The U.S. Civil War Leadership of General Philip H. Sheridan

In Little Phil: A reassessment of the Civil War Leadership of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, historian Eric J. Wittenberg critically examines the military performances of the famous Union commander.

Jeb Smith considers this.

General Philip H. Sheridan. Source: Public domain. unknown, available here.

Wittenberg argues that the military record, and our memory of “Lil Phil,” has been distorted to his advantage, in no small part because Sheridan, and the North's two most famous and admired generals from the conflict, William T. Sherman and two-time president U.S. Grant, all wrote popular autobiographies after the war. Further, Sheridan became an “American hero” in the federal government's war against the Indians after the Civil War, further inflating his reputation as a Civil War commander.

Remembered as a great cavalry general, Wittenberg focuses especially on this aspect of Sheridan's legacy. A well-suited historian to do so , he has delved as deeply as any into the largest cavalry battle of the war, which occurred in 1864 at Trevilian Station. Having been told it was a major victory for Sheridan, he came to find from the official documents that it was, in fact, a major Union defeat. Originally an admirer of Sheridan as a commander, he writes that, not only at Trevilian Station but in many of his engagements, “I was disappointed to learn that the official record does not match Sheridan's legacy.” Around the same time, he edited a book that examined many of Sheridan's actions, especially those around Appomattox, which forced an overhaul of the author's opinion of Sheridan as a general. He wrote “I concluded that Sheridan does not deserve the lofty reputation bestowed upon him by history.”

While Wittenberg covers Sheridan's performances in the west, both positive and negative, Little Phil focuses primarily on the General as a cavalry and corps commander of the Army of the Potomac in 1864, Wittenberg arguing that before this time he was a subordinate and did not have much influence on battles one way or the other. He casts Sheridan as an awful, harsh leader to his subordinates, who was unable to admit his own poor performance; many viewed him as petty, self-promoting, and hypocritical.

Wittenberg argues that the Union cavalry had already “turned a corner” in mid to late 1863, many by then equipped with breechloaders, Spencer rifles, and that by the time Sheridan came east he had well-armed veterans under him, while most Confederates were still ill-equipped to face the massive technological advantages of the Northern cavalry. The newly-created Cavalry Bureau also provided a supply advantage to the Northern forces. So, when the 1864 campaign began, the North had a massive numerical and technological advantage, almost unprecedented in the history of warfare—over 10,000 well-trained, well-equipped, well-supplied mounted troopers at Sheridan’s command.

At the Battle of the Wilderness, Sheridan, with Wilson's division, was overaggressive, leading to heavy losses against the “Laurel Brigade” and preventing him from warning Meade of the Army of Northern Virginia's position, thereby allowing the Southern cavalry to gain a strategic edge. Sheridan's cavalry then failed to move on Lee's flank and was halted by skirmishing along the Plank Road from May 5-8. Grant attempted to maneuver on Lee's flank, but was thwarted because Sheridan failed to clear the road of Confederates between the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House. Sheridan's failure to beat Lee's cavalry to the Spotsylvania county seat so angered General Meade that personal animosity arose between them that never subsided.

On May 9 Sheridan’s command set out with the goal of killing famed Confederate cavalry general Jeb Stuart, he stating “there isn't cavalry enough in the Southern Confederacy to stop us.” The battle commenced at Yellow Tavern, where the chivalrous Stuart refused to submit and attacked with only half his force, eventually being repulsed and killed in action. With over twice the force, well-supplied and equipped with an advantage in artillery and firearms, Sheridan was victorious.

After the death of Stuart, Lee reorganized his cavalry into three divisions that reported directly to him. Like Jackson, Lee was feeling the ill effects and burden of losing competent corps-level commanders. Southern cavalry was no longer what it had been without Stuart; William L. Wilson of the 12th Virginia Cavalry stated, “The cavalry corps has lost its great leader, the unequalled Stuart. We miss him much. Hampton is a good officer but Stuart’s equal does not exist.” The North took Stuart's death as a great victory in itself.

On May 28, the Battle of Haw's Shop ended in a stalemate. However, the outnumbered Wade Hampton managed to defeat Sheridan on June 11 and 12 at Trevilian Station, engaging in two days of fighting and inflicting twice as many losses on the Federal forces as he sustained. A final Southern assault on the center and flank broke the Union lines, driving them from the field. Sheridan failed to achieve any of the raid's objectives, particularly in disrupting vital rail junctions.

As Sheridan retreated, Hampton's smaller army continued to pursue him, attempting to engage in battle. However, Sheridan consistently refused to fight, aided by a river that separated the two forces. Hampton pursued and won at Samaria Church, successfully repelling Sheridan's raid. Following this disaster, Sheridan was removed from cavalry command and sent to the Shenandoah Valley. Wittenberg summarized his actions as a cavalry general, stating that:

“Sheridan did poorly in command of the cavalry corps. During his four months of leadership, the corps conducted three major raids, and fought thirteen major engagements…only Yellow Tavern can be considered a victory for the Yankee horse soldiers…in several of these fights, the federals were lucky to get out intact. He certainly did not earn the respect of southern cavalry.  Brig general Thomas L. Rosser said “Sheridan displayed no skill in maneuvering, it was simply a square stand up fight, man to man, and Hampton whipped him.”

He did not serve well as the eyes and ears of the main body, and failed in the ultimate objectives of all four raids Grant sent him on. His neglect of the main command led to the army being trapped and vulnerable at the various North Anna engagements. Luck saved the Yankee army in those instances. Wittenberg adds, “Sheridan employed unimaginative tactics. His cavalry often fought as infantry, and he rarely demonstrated a true understanding of the nature of mounted combat.” And “Sheridan was not a great cavalry commander. In fact his tenure as leader of the Army of the Potomac's cavalry corps was lackluster at best.”  And he quotes Thomas Rosser, who wrote “As an infantry officer, Sheridan possessed fair ability, as a cavalry officer, he was the most absolute failure.”

The Valley

When he began the Valley Campaign, Sheridan had a 2-1, and at times a 3-1, advantage in manpower. Yet he began very tentatively. His own subordinates carried out and planned most of the tactics used in battle; General Crook planned Fisher's Hill, and the famous victory at Cedar Creek was already going the way of the North due to General Wright. Even Sheridan admitted to George Crook that the same result would have occurred whether he had arrived or not, as the battle had already begun to turn against the outnumbered Confederates. The entire time, he could not find a way to deal with the famous Confederate cavalryman John Mosby and his men, who wreaked havoc upon the Union army throughout the entire campaign. Wittenberg summarized:

“A detailed analysis of Sheridan's record indicates that he lost most of the cavalry corps’ fights during his stewardship. It also shows that any competent general should have dispatched Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederate Army in the fall of 1864. Indeed, the odds were so overwhelming that even an incompetent commander should have defeated Early’s tenacious little army…Early actually out-generaled Sheridan at Winchester and Cedar Creek, two of their three major engagements.”

Jeb Smith is an author, speaker, and historian who has written five books, published over 130 articles in several publications, and has been featured on various podcasts, television, and radio interviews. For speaking engagements, interviews, or questions, please get in touch with him at authorJebSmith.com.

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Antietam and the Maryland Campaign: Part 4 – Aftermath of the Battle

The Confederate victory at Second Manassas, August 28-30, 1862, followed victories in the Valley Campaign and the Peninsula. The casualties incurred by the Army of the Potomac included 14,000 killed or wounded of 62,000 engaged, compared to about half of that for the Army of Northern Virginia. Then, on September 1, Stonewall Jackson defeated a Union cohort retreating from the battlefield at Chantilly. General Pope was relieved of command and sent to Minnesota to deal with the Sioux, and was never again involved in the Civil War. Pope would blame Fitz-John Porter for the loss, even though that wasn’t the case; Porter would be heard from again at Antietam but would go through a devastating court martial soon after. One of Pope’s generals said of him, “Suffice to say ... that more insolence, superciliousness, ignorance, and pretentiousness were never combined in one man.”

In this multi-part series, here Lloyd W Klein looks at what happened during the Battle of Antietam itself.

Read part 1 on the background here, part 2 on General McClellan’s Response to Finding the Lost Order here, and part 3 on the battle itself here.

Abraham Lincoln and George B. McClellan at Antietam, Maryland, October 3, 1862. Source: Public domain, United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cwpb.04351., available here.

Aftermath

The battle was over by 5:30 pm. When the smoke cleared and the guns fell silent, Antietam had inflicted an unprecedented toll: estimated total casualties reached 22,717 men—killed, wounded, missing, or captured—making it the bloodiest single‐day engagement in American history. More Americans died in battle on September 17, 1862, than on any other day in the nation's history. The bloodiest battle in American history was Gettysburg, but its more than 46,000 casualties occurred over three days. Antietam ranks fifth in terms of total casualties in Civil War battles.

The devastation to both armies was profound. Officers, enlisted men & horses were destroyed in huge numbers. The dead and wounded littered the field, and it would take months for the dead to be buried. For years after, and even to this day, the remains of soldiers are still being found, evidence of the battle resurfacing in the form of bullets, cannonballs, horseshoes, and other detritus.

The battle is traditionally considered a tactical draw but a strategic Union victory. Modern scholarship suggests Antietam was both a Federal tactical and strategic victory. The battle inflicted terrible casualties on the Army of Northern Virginia, which was already in the process of disintegrating from straggling. Federal troops broke Confederate lines five times during the fighting, and at no point did Southern forces regain the line they occupied before the battle started. Lee remained in place for another day out of the refusal to abandon his campaign, but that amounted to nothing more than posturing.

Lee stayed on the battlefield overnight He prepared to defend against a renewed assault, which never came. Strategically, the battle was a disaster for Lee. The casualties were catastrophic for an army of his size. The ANV retreated to Virginia, McClellan did not pursue despite myriad orders to do so, and was relieved for the second time as commander.

The figures are staggering. Union losses totaled 12,401 (including 2,108 killed, 9,540 wounded, and 753 missing or captured), while Confederate losses amounted to 10,316 (with 1,546 killed, 7,752 wounded, and 1,018 missing or captured). Britannica additionally notes that officer casualties were especially severe: six generals (three Union, three Confederate) fell in the battle, and about a dozen more were wounded.

Looking at the troops actually committed, roughly 56,000 Federal soldiers engaged on key fronts suffered 12,400 casualties (~22%), while about 37,400 Confederates incurred 10,300 casualties (~27.5%)—meaning nearly one in four combatants on the field was killed, wounded, or went missing. When set against the full armies present (approximately 132,000 Union and 87,000 Confederate), these figures translate to overall casualty rates of about 9% and 12%, respectively—figures that belie the ferocity experienced by frontline units.

In terms of casualty composition, of the 22,717 total:

3,654 men were killed (≈16.1%)

17,292 were wounded (≈76.1%)

1,771 were missing or captured (≈7.8%)  

This breakdown roughly mirrors the broader Civil War norm—where about 20% of battle casualties were deaths and 80% were wounds—but Antietam’s sheer scale set a grim benchmark, producing the highest single‐day body count in U.S. military history.

Every historian includes or excludes various units, which may or may not be considered to be part of the battle. Sears, for example, gives lower figures. The desertion rate of the Confederate forces is another major area of contention. According to the Washington Post, these traditional figures are skewed. In his after-action report, McClellan claimed that his men buried 2,700 Confederates on the Antietam battlefield and captured 6,000 more. He could only guess at the number of wounded, but he estimated it was 18,742 men, using the ratio of killed to wounded for his own troops.

This stands in stark contrast to Confederate reports, which claimed losses of 1,674 dead, 2,292 missing and 9,451 wounded — a total of 13,417. Even discounting the wounded, the discrepancy between the two reports is almost 5,000 casualties.

Which is right? The burial grounds would indicate that McClellan’s number is closer to the truth. More than 3,300 dead rebels specifically associated with the Antietam campaign can be found buried in the Confederate cemeteries in Hagerstown, Frederick, Shepherdstown and Winchester. This number is larger than McClellan’s because it includes bodies buried by the Confederates themselves as well as those who died shortly after the battle.

Perhaps the most important misconception is the number of troops Lee brought with him during his invasion. Most historians cite McClellan as having had 87,000 men and Lee around 40,000. These numbers are often used for the entire three-week campaign, with the Confederates sometimes credited with as many as 55,000 men, 15,000 of whom straggled off before the battle. But there are no complete returns for Lee’s army until Oct. 10, 1862. Every historian’s count is merely a best-guess estimate.

