Page 234 - (DK) Smithsinian - Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare

232

EARLY INDUSTRIAL WARFARE
AND IMPERIALISM 1815–1914
THE BATTLE

OF ANTIETAM

Antietam displayed the weaponry and tactics of the American
Civil War at their most deadly. Fought at Sharpsburg, Maryland,
on September 17, 1862, it was the costliest day’s fighting in
American history, with 22,700 Union and Confederate
soldiers killed or wounded.

At Sharpsburg a Union army about counterattacks, especially around
75,000 strong, commanded by and through an area known as West
General George B. McClellan, faced Wood. Soldiers were armed with
a much weaker Confederate army rifled muskets—muzzle-loaded
Y led by General Robert E. Lee. The weapons capable of three or four
INDUSTR position behind Antietam Creek, men fought at close quarters with
Confederates had taken up a defensive shots a minute—although in places

bayonets or wielded their muskets
where they did not dig earthworks
as clubs. Combat on the left flank
but made optimal use of features such
eventually subsided due to shock
as woods, hills, and fences. Lee was
still assembling scattered forces when and exhaustion on both sides.
the battle began, but eventually 38,000
Confederate troops would take part. FIRING FROM COVER
After a hard marching campaign Meanwhile, elsewhere on the
in Maryland, the Confederates were in battlefield, the Confederates, using
poor shape—a Union officer described their muskets, were demonstrating the
the troops as “filthy, sick, hungry, and effectiveness of infantry when firing
miserable.” The Union troops, on the from cover against troops advancing
other hand, had been well equipped in the open. In the center, some 2,500
and supplied by Northern factories. men held a sunken road—later known
On the day before the battle as Bloody Lane—against repeated
began McClellan sent troops across frontal assaults, inflicting thousands
Antietam Creek to General Lee’s of casualties before being overrun.
left. The Confederates observed Farther to the Confederate right,
the movement, and soldiers under Union General Ambrose Burnside
General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson tried to move troops over the Creek
got into position to face a flank attack across a bridge, under the fire of
at dawn on September 17. Confederate sharpshooters and
The battle opened with an exchange cannon. Time and again the Union
of cannon fire from the batteries that soldiers were cut down, and only
each side had established on high established themselves on the other
ground. Union troops then marched side of the Creek after bringing up
onward to a cornfield where Jackson’s their own artillery in support.
infantry awaited them. After bringing By late afternoon the Confederates
forward their cannon, the Union had been outflanked on the right and
divisions swept the cornfield with looked about to be beaten, when
canister shot—anti-personnel Confederate reinforcements marching
munitions that decimated the from Harpers Ferry arrived and
Confederates. The Union troops counterattacked, causing Union
pressed forward and hours of troops to retreat. The cautious
desperate infantry fighting ensued. McClellan had held 20,000 infantry
Men exchanged fire in the open, and cavalry in reserve throughout. He
inflicting and sustaining heavy losses. made no attempt to resume fighting
Groups of men were marshalled by the next day, and Lee withdrew his
their officers in attacks and battered army to Virginia.