night closes on an uncertain field. The position on either side was peculiar. When Richardson advanced on Monday he found the enemy deployed and displayed in force on a crescent-shaped ridge, the outline of which followed more or less exactly the course of Antietam Creek. What from our front looked like only a narrow summit fringed with woods was a broad table-land of forest and ravine. Cover for troops everywhere, nowhere easy access for an enemy. The smoothly sloping surface in front and the sweeping crescent of slowly mingling lines was only a delusion. It was all a Rebel stronghold beyond. Under the base of these hills runs the deep stream called Antietam Creek, fordable only at distant points.
The plan was generally as follows: Hooker was to cross on the right, establish himself on the enemy’s left if possible, flanking his position, and to open the fight. Sumner, Franklin, and Mansfield were to send their forces also to the right, co-operating with and sustaining Hooker’s attack while advancing also nearer the center. The heavy work in the center was left mostly to the batteries, Porter massing his infantry supports in the hollows. On the left Burnside was to carry the bridge already referred to, advancing then by a road which enters the pike at Sharpsburg, turning at once the Rebel left flank and destroying his line of retreat. Porter and Sykes were held in reserve.
Hooker moved on Tuesday afternoon at four, crossing the creek at a ford above the bridge and well to the right, without opposition. General Hooker formed his lines with precision and without hesitation. Ricketts’s Division went into the woods on the left in force. Meade with the Pennsylvania Reserves formed in the center. Doubleday was sent out on the right.
The battle began with the dawn. Morning found both armies just as they had slept, almost close enough to look into each other’s eyes. The left of Meade’s reserves and the right of Ricketts’s line became engaged at nearly the same moment, one with artillery the other with infantry.
The half hour passed the Rebels began to give way a little, only a little, but at the first indication of a receding fire, Forward was the word and on went the line with a cheer and a rush. Meade and his Pennsylvanians followed hard and fast. Followed till they came within easy range of the woods, among which they saw their beaten enemy disappearing. Followed still, with another cheer, and flung themselves against the cover. But out of those gloomy woods came suddenly and heavily terrible volleys. Volleys which smote and bent and broke in a moment that eager front and hurled them swiftly back for half the distance they had won.
In ten minutes the fortune of the day seemed to have changed. It was the Rebels now who were advancing, pouring out of the woods in endless lines, sweeping through the cornfield from which their comrades had just fled. Hooker sent in his nearest brigade to meet them, but it could not do the work. He called for another. There was nothing close enough unless he took it from his right. His right might be in danger if it was weakened but his center was already threatened with annihilation. Not hesitating one moment, he sent to Doubleday. “Give me your best brigade instantly.”
The best brigade came down the hill to the right on the run, went through the timber in front through a storm of shot and bursting shell and crashing limbs, over the open field beyond and straight into the cornfield, passing as they went the fragments of three brigades shattered by the Rebel fire and streaming to the rear. They passed by Hooker, whose eyes lighted as he saw these veteran troops led by a soldier whom he knew he could trust. “I think they will hold it,” he said.
They began to go down the hill and into the corn. They did not stop to think that their ammunition was nearly gone, they were there to win that field and they won it. The Rebel line for the second time fled through the corn and into the woods. With his left able to take care of itself, with his right impregnable with two brigades of Mansfield still fresh and coming rapidly up, and with his center a second time victorious, General Hooker determined to advance. Orders were sent to Crawford and Gordon — the two Mansfield brigades — to move directly forward at once. The batteries in the center were ordered on, the whole line was called on, and the General himself went forward.
He rode out in front of his furthest troops on a hill to examine the ground for a battery. At the top he dismounted and went forward on foot, completed his reconnaissance, returned and remounted. Remounting on this hill he had not ridden five steps when he was struck in the foot by a ball. Sumner arrived just as Hooker was leaving and assumed command. Crawford and Gordon had gone into the woods and were holding them stoutly against heavy odds. Sedgwick’s division was in advance, moving forward to support Crawford and Gordon.
To extend his own front as far as possible, he ordered the 34th New York to move by the left flank. The maneuver was attempted under a fire of the greatest intensity and the regiment broke. At the same moment the enemy, perceiving their advantage, came round on that flank. Crawford was obliged to give on the right and his troops pouring in confusion through the ranks of Sedgwick’s advance brigade, threw it into disorder and back on the second and third lines. The enemy advanced, their fire increasing. The test was too severe for volunteer troops under such a fire. Sumner himself attempted to arrest the disorder, but to little purpose. It was impossible to hold the position. General Sumner withdrew the division to the rear and once more the corn-field was abandoned to the enemy.
At this crisis Franklin came up with fresh troops and formed on the left. Slocum, commanding one division of the corps, was sent forward along the slopes lying under the first ranges of Rebel hills while Smith, commanding the other division, was ordered to retake the cornfields and woods which all day had been so hotly contested. It was done in the handsomest style. His Maine and Vermont regiments and the rest went forward on the run and, cheering as they went, swept like an avalanche through the cornfields, fell upon the woods, cleared them in ten minutes and held them. They were not again retaken.
Finally at 4 o’clock, McClellan sent simultaneous orders to Burnside and Franklin. To the former to advance and carry the batteries in his front at all hazards and any cost; to the latter to carry the woods next in front of him to the right, which the Rebels still held. The order to Franklin however was practically countermanded in consequence of a message from General Sumner that if Franklin went on and was repulsed, his own corps was not yet sufficiently reorganized to be depended on as a reserve. Burnside hesitated for hours in front of the bridge which should have been carried at once by a coup de main. Meantime Hooker had been fighting for four hours with various fortune but final success. Sumner had come up too late to join in the decisive attack which his earlier arrival would probably have converted into a complete success. And Franklin reached the scene only when Sumner had been repulsed. It was at this point of time that McClellan sent him [Burnside] the order above given.
Burnside obeyed it most gallantly. Getting his troops well in hand and sending a portion of his artillery to the front, he advanced them with rapidity and the most determined vigor straight up the hill in front, on top of which the Rebels had maintained their most dangerous battery. His guns opening first from this new position in front, soon entirely controlled and silenced the enemy’s artillery. The infantry came on at once, moving rapidly and steadily up long dark lines and broad dark masses, being plainly visible without a glass as they moved over the green hillside.
Looking down into the valley where 15,000 troops are lying, he turns a half-questioning look on Fitz John Porter, who stands by his side, gravely scanning the field. They are Porter’s troops below, are fresh and only impatient to share in this fight. But Porter slowly shakes his head and one may believe that the same thought is passing through the minds of both generals. “They are the only reserves of the army. They cannot be spared.”
Source: George Washburn Smalley in New York Daily Tribune, September 20, 1862. https://archive.org/details/americanhistoryt00ivunse/page/346/mode/2up