Lee filed his first return five days after the battle, noting the count is “very imperfect” and does not include cavalry or artillery. It states that on Sept. 22, he had at least 36,418 infantry. Adding a conservative number of 5,000 for the missing cavalry and artillery units would bring his total to about 41,000 troops at the end of the campaign.

Eighteen days later, on Oct. 10, Lee filed his first complete report, which showed 64,273 present for duty. This number is significant because Lee had not received a single new regiment to replace his losses; nor did he receive many, if any, recruits because the February draft law had already pulled every eligible man into the army by early summer. If we add Lee’s reported campaign losses of 13,417 (which, as already noted, are too low), it would show that Lee started the campaign with at least 75,000 men. My final answer is that a lot of people died or were wounded, but we really will never know exactly.

IF this is true, McClellan’s supposed outsized numerical advantage is overstated, and his potential to have annihilated Lee is exaggerated. The army he drove back was not much smaller than his own. He did it without proper cavalry support, with his superiors hoping to oust him and with a significant portion of his army untrained. And as it turns out, he inflicted more damage on Lee’s army than anyone suspected.

Lee’s Retreat

Lee was just lucky to have gotten out of Antietam intact. It was a horrible day for him. He had divided his army numerous times and had not planned to be attacked while Jackson was at Harpers Ferry and Longstreet was at Suffolk.  Losing armies in retreat are by definition at their most vulnerable, but for that very reason, at their most dangerous.

On September 18, the armies remained in their positions without fighting. By this point, Lee was highly vulnerable. His army had its back to the Potomac River, just a few miles away, and a quarter of his force had been lost in the previous day’s battle. And after more than two weeks of marching, his men were tired. McClellan, on the other hand, welcomed thousands of additional troops on September 18. But, although he outnumbered Lee’s troops by almost three times, McClellan did not pursue Lee. In fact, despite constant urging from President Abraham Lincoln and Chief of Staff Henry Halleck, McClellan did not move toward Virginia for over a month. McClellan overestimated the size of Lee’s force, assuming that Lee had nearly 100,000 troops in his command, and insisted that the fall of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, on September 15 allowed an additional 40,000 Confederate troops, in his inflated estimation, to fight at Antietam.

Once again, though, modern scholarship has shifted this traditional view. The newest thought points out that McClellan did not pursue Lee because his own army was in no position to give battle. They note that this Union force was in reality four separate commands and that with the battlefield losses, it lacked a unified command structure to organize a movement. The Battle of Shepherdstown, in which just a small part tried to pursue at Shepherdstown (or Botelers) Ford the next 3 days, resulted in a small-scale disaster. Undoubtedly, the units engaged were in bad shape: on September 17th, the 1st Corps suffered 27 % casualties, the Second 31%, the 9th 20 %, and, lastly, the 12th Corps lost 22%. Antietam NPS ranger Keith Snyder has stated that during the battle, there were, in both armies, at least 300 corps, division, brigade, and regimental command changes. In the Federal army alone, there were close to 600 officers, below the rank of colonel, who were either killed or wounded. Not only were the rank and file slaughtered, the command structure was decimated as well.

The post-Antietam messages and reports in the Antietam Official Records contain numerous requests for supplies ranging from ammunition, blankets, shoes, rations, and food. Horses were a major problem. Union horses had also suffered severe casualties. Although Lincoln famously pooh-poohed this concern ("What have your horses done that they are fatigued?”), the Union Army couldn’t move anywhere without the replenishment of the major transportation modality.

Lee retreated across the Potomac River at Shepherdstown Ford, also called Boteler’s Ford: After several days of maneuvering and skirmishing with Union forces, Lee's army crossed the Potomac River at Shepherdstown Ford on September 19-20, 1862. This crossing allowed them to retreat back into Virginia after the Battle of Antietam.

The Battle of Shepherdstown on September 20th. There were 624 casualties—363 Union and 261 Confederate. The Battle of Shepherdstown is one of the largest engagements fought in the modern state of West Virginia (it was still Virginia at the time of the battle in 1862). It was largely inconsequential in the course of the Antietam Campaign because it essentially harassed, but did not stop, Lee’s retreat.

Bodies of Confederate dead gathered for burial after the Battle of Antietam. Source: Public domain, United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cwpb.01094, available here.

Lincoln Pays a Visit

Meanwhile, President Lincoln was severely disappointed in McClellan's performance both during and after the battle. He believed that McClellan's overly cautious and poorly coordinated actions in the field had caused the battle to be a tactical draw rather than the overwhelming Confederate defeat it really should have been. The president was even more astonished that from September 17 to October 26, despite repeated entreaties from the War Department and the president himself, McClellan declined to pursue Lee across the Potomac, citing shortages of equipment and the fear of overextending his forces.

Famously, President Lincoln came to visit General McClellan on October 3rd. As you can clearly see from the photo, the temperature of the meeting was frosty. As these stiff poses suggest, the personal relationship between the general and the president remained awkward. Abraham Lincoln spent four days travelling over the field, just two weeks after the guns fell silent. He met with McClellan, trying to prod his young Napoleon into action, met with other generals, and with thousands of wounded soldiers, including both Union and Confederate. His trip was well-documented, and the photos of his visit are among the most famous of the entire war.

The biggest winner of all was President Lincoln, absolutely. He had won a victory in time for the November election, to show that progress in the war was being made. The Republicans kept the Senate, gaining an additional seat, and also the House, although they lost 27 seats. Despite inflation, new taxes, a longer and deadlier war than expected, and a midterm election, Lincoln had pulled out a victory of his own.

Lincoln, the master politician, turned Antietam into a political windfall. He used the victory as a cover to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, redefining the purpose of the war and turning it into a moral struggle, not a cultural one. With one victory, he showed Congress and the voters that he had control over how the war would progress and what it was about. Moreover, the English Parliament dropped any discussion of bringing the combatants together for negotiations.

What had seemed just a few weeks before like the biggest crisis in the existence of the country up to that time was resolved by a president who chose the best man available for the predicament at hand, not necessarily the one he got along with or liked best or could manipulate: a far cry from what passes for executive decision making these days. Lincoln showed by his decision how to keep one’s eyes on the prize. This is a lesson numerous hospital administrators I know could learn. Lincoln was the greatest President, and his management of this crisis must forever be regarded as brilliant and exemplary of his genius.

Other winners include all subsequent generations of Americans, because Lincoln used McClellan’s victory to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, the critical first step for redefining what liberty and freedom could mean. The 4 million enslaved Americans were also victors. Although a pure wartime measure, it meant that slavery was on the road to extinction; Allen Nevins has pointed out that within weeks, slaves were leaving their masters’ plantations. The common Federal soldiers were victors. The battle showed that they WERE capable of defeating Massa Robert.

This photograph waw taken by Alexander Gardner., working for Mathew Brady. Lincoln wrote his wife that he was about to sit for the famous photographer with Little Mac: “If we can sit still long enough, which should be no problem for the general.” Lincoln was a sharp, quick-witted man, all right. He was highly critical of McClellan for allowing Lee to get away.

The Dead of Antietam

Mathew Brady exhibited a series of 97 photographs taken immediately after the Battle of Antietam. These images were the first to show the dead bodies of soldiers still on the battlefield.  The impact of this exhibit changed how non-combatants viewed war, and indeed, war news reporting, ever since.

"Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it." So wrote a correspondent for The New York Times after visiting Mathew Brady's Manhattan gallery in October 1862 to view the famed photographer's latest exhibit, "The Dead of Antietam."

The accompanying photographs are the two best-known Antietam photographs and are immediately recognizable to every Civil War enthusiast. The top image shows Confederate dead at the Dunker Church. The photographer was standing in what is today the Visitors Center Parking Lot. The second, entitled “View in the Field, on the west side of Hagerstown road, after the Battle of Antietam,” shows the dead by a fence in a road that still exists. The ease of modern accessibility to these locations and their banality add to our sense of horror.  The 95 others are graphic and disturbing even by modern standards, several of which I used in the past week.

The Times review continued:

"You will see hushed, reverent groups standing around these weird copies of carnage," the review noted, "bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in the dead men's eyes."

Harper’s Weekly, the leading news weekly, devoted the center spread of its October 18, 1862, issue to images of the Antietam dead. Although the technology did not yet exist to reproduce actual photographs in newspapers and news weeklies, the periodical published woodcut engravings of eight photos, including six showing the dead.

Challenge: Two photographers Brady hired to document the war produced these images at Antietam. Who were these men who took these incredible photographs that changed war reporting forever?

Matthew Brady decided to move on from studio portraits and cartes-de-visite to document the war, and, with permission from President Lincoln, he organized and self-financed a team of photographers who took thousands of photographs documenting camp life and battlefield scenes. One of these photographers on Brady’s team, Alexander Gardner, took all the photographs featured, and James Gibson assisted.

In 1862, Brady’s exhibit The Dead of Antietam showed the public the first ever photographs of a battlefield before the dead had been removed. The exhibition took place at Brady’s studio on Broadway in New York City. In modern society, we often see live battlefield scenes on television news and movie images of graphic content, and have become somewhat desensitized to the violence of warfare. It is hard for us today to fully comprehend the shocking impression this exhibit made.

Gardner arrived on the battlefield on September 19, 1862, two days after the battle had ended. He photographed the dead and the living who handled their remains, demonstrating without protecting the viewer from the sight, those who had grisly wounds, those who fell over rocks in their final moments, and the bodies bloating under the hot sun.

Gardner and Brady knew they were capturing history with their cameras, but their primary reason for taking battlefield images was that they knew they would sell. Civil War photos and stereo views sold well during and after the war. Their popularity is evidenced by the dozens of original views available today at online auction sites or from antique photograph dealers. Brady’s stereographs and Album Gallery Cards cost 50 cents each during the war. That’s $10.67 in 2020 dollars, putting them in the same general price range as a video or movie today.

These images received extensive media attention. They shocked and fascinated, and saddened those who saw them. And to this day, they remain some of the most graphic images of American war casualties ever published. Unlike the battle images of Vietnam, these images did not create an anti-war backlash. Instead, they convinced the public that the soldiers fighting for their country were indeed brave, and that war was not the glorious spectacle of fairy tales.

The New York Times review conveys the impact of these photos, perhaps as well as the photos themselves:

“The living that throng Broadway care little perhaps for the Dead at Antietam, but we fancy they would jostle less carelessly down the great thoroughfare, saunter less at their ease, were a few dripping bodies, fresh from the field, laid along the pavement. There would be a gathering up of skirts and a careful picking of way; conversation would be less lively, and the general air of pedestrians more subdued. As it is, the dead of the battlefield come up to us very rarely, even in dreams. We see the list in the morning paper at breakfast, but dismiss its recollection with the coffee.”

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References

·       Sears Stephen. Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam, Houghton Mifflin, 1983.

·       Rossino, Alexander & Thorp, Gene. The Tale Untwisted: George McClellan and the Discovery of Lee's Lost Orders, September 13, 1862. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie.

·       Rossino, Alexander. Their Maryland: the Army of Northern Virginia from the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862. Savas Beatie. 2021.

·       Rossino, Alex. Calamity at Frederick: Robert E. Lee, Special Orders No. 191, and Confederate Misfortune on the Road to Antietam. Savas Beattie, 2023.

·       Hartwig, D Scott. I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023.

·       https://emergingcivilwar.com/2022/02/24/who-lost-the-lost-order/

·       https://www.rebellionresearch.com/special-order-191-ruse-of-war-part-1

·       https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-insignificance-of-special-order-191

·       https://alexanderrossinocom.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/ns-lees-beaver-creek-plan-june-2022.pdf

·       Rossino, Alexander B. Reset in Maryland. America’s Civil War Winter 2024 pp 22-31.

·       Rossino, Alexander. Lecture: Before September: The Origin of the 1862 Maryland Campaign. Antietam Institute, July 7, 2025.

·       https://antietaminstitute.org/2025/01/10/before-september-the-origin-of-the-1862-maryland-campaign-dr-alex-rossino/

·       https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-defense-of-mcclellan-at-antietam-a-contrarian-view/2012/09/06/79a0e5cc-f131-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html

·       https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/artsandliving/civilwar/mcclellan-graphic/

·       Marcel D'Aoust. https://www.historynet.com/little-mac-not-dawdle/

·       https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-defense-of-mcclellan-at-antietam-a-contrarian-view/2012/09/06/79a0e5cc-f131-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html

·       https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/shepherdstown

·       https://civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2021/3/15/retreat-from-antietam-the-battle-of-shepherdstown-september-19-20-1862

·       https://www.nytimes.com/1862/10/20/archives/bradys-photographs-pictures-of-the-dead-at-antietam.html

The Day That Philadelphia Helped To Save Washington D.C.

