The Battle of Antietam - Case Study Example

Battle of Antietam in Maryland – 1862 Thesis Statement: The Battle of Antietam was fought for one full day with casualties outnumbering the total seconds it was fought over. The result was nothing but sadness and grief all around and change of commands for a chosen few. The ceasefire meant a general loss for the Americans over their opposing Confederates. Outline: This paper has discussed the events that led to the actual battle as well as distributed the same in three spans, starting from the morning, peaking at mid-day and talking a bit about the afternoon session. The aftermath of the war will also be discussed at the very end and a general consensus on the part of the history students with regards to the battle will be sought as well. The lesson learnt from the Battle of Antietam has been vivid through the following lines and it is for one and all to comprehend what actually went into the actual battle that took place between the United States of America and the Confederates. The Battle of Antietam is also known by the name of The Battle of Sharpsburg. This battle was fought on the 17th day of September in the year 1862 near Maryland in Sharpsburg which is close to the Maryland Campaign. This indeed marked the initial basis for any kind of war to have taken place on the North American soils after the American Civil War had started. Nearly 23,000 casualties speaks volumes about the war being the bloodiest day in the history of America as it played an indirect yet tactical role in giving President Abraham Lincoln the much needed power to have his ‘Emancipation Proclamation’. Each year, the battle is commemorated at the Antietam National Battlefield. The result of the war without any shadow of a doubt was that it was tactically full of loopholes and it entailed a strategic victory for the union. The main combatants in the war were the USA and the Confederate States of America. The commanders at both ends were George B. McClellan for USA and Robert E. Lee for the Confederates. The USA outnumbered the Confederates by double the men, where the former had 87,000 while the Confederates had only 45,000 to contend with. There were around 12,401 casualties at US end, which included 2,108 men killed and another 9,540 wounded badly. 753 were either captured or missing in the whole scenario. At the end of the Confederates, there were 10,318 casualties which included 1,546 as killed and another 7,752 injured. 1,018 men were either captured or missing. Coming to the original topic at hand and finding out as to why this battle began in the first place, we find out quite a few things that happened in the wake of this day. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had an army by the name of ‘Army of Northern Virginia’ which had more than 45,000 men under his aegis. They were quite jocund after having achieved success over their tussle at the Second Bull Run, in Maryland. The basic aim of the General was to discern the way in which new supplies and fresh men could be recruited within his army. This was kept in mind that all of them hailed from the border state of Maryland which comprised of the slaves and poor men. These men had some sort of sympathy for the Confederates and hence it would not have been a problem to be alongside them in the hour of need. This would have also helped in having a general consensus which could only be termed as being positive right from the onset aimed at these fresh men who were being thought of as the prospective battalion for the Confederates. But the same however could not happen as the public opinion was generally somewhat mixed and it entailed all sorts of reactions from these men. The people of Maryland did not quite appreciate the fact that they were being hailed after by the Army of General Lee. Furthermore, the weak strategic victory that was achieved at the hands of the Army over the Army of Potomac at Antietam started to fade away quite easily and thus the same did not quite make the much needed mark in the hearts and minds of the people of Maryland. After the same had become paler with the passage of time, General McClellan’s Army of Potomac was approaching General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. During this while, a Union soldier caught up a copy of the mislaid battle plan which basically gave the General an idea about the opposing Army’s battle plan. The same listed that General Lee had dispersed his Army into three zones in a geographical manner. These three geographical zones were towards the Harpers Ferry, the West Virginia and lastly towards the Hagerstown in Maryland. This meant that defeat could really mean bad for General Lee if General McClellan moved his Army fast and in the right directions. But General McClellan waited for about 18 hours before he decided to move further ahead. He was of the view that taking advantage of the intelligence attained was indeed very necessary and thus moved his forces into proper positions based on the vision he had in mind. To talk about the two important happenings that took place before the actual war began, we can list the same as: 1. Lt. General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s capture of Harpers Ferry 2. General McClellan’s assault that he had through the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Battle of the South Mountain. The real battle scene began when General Lee deployed his men behind the Antietam Creek in the town of Sharpsburg. This placement was along a low ridge and thus formed up as quite a high risk position for the Army men. The Confederate rear was blocked in the Potomac River and due to this, only a single ford was in essence available for them in case of a retreat. Even though General McClellan and his Army came in the area on 16th September, his usual manner in which he used to caution his Army did send a delay signal to General Lee and his Army. This in return gave quite a lot of time to the latter for further preparations. The Confederates thus prepared for more defensive slots and