If you thought like most of us that the Battle of Gettysburg was the end of the significant fighting in the American Civil War — you’d be gravely mistaken. If you thought that the only sitting US President who took enemy fire in a Battle was George Washington or Teddy Roosevelt, unfortunately that it not correct either.

Michael Thomas Leibrandt explains.

Sergeant William J. Wray. Source: Public domain, Another Group of Heroes, available here.

During the summer of 1864 with both Richmond and Petersburg under siege, both Grant Union Army and Robert E. Lee’s Army if Northern Virginia were skirmishing around Maryland. One of Lee’s commanders who has been present at Gettysburg (General Jubal Early) began to move north directly threatening Washington DC. 

He engaged Union forces in a two-day battle at Monocacy Creek — where Federal Forces under Major General Lew Wallace were defeated and ultimately retreated back towards Baltimore — leaving the route to the American Capital open.

Among the approximately seventy earthen forts helping to depend Washington DC in 1864 were Fort Derussy, Fort Reno, and Fort Stephens. But the Pennsylvania 6th Corps who also contributed to a Union victory at Gettysburg would reinforce the capital. The Confederate Army would begin their attack at Fort Stephens — less than five miles from the White House.

President Abraham Lincoln was used to being in dangerous situations. In 1861 — he was moved to Washington for the inauguration in secret by train. Just a year earlier, he was the target amid a shot that rang out while he was riding on a regular trip to the soldier’s home. As the Confederate Army approached Washington — Lincoln and his family were evacuated from their cottage retreat. One day later —  both he and Mary Todd Lincoln rode to Fort Stephens to observe the fighting.

Climbing onto the parapets — President Lincoln and his stove-top hat came in range of Confederate Sharpshooters. A surgeon behind him was struck in the shoulder. According to legend — a young Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who would later become an Associate Supreme Court Judge under the Roosevelt Administration — screamed toward President Lincoln to take cover. Moments later — Secretary of War Edwin Stanton quickly ushered Lincoln away to safety.

The next day — Early withdrew after Fort Stephens was reinforced by more Federal forces. Union forces subsequentlycleared the peach orchard in front of Fort Stephens of Confederate sharpshooters and artillery. Among the defenders from Philadelphia were the 98th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry which was also at Gettysburg. Philadelphian Sergeant William J. Wray of K Company even earned the Medal of Honor for his role in rallying troops.

Several notable quotes came from the engagement including a Federal soldier who was heard to have said, “Jubal Early should have attacked earlier in the morning, but Early was late.” General Early also made the famous remark, “We didn’t take Washington, but we scared Abe Lincoln like Hell.”

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Michael Thomas Leibrandt lives and works in the Philadelphia Suburbs.

Antietam and the Maryland Campaign: Part 3 – The Battle of Antietam

The Confederate victory at Second Manassas, August 28-30, 1862, followed victories in the Valley Campaign and the Peninsula. The casualties incurred by the Army of the Potomac included 14,000 killed or wounded of 62,000 engaged, compared to about half of that for the Army of Northern Virginia. Then, on September 1, Stonewall Jackson defeated a Union cohort retreating from the battlefield at Chantilly. General Pope was relieved of command and sent to Minnesota to deal with the Sioux, and was never again involved in the Civil War. Pope would blame Fitz-John Porter for the loss, even though that wasn’t the case; Porter would be heard from again at Antietam but would go through a devastating court martial soon after. One of Pope’s generals said of him, “Suffice to say ... that more insolence, superciliousness, ignorance, and pretentiousness were never combined in one man.”

In this multi-part series, here Lloyd W Klein looks at what happened during the Battle of Antietam itself.

Read part 1 on the background here, and part 2 on General McClellan’s Response to Finding the Lost Order here.

The Charge across the Burnside Bridge by Edwin Forbes. Source: Public domain, US Library of Congress, available here.

McClellan was now in a position to destroy Lee’s divided army. Knowing they were being pursued, Lee's army set up defensive positions behind Antietam Creek. Lee expected a battle, but the half of his army under Jackson was still in Harper’s Ferry.

The first two Union divisions arrived on the afternoon of September 15 and the bulk of the remainder of the army late that evening. McClellan's limited activity on September 15 after his victory at South Mountain gave Lee time to unite his scattered divisions at Sharpsburg.

On the morning of Tuesday, September 16, McClellan had nearly 60,000 soldiers facing Lee’s 15,000. His heavy 20-pound Parrott rifles were sending case shot across the creek, feeling out the enemy. As Longstreet ordered a vigorous response – more for bluff than effect – Lee realized his one chance for salvation lay with McClellan’s reverting to his old, timid behavior. McClellan did not disappoint him. By noon, Jackson and Brig. Gen. John Walker began to arrive, taking up the Confederate line on the left along the Hagerstown Pike near Dunker Church, north of town, then sweeping southeasterly to a worn farm lane on the Mumma property a mile away.  On the left flank, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. (‘Jeb’) Stuart placed Brig. Gen. Fitz Lee’s cavalry brigade with his three batteries of Captain John Pelham’s Horse Artillery and three additional batteries on an unpretentious hillock known locally as Nicodemus Hill. East of the Hagerstown Pike, Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law’s brigade had taken position in the East Woods. Law sent his videttes well to the north and east, keeping a close eye on the Upper Bridge.

Once again, the traditional history doesn’t do McClellan justice. What is said in the books: If he had attacked either of those days, the war might have ended in September 1862 with a definitive victory. Having arrived on the afternoon of September 15, he delayed his attack until September 17. He outnumbered Lee by as much as 2:1 all that time, and what he was waiting for is unclear. He somehow didn’t know that Jackson was still in Harpers Ferry, so he was facing just half of Lee’s divided army.

But the reality was a lot more complex than it seemed from that summation. By the afternoon of September 15, McClellan found himself confronted by two significant Confederate forces flanking Elk Ridge, a geographical feature extending north to south, located west of South Mountain. To McClellan's right, Lee and Longstreet commanded an indeterminate number of troops, while to his left, McLaws and Anderson operated under the overall leadership of Stonewall Jackson. With Jackson positioned on one side and Lee on the other, it was prudent for McClellan to take a moment to assess which of the opposing forces represented a greater threat. Franklin had indicated that he was up against an enemy force that was twice the size of his own. If McClellan accepted Franklin's assessment, it suggested that the Confederate troops in Pleasant Valley exceeded 25,000, a formidable adversary.

Map of the Battle of Antietam by Hal Jespersen. Source: Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW, Creative Commons license 3.0, available here.

Initially, Lee and Longstreet seemed to be retreating toward Virginia, but as the afternoon progressed, it became clear that Lee had opted to hold his position in Maryland. Concurrently, the Confederate forces in Pleasant Valley, located to McClellan's left, began their withdrawal back to Virginia. The dynamic nature of the battlefield, coupled with the challenges of maneuvering large troop contingents along generally inadequate roads, made September 15 an unfavorable day for launching an offensive.

September 16 presented a different scenario for McClellan. Aware that Lee had gathered his troops around Sharpsburg, McClellan planned to launch an attack with his largely unified forces in the morning. However, dense fog obscured his view of the Confederate positions. By 8:30 to 9:00 a.m., the fog dissipated, revealing that Lee's forces remained in their locations. Nevertheless, McClellan was still unable to identify the Confederate left flank. For three and a half hours, he scoured the area along Antietam Creek in search of the enemy's line. Ultimately, realizing that only direct engagement would reveal their position, he instructed Hooker to move his First Corps across the creek at 12:30 p.m. Federal cavalry began patrolling the western bank of the creek shortly after 1:00 p.m. It took an additional four hours for Hooker to position his troops for the attack that commenced later that evening. In summary, the variable conditions hindered McClellan's ability to launch an assault on September 15, leading to a delayed attack on September 16.

Despite the traditional narrative, the Union army was not fully prepared for combat on September 16. On the afternoon of the 15th, Richardson and Sykes, with approximately 6,700 infantry, arrived at the Portertown bridge. Hooker's 1st Corps, consisting of 8,600 infantry, reached the area in the early evening and established a position near the Pry House. Meanwhile, Sumner's two additional divisions were stationed along the Keedysville Road. The 12th Corps was positioned at Boonsboro, the 9th Corps was located around Appletown, roughly six miles away, and the 6th Corps was in Pleasant Valley. Morell and Weber remained at Frederick or Middletown.

On the morning of the 16th, Sumner successfully moved his remaining two divisions to Keedysville, allowing McClellan to muster around 25,000 effective infantry by mid-morning. However, Burnside was still lagging; his Corps did not arrive at Portertown until noon and subsequently camped about two miles from the battlefield. Burnside advanced to receive orders regarding the placement of his corps, but by dusk, only three brigades had managed to reach the bluffs overlooking the Rohrbach Bridge. The balance of the corps was a couple of miles east and didn't break camp until 0900 on the 17th. The 12th Corps marched from Boonsboro and approached Keedysville quite late in the afternoon. As they arrived, McClellan ordered them to cross the creek and support Hooker. Morell's division and Weber's brigade are behind them. Any attack on the 16th would have been fought solely by the 1st and 2nd Corps, and Sykes' division.

It may have been to his benefit to attack immediately, although McClellan would have had to advance troops in fog and against an opponent he believed outnumbered him. Had he pushed Sumner’s Second Corps across the Middle Bridge at daybreak, regardless of the fog, it probably would have forced Lee to withdraw his troops from the heights opposite the Rohrbach Bridge, where Ambrose Burnside and Jacob Cox waited with the Ninth Corps. They could then have crossed against the Confederate right. Hooker could have crossed on the Confederate left and engaged Jackson’s men there. Pursuing a strategy such as this would have likely stretched Lee’s force thin in multiple places, allowing the Federals to punch through. I doubt that in this type of scenario, Lee could have held his position for longer than 24 hours.

Lee intuited that the initial attack would be on his left. Intelligence came in all day on September 16, indicating a Federal advance on the left, but little activity on the right and in the middle. Concentrating forces against the Confederate left focused Lee there as well. All he needed to do was shift men from the right and center until a threat materialized in those sectors, and that did not occur until later in the afternoon on September 17.

Lee cornered himself on purpose, unlike what some historians suggest. He did so because his campaign objective was to fight and win a battle north of the Potomac that would fulfill the promise of protection his proclamation of Sept. 8 gave to Marylanders in favor of secession. His plan to fight north of Boonsboro had unraveled when Jackson took a day longer than Lee anticipated to capture Harpers Ferry, and because McClellan had unexpectedly attacked the South Mountain gaps. This left Lee with no choice but to move back toward Virginia to bring the army's various pieces closer together. Sharpsburg was the last place Lee could find with somewhat advantageous terrain. However, his left was vulnerable to a large-scale attack, which is exactly why McClellan struck there.

McClellan did not appear to have “the slows” in his approach to Antietam. This is yet another tenet of the history of the battle that does not hold up to scrutiny. This has been a persistent myth since Sears & Catton. Its origin was the 1864 Lincoln election propaganda campaign. McClellan's army did not fully arrive until September 17. By the end of the day on the 15th, his corps was stretched out on the road back over South Mountain. McClellan also faced the possibility that Jackson commanded the portion on his left flank, where the Sixth Corps was, and Lee the portion on the right flank at Sharpsburg. Being between these two commanders is not an enviable position.

By the morning of Sept. 16, McClellan hoped to attack, but could not see the enemy's lines. He therefore scouted along them for a better idea, but did not glean one. It is only after these scouting missions that he ordered Hooker to cross the creek and develop the Confederate left flank, something that could only be done through contact. Sure, McClellan could have ordered Hooker across earlier and had more daylight, but it is unclear what that might have accomplished. We need to remember as well that McClellan believed his army to be outnumbered. We know that is false, but no commander in his right mind would push his force into unknown territory while facing a stronger opponent. That said, McClellan did make a mistake by not sending the Twelfth Corps along with Hooker, and perhaps the Second Corps as well.

Exactly what McClellan was thinking on September 17th is anyone’s guess. McClellan, of course, has been skewered throughout history for generating a piecemeal attack. But his actual plan was to attack en echelon, Napoleon style.  But, if a commander follows such a plan to stretch enemy defenses, the key to victory is to commit the reserves in a timely fashion: “a mass of decision.”  This was the Napoleonic principle.  He utterly failed in this last and most crucial aspect of his plan. The Tactic of a Napoleon-era en echelon attack was to advance at different times to create a "pressure point" on the enemy's line and to follow up any breakthrough with reserve troops.

True to form as we saw in the Seven Days, his headquarters was over a mile away from the battlefield. That would guarantee that he had no clue what was happening on the field in real time. Communication would be delayed, and any momentary opportunity lost. And I think that is exactly what happened.

McClellan failed to commit his reserves for several reasons. 1).  Located at the Pry house, he was on the wrong side of Antietam creek and thus was removed from the battlefield.  2).  Burnside was supposed to be coming up from the south in behind Gen. D.H. Hill once Burnside's men cross the bridge and start rolling up the Confederate army from South to North.  However, Burnside failed in his mission because of extremely slow development of his attacks.  3).  Gen. Fitz Porter supposedly reminded Mac, when Mac was contemplating sending in Porter's men, that "His Corps represented the last troops of the Army of the Potomac".  It was a subtle reminder of how Napoleon sent in his only reserve of the Guard at Waterloo and was soundly defeated, which is all Mac needed to hear to become timid and afraid of failure.

McClellan had a long history of delaying attacks. Maybe he thought that he had to plan in great detail before launching them. But these delays were never beneficial and never justifiable. Perhaps:

·       McClellan didn’t really know the size of the army in his front at Antietam and therefore, he was being prudently cautious in moving slowly before starting his attack. https://www.historynet.com/mcclellans-war-winning-strategy/

·       He had an inability to create original or innovative ideas, even though he was tremendously smart and a quick study.

·       He might have been incapable of responding creatively to the real time exigencies of battle.  He could not creatively adjust his plan. Thus, at Antietam, when his plan of assault did not unfold like a predetermined Napoleonic success, Mac was unable to develop any new concepts on the spot to adapt to the changed circumstances.

·       My own opinion is that McClellan was more concerned with not losing than with winning. In his mind, as the fate of the Union rested on his shoulders, he could not allow a defeat.

·       Cpl Thomas Pressnel of Co D, 1st Minnesota said on Sept 18, the day after Antietam:  "McClellan is either a fool or a traitor." https://www.hhhistory.com/2019/05/antietam-bloodiest-day.html

McClellan telegraphed that he was going to start the attack on Lee’s left. His artillery opened up all afternoon September 16 in that area. Hooker was sent there. Lee saw all of this. Lee’s ranks had been thinned by casualties, sickness and large-scale desertions, but he had the advantage of position. He’d selected an excellent defensive field in which to fight. The lay of the land permitted the Rebels the opportunity to transfer troops under cover and allowed them to select the most advantageous artillery positions.

Antietam Creek is pretty shallow in most places, ranging from 60 to 100 feet in width, and was fordable in several places. It was crossed by three stone bridges each a mile apart. The bridges over Antietam Creek would be crucial. The top two for Union units to enter the battlefield, the bottom one, a stone bridge, for the final act.

At the Battle of Antietam, more Americans died in battle (September 17, 1862) than on any other day in the nation's history. The bloodiest battle in American history was Gettysburg, but its more than 46,000 casualties occurred over three days. Antietam ranks fifth in terms of total casualties in Civil War battles.

The Cornfield

On the morning of September 17th, a 30-acre cornfield owned by David R. Miller lay between the two armies. The cornstalks were turning from green to brown, ready to be harvested, 30 acres of corn fodder. None of it would exist by that evening. One general remarked, “Every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as with a knife.” Thousands of men would lie dead in that cornfield, the site of some of the most ferocious, confusing, and deadly fighting of the war.

At first light (around 5:30 a.m. on September 17, 1862), Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s I Corps struck the Confederate left along the Hagerstown Turnpike, aiming for the plateau crowned by the small whitewashed Dunker Church. Hooker’s roughly 8,600 men pressed forward against Stonewall Jackson’s 7,700 defenders, deploying Abner Doubleday on the right, James Ricketts into the East Woods, and George Meade’s reserves in the center. As Union infantry emerged into the Cornfield below the church, an artillery duel erupted: Confederate horse batteries under J.E.B. Stuart to the west and four guns under Col. Stephen D. Lee to the south traded shots with nine Federal batteries behind the North Woods and distant Parrott rifles. Fierce musket­ry and close‐quarters fighting swirled around the church itself, with repeated advances and withdrawals in the fields and woods before fresh Confederate brigades under McLaws and Hood counterattacked shortly after 7 a.m., stabilizing Jackson’s line near the landmark.

At dawn, a Union corps assaulted Lee's left flank across Miller's Cornfield. The battle began when Hooker’s I Corps attacked around 5:30 a.m. As the Union moved forward, they were met by withering fire from Confederate infantry and artillery, including Stonewall Jackson’s men positioned in the West Woods and behind a fence at the southern edge of the corn. The cornfield turned rapidly into a killing field. The tall corn created a kind of fog of war—soldiers couldn’t see well and often blundered into enemy fire at close range. Units were slaughtered in rows, sometimes without even seeing who was shooting them. Men layed prone and shot at legs through the stalks; if they stood up they couldn’t see and more apt to be killed. Fighting surged back and forth repeatedly, with Union troops advancing, getting repulsed, and attacking again.

At 7AM, Mansfield’s XII Corps brought in fresh troops, hoping to support Hooker, but was mortally wounded. His men also suffered heavy casualties as they entered the killing zone.

Next, General John Bell Hood’s division, including the famed Texas Brigade, launched a devastating counterattack, pushing Union troops back out of the Cornfield temporarily. Hood’s men took over 60% casualties—he later said his division was “dead on the field.” Control of the field changed hands perhaps 6 to 8 times in three hours. Casualties mounted on both sides—some regiments lost over half their men in minutes. By 9:00 a.m., the Cornfield fight had run its course; the area was covered with bodies. As regiments and brigades entered the Cornfield, only to be demolished in waves of attacks and counterattacks, a layer of smoke covered the field so that no one could see what was happening. Soldiers later related that they lay on the ground and shot at the legs of their enemies

Perched roughly three‑quarters of a mile southwest of the North Woods, the knoll known as Nicodemus Hill (or Heights) was crowned by more than a dozen Confederate cannon placed there overnight by J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry artillery, under the direct command of Maj. John Pelham. From this vantage the guns enfiladed the right flank of Hooker’s advancing columns as they poured out of the woods into the open terrain toward the Cornfield and Dunker Church. Pelham’s batteries swept the ground with shell and canister, inflicting severe casualties and helping to check the Union drive long enough for Jackson’s infantry to form a defensive Stonewall Jackson held the Confederate lines, and the Union suffered heavy casualties. Neither side seemed able to gain the upper hand, and one witness described the clash as "Artillery Hell."

2) While numerous countercharges held off Union advances, this Union division commander ordered yet another attack, resulting in Jackson’s left and center being in imminent danger. 3) Then this illustrious Union brigade charged parallel with Hagerstown Pike, sweeping the field. 4) His lines collapsing all around him, and out of men on the line, Stonewall Jackson turned to this general, his last reserve, being held after his men were in the center of the battle at Harpers Ferry.5) Which Confederate troops advanced in a desperate situation to save the southwest corner of the field? 6) After all of the intense action, which Confederate brigade held the line? 7) Both Hooker and Jackson each had one more brigade to throw into this killing field. Who were they led by? Which Union General led the attack? Hint: This general seemed to be everywhere Jackson’s men were during the war. 8) At the end of the fighting, who held the Cornfield? What was the staggering toll of casualties in just this one part of the field? 9) When did Jackson arrive at Sharpsburg?

Joseph Hooker was the Union corps commander that led the attack on the Cornfield. John Gibbon bravely led the first wave of that attack. The Iron Brigade struck hard at Jackson’s line and advanced deep into the Cornfield. Despite success, they met withering Confederate counterfire and were eventually pushed back. Units like the 6th Wisconsin and 2nd Wisconsin suffered casualty rates over 50%. Still, they inflicted enormous damage and helped set the stage for XII Corps’ later advance. You will notice that many of those who rose to high command later in the war courageously led in smaller roles in this battle. Arguably, that is why the tide of the war turned eventually: the cream rose to the top. 2) Abner Doubleday. 3) The Iron Brigade. 4) John Bell Hood. 5) Hays’ Louisiana Brigade. 6) The Stonewall Brigade. 7) Maj Gen Joseph KF Mansfield vs General DH Hill. Alpheus Williams led the 1st Division, XII Corps. His contributions to this campaign were enormous. He would go on to be a lawyer, judge, journalist, and later U.S. Congressman. His division had been defeated twice by Stonewall Jackson, once in the Valley and once at Second Bull Run. At Antietam, his division, which had found Special Order 191, had 25% casualties against Jackson’s Division. He would meet Jackson’s men again at Chancellorsville, where his men entrenched and stopped Jackson’s offensive, with heavy casualties. Williams finally stopped Jackson’s corps, without Jackson, of course, on Culp’s Hill. 8) It hardly mattered at that point, but the Army of the Potomac did hold part of it, however tenuously. Estimates suggest 8,000–10,000 men were killed or wounded in or near the Cornfield in just those few hours.9) It is so important to note that Longstreet was the only corps commander through South Mountain, and that Jackson wasn’t there because he was capturing Harpers Ferry, which he accomplished on September 15. Jackson then pushed his men to join the rest of the army at Sharpsburg, Maryland. Jackson arrived in time to bear the brunt of the Federal advances on the northern end of the battlefield in the morning phase. https://www.historynet.com/battle-of-antietam-carnage-in-a-cornfield/?f

The Sunken Road

The focus of battle swung southeast from The Cornfield to Bloody Lane. This sunken dirt farm road had been used by local farmers to bypass the town, and its level was below the fields around it due to use and rain. The Confederates fortified it, using the sunken road as a natural trench. This part of the battle occurred roughly between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Around 9:00 a.m., Union II Corps under Gen. Edwin Sumner attacked. Led by Gen. William H. French’s division, then Gen. Israel Richardson’s, they hit the lane from the east in wave after wave. The Confederates poured musket fire into the advancing Federals from the cover of the lane. Union troops returned fire, turning the area into a brutal stand-up firefight, lasting hours.

Casualties were enormous on both sides. Bodies piled up in the narrow lane—thus the name “Bloody Lane.”

Maj. Gen. Daniel Harvey Hill placed his division of approximately 2,600 men along the road, piled fence rails on the embankment to further strengthen the position and waited for the advance of the Union army. As Federal troops moved to reinforce the fighting in the West Woods, Union Maj. Gen. William H. French and his 5,500 men veered south, towards Hill's position along the Sunken Road. As French's men approached the Sunken Road, the Confederate troops staggered them with a powerful volley delivered at a range of less than one hundred yards.

Union and Confederate troops dug in. For nearly four hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., bitter fighting raged along this road as French, supported by Gen. Israel B. Richardson`s division, sought to drive the Southerners back. Outnumbered but with a well-defended position, the Confederates in the road stood their ground for most of the morning. Eventually, a gap opened in the Confederate line due to miscommunication and shifting reserves. Union troops flanked the lane, firing down its length, turning it into a death trap. Confederate resistance collapsed, and survivors fled toward Sharpsburg.

After the Union broke through the Sunken Road around 1:00 p.m., there was a real opportunity to split Lee’s army in two and possibly end the battle—and maybe the war—right there. An opportunity to crush Lee’s army was missed.

2) 3) 4) At the critical moment, as the Sunken Road collapsed, the Confederate Army was in great danger of being overrun. Why didn’t he throw in his reserves at this desperate time as Jackson did? 5) Who led the brigade that broke the defense of the Sunken Road? 6) How severe were the casualties?

The great Union heroes of this portion of the battle were immigrants from another country who came here seeking a better life and escape from a famine. The Irish Brigade (New York and Massachusetts Irish Americans) advanced upon Confederate troops who had taken up a position in No fewer than eight times were the colors of the Irish Brigade struck down, but nine times they were taken up and carried forward. Men sacrificed their lives to rush a fence and tear it down rather than have the entire brigade take fire through being slowed by the barricade. The Irish Brigade advanced under heavy fire, living up to the Gaelic phrase written upon their regimental colors: “Riamh Nar Dhruid O Spairn lann”, “Who never retreated from the clash of spears”.