positions in the battleground meanwhile. It was in the very same evening the General McClellan ordered his Army to cross Antietam Creek and thus find out the actual enemy positions as to where they were in real hiding and doing their best to tackle his respective force. It was after dark that artillery fire started to reach its very peak and the same happened during the night. Meanwhile, General McClellan continued to play tricks with his Army’s different positions and the ways in which he could hide from his enemy positions. The next day saw three different and uncoordinated battles taking place. They were: 1. In the morning at the Northern End of the Battlefield 2. In the mid-day at the Center 3. In the afternoon at the South This lack of coordination and concentration of General McClellan’s Army resulted in the nullification of his strength in terms of the huge size of Army and thus the Confederates under the leadership of General Lee started to enjoy advantage and allowed themselves to move their defensive forces to ward off any kind of pressure that came their way during this while. The real battle started on the morning of 17th September. There was an attack on the Hagerstown Tumpike by the Union I Corps. This was due to the fact that Hooker’s men had opened up bloody fire on Jackson’s Army across a cornfield that was present on the Miller farm. This rifle fire acted like a scythe and thus it cut down all the cornstalks as well as over 8,000 men that included both from General McClellan’s battalion as well as that of General Lee’s Army. Certain research has shown that possession of the cornfield had moved from one end to another at least fifteen times during all this while. The morning phase alone saw around 12,000 men as casualties on both ends combined and this also comprised of two Union Corps commanders. In mid-day, a division under the leadership of Major General William H French heading the Sumner’s Corps moved in order to support Sedgwick but somehow or the other, the Army took the wrong ahead and moved in a totally opposite direction. During this while, they met up with Confederate Major General D H Hill who was defending a small ridge in a hollow road and the same looked like a trench to say the least. In the afternoon, the same day, southeast of the town on the Union left, Major General Ambrose Burnside’s IX Corps were installed in order to carry out attempts at crossing the bridge over the Antietam Creek. The Major General had ordered for creating a diversion in order to support the main attack that was about to happen. The same day, at 5:30 pm the battle was over. There was a whole lot of casualties at both ends, 23,000 to be exact. It is also a fact that more Americans died on this single day of 17th September 1862 than any other day in the nation’s history. It can easily be remarked as the bloodiest day in the American historical calendar. This also easily surpasses the Second World War’s D-Day as well as the 9/11 attacks on the US. It was in the evening of 18th September that after a ceasefire had taken place between the two regimes that General Lee’s forces started to withdraw across the Potomac and thus set on a return journey towards Virginia. In the meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln started to have this view that General McClellan’s defensive and somewhat weak leadership in the battleground has forced the war to a draw rather than giving the Confederates a defeat that they would have remembered for a long time. He immediately removed General McClellan from his command post. There has been a lot of discussion in the wake of the Battle of Antietam. Some question its strategic victory that in essence happened for the Union while others have a totally opposite stance on this point. These claims are generally raised by students of history. But it is a fact that General McClellan and his Army performed timidly in the battleground and his opponent General Lee put up a brave face. The latter’s astute leadership skills forced the war to come to a draw where his Army was outnumbered by the American General, McClellan by nearly half. In the strategic sense, Antietam is considered a turning point by all and sundry. This also marked the basis for the success of the Union by all extremes. The same can be remarked based on the fact that it more or less ended General Lee’s command over the campaign and his strategic intent was also left much to be desired of, in the wake of the initial invasion that was done towards the North. As James M McPherson puts it; “No other campaign and battle in the war had such momentous, multiple consequences as Antietam. In July 1863 the dual Union triumphs at Gettysburg and Vicksburg struck another blow that blunted a renewed Confederate offensive in the East and cut off the western third of the Confederacy from the rest. In September 1864 Sherman's capture of Atlanta reversed another decline in Northern morale and set the stage for the final drive to Union victory. These also were pivotal moments. But they would never have happened if the triple Confederate offensives in Mississippi, Kentucky, and most of all Maryland had not been defeated in the fall of 1862”. [Crossroads of Freedom, p. 155] This one day war has become a part of the American history yet it will come back to haunt each and every American for as long as they live. This marked the bloodiest day of their country’s life and one that taught them lessons innumberable left, right and center. Sources Watson, Samuel. Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, the Battle that Changed the Course of the Civil War Parameters, Vol. 33 2003 Coles, David J. Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle Journal of Southern History, Vol. 69 2003 Clem, Richard. Ground of Antietam Farm Turns Red The Washington Times, 16 September 2000 Alexander, Ted. Battle of Hagerstown Bought Lee Some Time The Washington Times, 3 July 1999 Mcpherson, James M. Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam Oxford University Press, p. 155, 2004 Word Count: 2,021 Read More