Eventually, the Irish Brigade was able to flank the sunken road, and rather than facing entrenched riflemen head-on, they were then able to shoot down the Sunken Road, so effectively that The Sunken Road became The Bloody Lane. Union assaults against the Sunken Road carried the Confederate center, but the resulting advantage was squandered. The two remaining divisions of Sumner's corps that had not attacked the Hagerstown Road. They had entered the field through the North bridge then divided up.

DH Hill’s division had already intervened in the fluid battles near the East Woods, so even though it held a strong position in the sunken road, the division was somewhat weakened. The Union general who led the attack that broke the line was Francis Channing Barlow, who would go on to fame on Day 1 at Gettysburg and become one of the great heroes of the war, and a division commander under Hancock in the Overland Campaign.

Colonel John B Gordon was wounded 6 times that day, might have drowned in his kepi from his blood that collected in it, and had a facial scar forever. He promised General Lee "The men are going to stay here, General, till the sun goes down or victory is won!"

McClellan has been criticized ever since for advancing portions of his line at different times rather than at once and holding back an entire corps entirely.  At the moment when the battle was hanging in the balance, McClellan did not send in an entire corps he held in reserve, which might well have won the battle and perhaps the entire war that very day. The infamous story is that the reserve troops belonging to McClellan’s most trusted corps commander, Gen. Fitz-John Porter, were ready to take the field at the Sunken Road. For a brief moment, McClellan seemed ready to commit the V Corps reserves and looked to Porter, his most trusted subordinate. Porter is said to have slowly shaken his head with disapproval and is purported to have said to McClellan, “Remember, General! I command the last reserve of the last army of the Republic.” Modern scholarship suggests that this never happened, and that Porter was blamed after the fact, before his court-martial set up by Pope. It would take many years for Porter to get justice, and he would never command again. I have never believed that story. I think McClellan was so far away from the battlefield, the only time he left his HQ was to scout the far right near Nicodemus Heights around 2 pm, that by the time he was informed of the opportunity, Lee had already moved reinforcements to plug the hole in the center. Troops under Gen. James Longstreet and others helped stabilize the line, and the artillery was the real savior. That gave the Confederate army time to regroup and survive the day. This was his story to protect his reputation.

There were roughly 5,600 total casualties in this phase alone. The road remained choked with the dead and wounded for hours—an iconic image of Civil War carnage.

Map of Burnside Bridge by Hal Jespersen. Source: Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW, Creative Commons license 3.0, available here.

The Burnside Bridge

Late in the afternoon, the fiercest fighting again switched, now to the south part of the field, the Union left.  There, General Ambrose Burnside and XI Corps had been attempting for hours to cross Antietam Creek via a narrow stone arch bridge called the Rohrbach bridge at that time, and which would later bear the name Burnside Bridge. Hartwig claims that this name change was intended derisively and mockingly. This the site of one of the most dramatic and frustrating episodes of the war. Burnside is often criticized for his action, or lack thereof, to cross the creek for hours when doing so would have flanked Lee’s position. It is often said that his failure to perform a proper reconnaissance caused him to not realize there were several other places to ford his troops.

Burnside spent hours trying advance his troops through the bottleneck bridge under the accurate and deadly fire of Confederate sharpshooters. The bridge was defended by just 500 Confederate sharpshooters, who had terrific position to attack anyone trying to cross. They held the bluffs above the bridge, giving them a commanding view and position. From this high ground, they rained down musket and artillery fire on any Union troops attempting to approach.

Burnside had three divisions (thousands of men) but committed them in piecemeal assaults. Rather than flanking the bridge with a quicker ford (there were two nearby), he focused on direct frontal assaults. His troops tried repeatedly to storm the narrow bridge, each time taking heavy losses. After more than three hours, the Union finally succeeded around 1:00 p.m., with Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero’s brigade (including the 51st Pennsylvania and 51st New York) storming the bridge. Once across, Union troops pushed back the Confederates, climbing the heights and threatening the Confederate right.

It looked like a Union victory was inevitable. Just as Burnside’s men were preparing to roll up Lee’s right flank, Gen. A.P. Hill’s division arrived from Harpers Ferry after a forced march. At this critical moment, with the Confederate line breaking, A. P. Hill's division arrived after a forced march from Harpers Ferry and launched a surprise counterattack. They slammed into Burnside’s left around 3:30 p.m., halting and driving back Burnside.

Ambrose Burnside typically receives criticism for his slow advance at Antietam (and in other battles). Sears is especially critical, opining that his delay here had a serious impact on the battle and the war, which cannot be overstated. He wrote that Burnside should have found a way to cross the creek much earlier.

The opposite bank of the bridge was held mainly Georgians under Brig. Gen. Robert Toombs, the former Confederate Secretary of State, who had warned President Davis not to fire on Fort Sumter. He then resigned and took division command. He was wounded in action that day.

Stephen Sears, in his authoritative book Landscape Turned Red, makes the case that Ambrose Burnside’s sluggish performance at Antietam was at least partly due to his frustration with the command structure, especially with how McClellan treated him. Before Antietam, McClellan had organized his army into “wings” rather than corps directly under army command. Burnside was given command of the right wing, which included IX and I Corps. But just before the battle, McClellan reassigned I Corps to Hooker, leaving Burnside with just IX Corps—effectively demoting him in all but name. Sears argues that this shift bruised Burnside’s ego and left him resentful and confused about his role. He suggests Burnside was “acting out” in response by dragging his feet, waiting for more direct orders. Rather than taking initiative, as a wing commander might have done, Burnside behaved like a corps commander waiting for instructions—possibly as a passive protest. But while this interpretation is widely cited, this is entirely Sears’ own interpretation, with no source whatsoever. Hartwig doesn’t even mention it.

There has also been some controversy whether Antietam Creek had several areas that were easily crossed on foot, rendering the bridge much less important It’s fascinating to remember that Henry Kyd Douglas first said this, the man who might have been the courier who lost the Special Order. Hartwig notes that this was disingenuous because the creek was much deeper than that, and the entire bank was covered by Confederate troops. Hartwig notes that McClellan did not criticize Burnside until a year later, when he blamed Burnside for the delay. He also notes that the IX Corps Commander mostly ran the action, and that he tried very hard to cross the creek, had called for reinforcements, which McClellan would not send, instead shoring up his right flank. McClellan’s criticisms of Burnside as he was preparing to run for president. The fact is that Burnside faced severe resistance that day.

AP Hill was in Harpers Ferry, paroling prisoners. His entrance just when he did save the day for the Confederates. Just as it looked like the battle would be lost when Burnside's men began to turn the right of the Confederate line, A.P. Hill, leading the last elements of Jackson's Corps, arrived on the field from Harpers Ferry and stopped the Federal Advance. I am guessing that the reports of Lee’s final words about how AP Hill must come up, which I don’t think really happened, relate to this moment.

Now read part 4 on the aftermath of the battle here.

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The High Water Mark of the Mexican Army? The Battle of Buena Vista, 1847

The 1847 Battle of Buena Vista was part of the Mexican-American War. It involved hard fighting between US forces led by General Zachary Taylor and Mexican forces General Antonio López de Santa Anna. James F. Byrne Jr explains what happened in the battle.

The Battle of Buena Vista. Source: Library of Congress/N. Currier, Public domain, available here.

Returning from an inspection of the frontlines, the staff officer reined in his lathered mount and reported to the commander.  Outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and at times outfought, the American soldiers had tenaciously resisted the seemingly inexorable advance of their Mexican foes.  However, driven from their positions and their rear area threatened by marauding horsemen, the reeling troops were, according to the staff officer, whipped.  “I know it,” responded Major General Zachary Taylor, “but the volunteers don’t know it.  Let them alone and we’ll see what they do.”  What they would do is fight the Mexican army to a standstill at Buena Vista on February 23, 1847.

Five months into the Mexican War Taylor’s forces had won three major victories and seized much of Northern Mexico.  These tactical successes did not produce commensurate strategic results, and the US government ordered an advance on Mexico City.  To support this advance, Taylor was stripped of his 9,000 Regulars and instructed to remain on the defensive with his remaining 4,000 volunteers.  To add to Taylor’s challenges, General Antonio de Santa Anna raised a new army of 20,000 to clear Northern Mexico of the Yankee invaders.

In mid-January Santa Anna’s scouts captured dispatches detailing the reduction of Taylor’s army.  Taking advantage of this intelligence, Santa Anna immediately launched his host north on a 280 mile forced march across a stark, barren landscape.

Santa Anna was marching over territory Taylor believed impassable.  In fact, Taylor ignored  warnings  from his scouts until Santa Anna was within 40 miles of his own force.  Finally, convinced that a crisis was at hand, he ordered his command to assume defensive positions at a pass through the Sierra Madre mountains.  Unfamiliar with the terrain, he ordered BG John Wool to position and fight the forces, leaving Taylor free to move around the battlefield.  Wool established the defense where the main road  passed through a narrow defile.  Terrain to the west was largely impassable.  A plateau to the east was navigable but was crisscrossed by gullies restricting movement.  Wood blocked the defile with infantry and artillery and positioned the rest of his force along the plateau to the east.

Santa Anna sent cavalry units around the American left flank to threaten their rear area, while launching massed infantry attacks against the thin line on the plateau.  However, his cavalry was unable to overcome the ad-hoc defensive forces assembled behind the American lines, and his infantry, due to the restrictive terrain, was unable to mass its firepower.  Woods did a superb job moving infantry to fill gaps and repositioning artillery to seal off Mexican penetrations.  As for Taylor, he let his subordinates fight their individual battles.  One officer discovered this when seeking guidance.  After due consideration Taylor replied, “Give ‘em hell, Bragg.”

The courage of the Mexican soldiers and their superiority in numbers had Santa Anna on the brink of victory by the close of the 2d day.  Most of the American officers believed one more push and the Mexicans would carry the day.  Instead of a final push, Santa Anna withdrew.  Concerned about his lack of supplies and heavy (18%) losses, Santa Anna lost his nerve, the battle, and quite possibly the war.  Never again would he take the offensive, and never again would the Mexican army come as close to victory as it did at Buena Vista. 

Lessons Learned

Terrain is a force multiplier – Wool’s masterful use of terrain negated the Mexican advantage in numbers.

Operational security is a table stake – Santa Anna’s knowledge of Taylor’s diminished strength nearly had disastrous consequences.

The enemy has their own plans – Taylor’s reluctance to believe Santa Anna would move through barren terrain put his own command at risk.

Let good leaders lead – Taylor had the right people in the right place and expected them to perform.

Did you enjoy the piece? Join us on X here for more: @HistoryIsNowMag

Wolverton: The Rise and Fall of the First Railway Town in Britain

History is not just found in museums or far-off exotic locations — it can be discovered close to home. After more than forty years as a resident of Milton Keynes, England, I decided to go out and explore some of the local history, and there is plenty of it still waiting to be rediscovered: forgotten, overlooked, or simply swallowed up by the new commercial and industrial estates that have sprouted across the new city. History is not always about dramatic events like decisive battles or colourful monarchs; sometimes it is quite the opposite.

Steve Prout explains.

An old print of Wolverton. Source: Public domain, Peter Lewis, available here.

The town of Wolverton, England, is famous for its claim to be the first purpose-built railway town in England, if not the world. A few railway settlements — Shildon, for example — existed as early as 1825, but they were not purpose-built specifically for the arrival of the railway industry. The distinction is subtle, but a real one. At one time Wolverton was a leading, modern, and progressive town. It lies in the north of the new City of Milton Keynes, close to the historic towns of Stony Stratford and Newport Pagnell (famous for the Aston Martin factories).

Wolverton and the pre-railway era

Wolverton only rose to prominence in the first half of the nineteenth century. Before this, the town was a little-known medieval village that had long since vanished, its only mention being in the Domesday Book of 1086. The remains of that settlement are barely discernible today, save for a few impressions in a meadow where it once stood. By the 1700s Wolverton had been lost to history, and it remained so until its fortunes changed in the early 1800s.

Acts of Parliament and modernisation

It was the passing of the London and Birmingham Railway Act in 1833 that brought the town back to life, and its fortunes changed considerably for the better. The Act required the establishment of a repair and maintenance depot for the new line, then the longest railway line in the country. The site needed to be roughly halfway along the route, so that train carriages could be managed and repaired efficiently, and Wolverton fit the requirement. The town's position on the Grand Union Canal was also an advantage, allowing raw materials for the construction of the site to be transported easily.

The London and Birmingham line was one of the first of its kind, notable for its length and its importance in connecting two major cities. It took over twenty thousand workers and five years to build. For the remainder of the nineteenth century, the arrival of the railway works transformed and modernised Wolverton.

Examples of this transformation included the creation of the Bath House in 1890, which provided washing facilities, the Reading Room, and the arrival of new industries — notably McCorquodale Printers (founded in 1841), which established itself in Wolverton printing official stationery.

The story of McCorquodale is particularly interesting: its owner, George McCorquodale, would probably never have considered Wolverton as a location for a printing works had he not been approached by his friend Sir Richard Moon, Chairman of the London & North Western Railway. Moon suggested that McCorquodale establish a works in the town, with the aim of providing employment for the daughters of the railway workers, who otherwise had no work in Wolverton. McCorquodale already ran successful stationery ventures in Glasgow, London, and Leeds, and by 1878 he had added Wolverton to the list, helping the town prosper through full employment. The company also offered its employees benefits that were rare for the time – reading, recreation and dining rooms — although staff still had to work a fifty-four-hour week.

The Reading Room was unique, being the first of its kind on the railway. It was built alongside the works buildings to give railway workers the means to further their learning and education, though it was also accessible to others of a higher social standing. In its day it was frequently visited by Queen Victoria and other passengers during stops on their travels.

The Reading Room was progressive for its time, at a period when employers rarely gave much thought to staff wellbeing. However, the industry did need to maintain and encourage an educated workforce, given the technical expertise the work required. Over time, the Reading Room had fallen out of its original use and instead served a variety of functions, including a Wesleyan chapel and a sewing room, among others. It was abandoned completely in 1964, before later being brought back into use to accommodate a number of different businesses over the years. The building can still be seen today, though only an unassuming plaque marks its past, and it is now home to a marketing agency — its history almost lost to the modern world.

Wolverton Works and the War

The works also served the country's war effort: existing carriages were converted into ambulance trains during the First World War, and the workers' expertise was called upon again in the Second World War — this time not to build trains, but to produce Horsa gliders for the D-Day landings, repair Whitley bombers, manufacture Hawker Typhoon wings, and convert some seven hundred vans into much-needed armoured cars.

In 1962 its fortunes began to change, and the site contracted. The workforce today is a shadow of its former self, but the works remain an important part of Wolverton and a significant local employer.

Wolverton has a claim to many “firsts.” It was the first works to maintain and manufacture the Royal Train, a role it has held since 1842 and retains today. It also became the first railway works to use electricity, in 1901, for both utility purposes and to power machinery.

Wolverton Works Today

The works itself has diminished in size, with only repair and refurbishment duties remaining; the site is now mostly occupied by a Tesco supermarket and new housing estates along the canal. Some derelict buildings remain, awaiting development and further modern-day change.

The Reading Room is not the only feature to have been lost or to become a casualty of modern times — the Bath House remains in name only, now serving as a community centre.

McCorquodale Printers has since closed, and the ground now houses modern flats built in 2010. The company still operates today, based in Derby and embracing the digital age.

Wolverton's growth allowed nearby towns such as Bradwell and Newport Pagnell to grow and flourish alongside it. On the back of all this, a new city was eventually designed.

History is still with us, but we need to look a little closer to make sure we do not lose it, or forget how it once transformed our lives and the places around us. It is not only battles, prime ministers and monarchs that shape our lives; small, everyday things do too. There are many more historical stories in Milton Keynes lying forgotten or simply unnoticed.

What lies on your doorstep? Let us know below.

Now read about how the world’s longest railway was built here.

Why did the South Secede and so Start the US Civil War?

What caused the American Civil War, and why did the Southern states leave the Union? These are two of the most debated questions in American history. The standard view is that slavery was the sole cause. The North, led by an abolitionist president, Abraham Lincoln, sought to end the institution in the South, and the Southern states left to preserve it. Here, Jeb Smith argues that this is far from the truth.

A depiction of the Union capture of New Orleans in 1862. Source: Public domain, Illustration from Campfires and Battlefields by Rossiter, Johnson, et al. (New York, 1894), available here.

A little digging into the sources from the period shows Lincoln never desired to end slavery in the South, only to prevent its extension into the territories. The Republican platform Plank 4 stated they would not interfere with states’ rights to order their own domestic institutions, implicitly including slavery where it already existed, and condemned any idea of outside military intervention, whether in states or territories. Prominent Republicans and abolitionists, including Lincoln himself many times over, said the same. The last thing they wanted was for free blacks to be running around in their own states or in the territories. The radical abolitionist wing of the North despised slavery but, like Lincoln at the time, were far from wanting to see blacks marrying or working with whites, still less voting.

When the original Deep South states left the Union, the federal government quickly came under considerable fiscal strain and had to borrow money from various banks. The primary form of taxation at that time was through tariffs, which fell heavily on the cotton-producing Southern states, generating most of the revenue. This was why Lincoln could not allow the South to secede: his political agenda involved a massive expansion in taxation and government spending, meaning he could not countenance a massive reduction in federal revenues. So, when his primary income sources left, and his bankers and financial interest groups commanded him not to allow them to go, we were thrust into a war. Money was, in this case, the root of the war’s evils.

From the reverse perspective, tariffs were one of the major reasons the Deep South left the Union. As mentioned, they were burdened with generating more than their fair share of federal income, and the vast majority of their taxes went North, to benefit Northern industry and pay for internal improvements in Northern states and various governmental subsidies. This is clearly stated in various secession documents and speeches leading up to and during the actual breach, and is presented as a vital cause of these states deciding to leave the Union.

A half dozen or so other issues also played a role; among them was, indeed, slavery. But slavery could be split into several separate questions, only one of them centered on maintaining slavery itself (as stated, it was in no danger). But primary among the various strands of slavery as a cause was the maintenance of limited government.

Limited government

Southerners, as well as many Northerners, had long maintained that limited government could only be preserved by adhering to a strict constructionist view of the Constitution, as a document of delegated powers from the states to the central government. The government cannot extend its powers past those limitations, of a few defined and delegated powers, without first amending the Constitution to allow it to do so. If the federal government were to succeed in expanding beyond its delegated authorities and gained a power or authority over the states that was not clearly expressed in the Constitution, no rights would be safe: the Constitution would then be of no value. The Union that delegated certain limited powers to the federal government, reserving all else to the individual states, would be destroyed. And finally, the government would become limitless in power.

For decades, virtually all the South and many in the North opposed any such actions, but there were those who desired undefined (and therefore limitless) central powers, such as the Republicans and Lincoln in 1860. One of those issues, but by no means the only one, was over slavery’s extension into the Western Territories.

The Republicans attempted to place sovereignty with the federal government, not the states, so that they could outlaw or abolish slavery in the Territories without delegated authority. The Southern platform of 1860 said it is up to those territories to decide if they want slavery, not to the federal government, since it has no delegated authority to do so. Southern pro-slavery “fire-eaters” such as William Yancey were great “defenders” of slavery. What often goes unnoticed is that he also admitted that slavery would never extend West. The soil and climate and the resulting agriculture were not suited to it, and the people would never vote for it. Meaning that he, and many other pro-slavery advocates, admitted and knew slavery would not expand, so whyever would they have fought for the existence of something they knew would never occur?

They did so for the principle of the matter, the idea of a limited government, and because of their opposition to handing over undefined powers to central authorities, leading inevitably to the authoritarianism we endure today.

Upper South

Finally, what is rarely taught is that the Upper South left the Union for separate reasons from those of the Deep South. Originally, the leaders and people of the Upper South rejected secession, spoke harshly of its leaders and their reasons for leaving, and voted down secession by wide margins. An enormous wave of Union patriotism swept through these states as they held even closer to the Union. Men who would become leaders, generals, governors, and major politicians in the future Confederacy condemned the secessionists for disloyalty and worse.

But they also warned President Lincoln not to coerce those Southern states into remaining in the Union, because the foundation of all good government was the consent of the governed. And that no matter why a state chose to leave a union of consent, they had every right to do so, to coerce them would be tyrannical and turn the United States into a military despotism that would repudiate the founders and the Declaration of Independence. So when Lincoln ignored them and called on those states to send volunteers to subdue the Deep South, they were enraged. Those who were once overwhelmingly Unionist became secessionists, not because they agreed with the Deep South’s original decision, but because they could no longer maintain their honor and remain in a union of forced obedience while helping Lincoln wage war on the God-given principle of self-rule.

Lincoln’s call for volunteers was the single most fatal event in destroying self-government, the consent of the governed, and liberty in America. The Upper South found out that Lincoln was indeed the devouring dragon the Deep South had warned them about. And we still live in Lincoln’s America, where we are subservient to our government, rather than the government existing for our own benefit. The South fought to preserve liberty, but Lincoln to destroy it.

You can read more from Jeb on the US Civil War here.

About the Author

Jeb Smith is an author, speaker, and historian who has written five books and over 130 articles, and has been featured on various podcasts and on television and radio stations. His works include Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War, written under the pen name Isaac C. Bishop, and the soon-to-be-released I'll Take My Stand: Defending the Causes of Southern Secession. For more on Jeb Smith, you can view his work at authorjebsmith.com

This article was originally published at ManifestHistory.com.

What is it about The West of America? The Importance of the West in America

What is it about the west? Why is country music listened to in every corner, region, city, small town, and house across the United States? Why does every child at one point dream of being a cowboy or a misunderstood outlaw? Why is it that at a turbulent point in life every man has stated at least once in his life “screw it, if it doesn’t work ill just move out to a ranch on my own and live off grid”? Why is it that still today that foreign countries still refer to an American at times as a cowboy? Wait, how did Americans even get the reputation of a bunch of cowboys and outlaws?

Jeffrey Horn explains.

A Cowboy with the description ‘A King of The Plains’ . Source: Public domain, Postcard commercialized by Raphael Tuck & Sons, available here.

The matter of the West if curious. The reality of the history of the cowboy does not originate in the United States nor were they ever figures of glory and lifestyle. Cowboys were originally hired hands on ranches known as Vaqueros. The Vaqueros were known as experts of roping and herding, being trained from a young age to perfect the skills. By the 1700s the Vaqueros had expanded across Mexico, the American West, and into South America reaching as far as Argentina. As settlers expanded west into the new frontier, collaboration efforts with the Vaqueros became more and more common leading to adaptation into American ranch and farming life in the west. Which brings us back to the point of this - how did this collaboration and eventual takeover by the American way become our stereotype across the world and longed for identity at home? It makes no sense…

The original 13 Colonies had a 100-year (or more) head start on creating solidified personalities, stereotypes, and identities for colonists and eventual Americans that stemmed from the east coast. As we know these cities and historical towns do have their own strong personalities from the people of blue collar people of Boston who think the vowel O is pronounced like A and A is pronounced like H, to the hardnosed people of New York City, the loud and passionate people of Philadelphia, all the way down to the party and glamor people of Miami. But these personalities do a hard stop at the surrounding suburban neighborhoods outside the major cities. None of them extend past, no one from the middle of Oklahoma says “If all else fails I wanna be a New Yorker”. Although, if I lived in Oklahoma I would probably say that, but as a kid from Jersey I might be slightly biased. Regardless, the fascination of the wild west still sits in every American's mind, past and present.

Origins

Anyway, back to the Vaqueros, or well, the end of them. As the clash of cultures continued the idea of the cowboy began to take its own independent form and solidify into American culture completely detaching from its original Mexican roots. The image of the American Cowboy kept the same big curved hat, bandana, boots with spurs, and leather coat. But what completely erased the Vaquero Mexican roots was the profession change of the American Cowboy, both in the fantasized and real West. Now that the Mexican influence was completely Americanized and taken out, the American Cowboy needed a better profession then a ranch hand and it needed to have a cooler presence then just a guy who showed up to work.

But what? What could America give this physical, yet mostly mythical, icon to make it uniquely its own? Perhaps bear arms? The American Cowboy was depicted with and given guns to add to his image, much more than just some rope. The change to a more violent image came from the American idea that the settlers were in constant danger and needed to be ready to fight off any Native Americans or any other threat at a moment's notice. But who's surprised? We moved onto ancient native territories and took all their resources and just simply claimed it American? That does however bring up an interesting debate of was it a necessary evil to allow progress and societal evolution to occur or is it so completely wrong what the colonists and settlers did and we should feel bad and revert to how it was?

But again, not the point here. Another aspect that the new American Cowboy took away from the Vaquero origins was the idea of traveling together. The new image of the Cowboy was a lone ranger, a lone wolf, or a “one-man wolf pack” like Zach Galifianakis explained the roof of a casino in Las Vegas (part of the American west). This image of a lone cowboy triggered the fantasy or idea that he was running from a past that was haunting him from afar. Whether it was a girl he loved and lost, violent things he had done to get by that he no regretted, or simply not being able to find peace by staying put the American Cowboy never stayed in one spot for very long.

Appeal

Now that the origins of the American Cowboy are out of the way, how does this appeal to people? To be alone in the American West, which is essentially a desert, traveling on a horse with no name that you bought from an old guy in a trailer park for $20, if you wanted to stay true to the spirit of being a cowboy of course. To then be moving from place to place with no stability, doing some odd jobs to maintain at least a minimal cash flow, no contact with friends or family, and again traveling through desolate lands and potentially volatile weather. Especially if all you've known is the complete opposite, it can't be a solution to a life plan. Although, to escape the congestion of the northeast states or the skyrocketing prices and taxes of the west coast or even the extreme humidity and heat from the south and simply travel through near untouched lands and explore the national parks. Escape from the stresses of life, social media trends, buying the right clothing brands, keeping up with the latest technology, and running into every single person you know from high school at the bar wouldn’t be such a bad way to live, would never be able to keep up as much with my beloved New York sports teams or Florida Gators but they suck most of the time anyway so I wouldn’t miss much. Something to consider.

This draw to a simpler and/or easier way of life was originally a great selling point to the colonists that were tired of being confined to the original 13 colonies. So much so that at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, the United States saw an increase of population by almost 2 million people. And by 1840, nearly 40% of the population of the infant United States of America lived west of the Appalachian Mountains, which once served as a hard stop and great divide from the rest of the unknown “New World lands”. What about in today’s America, you may ask? Well just like that “it was never a phase” emo lifestyle, Americans are still moving into the mid-west at growing rates. According to the U.S. News, of the top 25 fastest-growing places in the United States more than 50% of the places listed are located in western states such as Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho (Cabral, 2025). But why? What is it about the west that makes it such an attractive place to live in? Your “next-door neighbor” is most likely over a mile away. However, you can buy that large property for less than you can buy a one bedroom shack on the Jersey Shore. Not to mention less or zero taxes on certain things whether it be property, food, or clothing. Although there are different levels of freedom living in the wild west today than at its initial discovery, the trends stay. Quiet, solitude if you choose, and seemingly more freedom to live as you like in, The Land of the Free.

Country music

However, the biggest influence and draw to life outside of the modern hustle and bustle is the grip that country music has on almost every American. Country music is found in every corner of the United States and has infiltrated almost every single person's music taste to some extent, and some of it is definitely intriguing. There will be at least one song that comes on and paints the picture of a green pasture, a cold beer, a sunset in the distance, and your wife and dog on either side of you that prompts a thought of “ah, that’s nice.” or at any BBQ in the summer you will find yourself singing and/or dancing to a song that is focused on the glory days of younger years or the old glory of the younger and simpler USA. Sometimes country music just hits the perfect musical vibe you're looking for, or triggers an emotion from a memory long gone. Perhaps it is not so absurd that everyone has at least one country music song on their playlist no matter if you live in the most suburban, urban, or rural place, and perhaps it’s a connector for us all that we do not see, or maybe it really is just a stereotype of America that we cannot outrun. Country music may also be the United States’ most prominent none-materialistic export (unofficially). Thinking about it, the biggest star in the world right now is Taylor Swift who was, or is depending on how you look at it, a country music super star. Before Taylor Swift though, global icons including Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson dominated around the world and shared the American way of life and music sound outside the borders of the fifty states.

Western movies

Another massive American export that goes hand and hand with country music is Western movies. For nearly fifty years American western movies dominated the emerging cinema scene. Starting out with everyone's favorite pre-WWI entertainment source, silent movies, and to be specific the widely recognized first silent film to embody the “western narrative” was Edwin S. Porter’s eleven minute silent film called The Great Train Robbery was released in 1903. It was short but captivated audiences enough to make it an iconic part of cinematic history (Gioia, 2026, 1). Fast forward now to post-WWI with a longer addition of a silent western film that was released at the height of the Roaring Twenties, which of course was famously balanced out by Prohibition which also brought balance to the force, I mean decade, anyway. The movie was released in 1923 by James Cruz and depicted life traveling the west in a wagon, the hardships of traveling into the unknown, and living off the land. The film was called, The Covered Wagon and was a major step for cinema and westerns alike in the United States (Whiteman, 2019, 1).

For the next thirty years westerns were the top movie genre in the United States, and it was not long before European countries wanted in on the action. With Europe recovering financially and physically from the fallout of WWII, film makers realized that it would be cheaper to make the movies in their own countries rather than traveling to America and working through Hollywood. With this new idea all boots, steeds, and wagons started to point east beyond the Atlantic Ocean and find their new home on the boot-shaped peninsula of the Mediterranean, Italy. Spaghetti Westerns, as they were called affectionately, or derogatory sometimes, became immensely popular during the 1960s (Abreu, 2025, 1) and featured the greatest cowboy seen on screen, Clint Eastwood. The stand out strand of the large spaghetti pot was The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and its iconic theme music. The integration of the Spaghetti Western movies into the world puts the final nail in the coffin in why the cowboy theme and stereotype surrounds the United States today.

It is possible America will never outgrow the stereotype of a bunch of cowboys and outlaws and it seems entirely possible that Americans will never stop fantasizing about the American West and continue to yearn for a quiet life living off the land. Somethings are so ingrained in the fabric of a being that it would be impossible to strip it out completely and we will wonder forever, what is it about the west?

 What do you think of cowboys and the American West? Let us know below.

References

●      Abreu, R. (2025, Feb 4). https://www.walkerart.org/reader/covered-wagon-photos-arapaho-wind-river-whiteman/.StudioBinder. https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-spaghetti-western-definition/

●      Cabral, A. (2025). 25 fastest-growing places in the United States. U.S. News & World Report.https://www.usnews.com

●      Davis, D. B. (1954). Ten-Gallon Hero. American Quarterly, 6(2), 111–125. https://doi.org/10.2307/3031207

●      Gioia, T. (2026, June 6). The 50 Essential Western Films. The Honest Broker. https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-50-essential-western-films

●      Whiteman, M. (2019, Feb 14). The (Un)Covered Wagon: An Arapaho Filmmaker Unpacks the Complexities of an Early Western. Walker Reader. https://www.walkerart.org/reader/covered-wagon-photos-arapaho-wind-river-whiteman/

The Largest Slave Rebellion in US History: The Spirit of 1811 - Freedom or Slavery

The largest slave rebellion in US history took place in Louisiana in 1811. Here, Husain H. Roussel looks at the background, including the slave rebellion in Haiti, and what happened in Louisiana – and its aftermath.

The slave rebellion, known as the 1811 German Coast Uprising. Source: Public domain, source here, image from here.

Introduction

The French planter population, what was left of them, had barely fled Haiti in 1804 during the Haitian Revolution. It left both French plantation owners and French civilians massacred with little mercy and no quarter given by former slaves during a widespread slave rebellion. The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte sent the best of his army along with Polish mercenaries to retake Haiti, but with little success and at great cost to the expedition forces, who suffered from disease and a relentless onslaught from the Haitian militia. A militia made up of men, women, the young and old, and free people of color unwilling to suffer the chains of slavery or the institution of slavery once again. The Polish mercenaries sent with the French Expeditionary force decided, after witnessing French cruelty during the conflict, to abandon their French allies and support the slaves in their fight against the French, making them some of the very few Europeans on the island to be both spared and given Haitian citizenship in the new republic.

The defeat of the French expeditionary force, the burning of most plantation homes, the extermination of whites in every town harboring the French citizens, and the religion of voodoo inspiring the slaves on every corner of Haiti with the beating of religious drums to take up arms against their oppressors, would witness the inevitable end for French control. The island of Santo Domingo would become the second republic in the western hemisphere, after the American Revolution, to obtain its independence from a European overlord. The difference was that this new republic would be solely controlled by former slaves and freemen of color who would now decide what course the future of Haiti would take.

News of a Slave Victory

The few French survivors who managed to escape took what they were able to carry or salvage, including Haitian slaves and newly enslaved Africans who were either loyal to their masters or forced to leave the island at gunpoint. French survivors fled to France, other French colonies in the Caribbean like Martinique and Guadeloupe, or Spanish-controlled Cuba. The French colony of Louisiana and the district of New Orleans would become another destination for many of the now recently created French refugees to settle in, and a few years later would become the next stage for the largest slave rebellion in the history of the United States of America. The news of the 1804 Haitian rebellion and their independence from France as a sovereign nation became a nightmare for all plantation owners in every country who held people of color in bondage, be they of African descent or native indigenous people.

Fear of the Southern Plantation Owners

The news of the Haitian victory over the French, not to mention a French professional army, was without a doubt the worst nightmare for every southern plantation owner in the slave-holding states of the newly established United States of America. The armed insurrection of slaves through none other than widespread rebellion was the fear they would awaken to each morning while looking out the window from the second floor of their lavish and genteel plantation homes. What if this happens here? A constant thought while watching their slaves working in brutal conditions on the plantation fields. This was also what every paid overseer who dared not be caught off guard worked hard to prevent by maintaining order as they ruthlessly whipped the slaves into obedience for any transgression, or used other brutal means to control the slaves in the unforgiving atmosphere of the southern plantation.

Slavery in French Controlled Louisiana

The French claimed the area known as Louisiana in 1682, and the territory claimed by the Kingdom of France was named in honor of the French King Louis XIV by the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. The institution of slavery was initially introduced on the indigenous people of the colony around 1706. The harsh treatment of slavery, along with a lack of immunity to new diseases, led to the deaths of many indigenous people. The French would nevertheless continue to capture indigenous people for slavery throughout their control of Louisiana by military raids on native villages or enemy prisoners traded to the French who were obtained from various warring Native American tribes in the area. However, as far as the French were concerned, the use of indigenous people did not solve the problem for a wider need in slave labor, thereby witnessing the introduction of African slaves to Louisiana around 1719. While people of African descent were recorded in Louisiana census reports as living in the territory around 1712, the vast number of African slaves began to arrive in 1719.

African slaves in Louisiana

The first slave ships from Africa arrived in Louisiana in 1719, only a year after the founding of New Orleans. Around twenty-three ships or so brought slaves to Louisiana in the French period alone, almost all embarking prior to 1730. The need for labor on the large concessions proved so great that officials found themselves unable to satisfy the colonists’ demand for slaves. Thus, the large number of slaves brought over to supply colonists with free labor soon resulted in enslaved Africans outnumbering free whites. In 1741, four African slaves lived in the colony for every 1.2 free whites. The French period of control in Louisiana, due to commercial and agricultural needs for labor, continued to witness slaves becoming the majority of the population.

Spanish Controlled Louisiana

Spain obtained control of Louisiana and other French Territory as an ally of France in 1762, near the end of the Seven Years War in Europe, known as the French and Indian War in North America. The Kingdom of France agreed to the conditions of transfer under secret terms with Spain for the Louisiana territory in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The Spanish Empire would control the territory by replacing most French authorities with some resistance by 1767, and establishing new laws and codes to govern the population of free citizens and slaves. For example, the laws on the enslavement of Native Americans had been banned by the Spanish government in Louisiana around 1769, but still allowed for the enslavement of African slaves. Spanish laws on the treatment of African slaves were less harsh than the French; however, there were still attempted slave rebellions by escaped slaves living in the swamps of New Orleans known as Maroons between the period 1780-1784. The years 1791 and 1792 witnessed two more slave uprisings, temporarily putting a halt to the slave trade in Louisiana and leading to questions about solutions for managing existing slaves in the area. The Spanish did allow enslaved people the opportunity under Spanish law to buy their freedom, regardless of whether their master was in disagreement on the purchase of their freedom. Slaves were given the opportunity to petition the court for better treatment if they were mistreated by very abusive masters. Spain would control the Louisiana territory and New Orleans until November 30, 1803, but the little fair treatment the slaves had under the Spanish administration would soon end.

Louisiana Purchase, 1803

Napoleon Bonaparte, witnessing the decisive defeat of his army by the Haitian General Jean-Jacque Dessalines in Santo Domingo at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, 1803, and ongoing conflicts in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, decided to disregard further attempts to establish a new French Empire in the western hemisphere. Napoleon had more pressing issues to deal with and made the decision to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States to raise funds for his wars with Great Britain after Spain returned the territory to French jurisdiction. France formally turned over the colonial capital of New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory on December 20, 1803, at the Cabildo in the Plaza de Armas, currently named Jackson Square, to the United States Government. The United States immediately worked on a reverse of French and Spanish laws for slavery. Former laws allowing for slave self-purchase and rights for slaves to petition wrongs in court were replaced by 1806 with more brutal and harsh systems that identified more with the American plantation system of slavery already in practice in the southern states.

Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity

The spread of liberty, equality, and fraternity among the slaves on the plantations in Louisiana began with refugees, whether they were white, black, or free persons of color, who escaped Santo Domingo for New Orleans and Louisiana after the Haitian Revolution for a fresh start. The local authorities did their best to suppress the knowledge of the rebellion from reaching slaves; however, a fresh influx of slaves brought by the newly arrived French refugees began the spread of information in whispers on the successful rebellion in Haiti against brutal slave masters and the liberation of their island. The new laws against slavery formed by the United States after the Louisiana Purchase made the life of slaves more unbearable, in addition to new slave owners, especially from other southern states, who arrived in Louisiana with more strict views about punishment and justified control of slaves. This meant more radical and brutal treatment of slaves across several new plantations in Louisiana and New Orleans that finally sparked the flames for slaves to lead a rebellion, no matter the cost, in pursuit of their own liberty and equality.

The Slave Rebellion Begins

The leadership of the slave rebellion formulated their plans in secrecy on January 6, 1811. They decided to put their plan in action during the days when work was slow on the plantations and slaves were allowed some brief periods to relax. The primary leader for the rebellion was a mixed-race Creole who worked as a slave driver, a term used to describe a slave overseer of other slaves, named Charles Deslondes. Rasmussen, (2011), Charles and the other slaves on the German Coast were well armed with revolutionary ideology, and some with military training. They were conversant in the doctrines of the French Revolution, and aware of the powerful examples of the Haitian revolutionaries. He sent orders to spread the word up and down the area known as the German Coast to slaves on several plantations to get ready for the insurrection to begin. The slaves began the revolt at the Andry Plantation on January 08, 1811, with a group of 15 slaves attacking Colonel Manuel Andry, a militia leader and owner of Andry Plantation, and killing his son Gilbert Tomassin Andry. Charles Deslondes then gathered more slaves to join the rebellion from nearby plantations. The number of slaves from each plantation that joined numbered somewhere between 10 and 25 percent. The slaves gathered as many weapons as they could in the form of a few firearms, whips, sugarcane cutting knives, axes, hoes, pikes, and any other items that could be used as a weapon. The group also used flags and banners during their march to signify their organized revolt. They began to march upriver to New Orleans about 30 miles away to the sound of their own beating drums. The slaves continued a very organized march after they inflicted heavy damages on each plantation they passed and liberated more slaves during their march to New Orleans. The number of the slave rebellion reached between 200 and 500 slaves by the time the authorities were able to react and respond with a plan to end the rebellion.

Slave Owners and Officials Form a Militia

The slaves continued to search in homes for slave owners or other members of the planter class to kill during their march through the German Coast. A planter named François Trépagnier was killed with an axe by a slave named Kook as the rebellion grew in strength and more liberated slaves joined the insurrection. The rest of the white planter class in the area who were caught off guard quickly retreated across the Mississippi River as the slave army carried out more destruction on larger plantations and set others on fire. Among the planters retreating across the Mississippi River was Colonel Manuel Andry, who had survived his injuries and was heading efforts to mobilize a militia to stop the rebellion. Many of the planters were not in their plantations during the attacks due to having secondary town homes in New Orleans. A few other planters were warned by loyal slaves and managed to hide or find safety. The slaves managed to reach very close to the northwest of New Orleans after a few hours of marching. They were 15 miles away from the city before Colonel Andry had enough men in his quickly formed militia to oppose them.

The End of the Rebellion

On January 9, the Territorial Governor of Louisiana, William Charles Cole Claiborne, ordered a curfew as planters and their families began to panic while fleeing from the insurrection. Rasmussen, (2011), within hours, fleeing refugees in carts and carriages crowded the road into the city forming a traffic jam nine miles long. Governor Claiborne, along with Commodore John Shaw and General Wade Hampton, were able to assemble a small force of United States Army soldiers and United States Navy sailors to assist one part of the militia forces in suppressing the insurrection. The slaves managed on January 10th to avoid the regular military force who thought they were at the Jacque Fortier’s Plantation camping for the night. The slaves had instead already moved upriver about 15 miles close to the Bernard Bernoudy Plantation. The militia leaders, Manuel Andry, Charles Perret, and Judge St. Martin, quickly formed another militia force on the opposite side of the river to attack the slaves before they reached higher ground. The militia’s initial attack killed about 45 slaves, with the rest fleeing for safety in nearby swamps. The slaves fired their weapons, which were only accurate at short range. They fired until they were out of ammunition at the planter class militia. According to Rasmussen, (2011), angered white soldiers poured over the slave lines, shooting and bayoneting the slaves who put up resistance. The combined force of the militia and volunteer regular United States forces consisted of about 700 soldiers. On January 11th, the militia used Native American scouts to pursue the escaped slaves in the rough terrain of the nearby woods and swamps, along with hunting dogs. They captured the leader, Charles Deslondes, defeated more armed slave forces, and continued to suppress the remaining slaves in rebellion.

Trail of Decapitated Slave Heads Sends a Sadistic Message

The leaders of the militia forces identified Charles Deslondes as the ring leader of the slave rebellion. He received no trial and was immediately sentenced to death. He was tortured so other slaves hiding in the woods and swamps could hear his screams. He was shot in both legs, had his hands chopped off, shot with a nonlethal injury to his body so he could suffer more, and then set on fire before he died. The remaining leaders of the rebellion were captured and killed. Their heads were decapitated and given to Manuel Andry to put as warnings to slaves on his plantation. The rest of the slaves in the rebellion were hunted down, with 95 more slaves killed in combat or during capture. The trial consisted of more captured slaves watching their cohorts get 30 lashes from the whip, and then themselves being executed. The youngest rebel, a 13-year-old boy, received 30 lashes but was spared from execution. By the end of January, 100 decapitated heads of slaves executed from the rebel force were displayed on fence poles on the levee from the Place d'Armes in New Orleans, and throughout the River Road to the Plantation District and on the Andry's Plantation. The heads on high poles from the corpses of fallen slaves were a brutal and sadistic message to the consequences for future slaves thinking about rebellion. According to Rasmussen, (2011), in committing these atrocities the planters were using savagery to fight what they understood as savagery. They saw the imagery of heads on pikes as a language that their slaves can understand. Corpses represented a lingua franca in interactions between the colonists and the colonized, the masters and the slaves. The remaining slaves convicted of lesser crimes during the rebellion by the trial were forced back into harsh slave labor, due to the price each slave would cost in reimbursement for planters if they were executed.

Conclusion

How ironic that the Battle of New Orleans, only a few years later on January 18, 1815, witnessed the use of slaves, pirates, and freemen of color by General Andrew Jackson to protect the city from the British expeditionary force during the end of the War of 1812. In essence, this was to protect a nation that still saw them as little more than slaves and useful only in times of extreme desperation. Andrew Jackson made a promise of freedom for about 500 slaves enlisted under a conscription bond to fight the British in New Orleans, with the condition of obtaining their freedom after the war. This unfortunately did not occur when the white residents of New Orleans were alarmed at seeing slaves serving in military roles, armed with weapons and walking around freely in the city. The residents must have had the previous 1811 German Coast Uprising of 500 slaves still fresh on their minds. The fear of future uprisings with a combat-trained group of slaves was too much for the white residents to tolerate. The decision was made to disband them and return them back to their slave masters, thereby forfeiting the promise of freedom. The hope of freedom and rebellion from slavery would not die, and in 46 years, the American Civil War would finally end the brutal institution of slavery in the United States of America once and for all. The American Civil War would once again witness former slaves, freemen of color, and runaway slaves fighting as volunteer soldiers for the Union Army in this war, not only for themselves or loved ones, but for the freedom and equality of all enslaved people across the nation. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, issued by President Abraham Lincoln, was the defining moment enslaved people had prayed for that finally declared all enslaved people in the former Southern States of the Confederacy free from bondage.

Now read about the Louisiana Purchase here.

The author recommends this book: Rasmussen, Daniel, (2011). American uprising: The untold story of America's largest slave revolt. New York, NY: Harper.

Antietam and the Maryland Campaign: Part 2 – General McClellan’s Response to Finding the Lost Order

The Confederate victory at Second Manassas, August 28-30, 1862, followed victories in the Valley Campaign and the Peninsula. The casualties incurred by the Army of the Potomac included 14,000 killed or wounded of 62,000 engaged, compared to about half of that for the Army of Northern Virginia. Then, on September 1, Stonewall Jackson defeated a Union cohort retreating from the battlefield at Chantilly. General Pope was relieved of command and sent to Minnesota to deal with the Sioux, and was never again involved in the Civil War. Pope would blame Fitz-John Porter for the loss, even though that wasn’t the case; Porter would be heard from again at Antietam but would go through a devastating court martial soon after. One of Pope’s generals said of him, “Suffice to say ... that more insolence, superciliousness, ignorance, and pretentiousness were never combined in one man.”

In this multi-part series, here Lloyd W Klein looks at General McClellan’s Response to Finding the Lost Order.

Read part 1 on the background here.

Major General Thomas Stonewall Jackson. Source: Public domain, unknown author, available here.

When General McClellan came into possession of Special Order No. 191, he had an accurate and timely picture of exactly where the components of the Confederate army were located and what routes they were going to be using in the next several days. He knew that the Confederate army was divided, and he knew exactly where they were. Lee had dangerously split his army into five parts, although the orders only mentioned four columns. Three columns had converged on Harpers Ferry to capture the Federal garrison there, a fourth column was near Hagerstown, and a fifth column was acting as a rear guard near Boonsboro, MD.

Why did it take so long for McClellan to respond?

This is one of the great fables of the battle. McClellan had the “slows” in many instances, but not in this one. In the week it took for Lee's army to march to Frederick, McClellan's army traveled an equal distance to redeploy on the north side of Washington. This was accomplished as he reshuffled commands, had his officers under charges reinstated, and prepared to fill out his army with untrained recruits. He really was a very good administrator.

Most traditional histories of the Antietam Campaign assert that McClellan was given Gen. Robert E. Lee’s plans in Frederick, Md. before noon on September 13. The traditional narrative states that he waited 18 hours before acting on the find. By waiting before taking advantage of this intelligence and repositioning his forces, he squandered the best opportunity in the war to defeat Lee definitively.

McClellan did not have possession of the order until later in the afternoon not earlier. The evidence indicates that Barton Mitchell of the 27th Indiana Volunteers discovered the order shortly before noon on September 13. Following this discovery, it took an additional one to two hours for the orders to reach McClellan. It is estimated that McClellan received the orders sometime between 1:00 and 2:30 p.m. on that day.

These criticisms stem from the belief that McClellan moved too slowly and cautiously to attack Lee. They assert that when a copy of Lee’s plans fell into McClellan’s hands, the Union general wasted 18 precious hours before advancing. Politicians from the 1860s onward and countless historians have claimed he could have easily destroyed Lee’s army during the campaign and ended the war in 1862, sparing the country another two and a half years of bloody conflict.

Some historians believe that for this reason, the loss of the Special Order #191 wasn’t as decisive as history makes it out to be. That it had in fact little impact on subsequent events. I strongly disagree, in that McClellan otherwise would have had no clue where Lee was going.

A more recent re-evaluation disputes this sequence of events entirely, citing long overlooked evidence that McClellan moved quickly and there was no 18 hour delay. Gene Thorp in a 2012 article in The Washington Post cited evidence that the vanguard of Army of the Potomac was in motion all day on the 13th due to orders McClellan issued. After the war, McClellan held to the claim that he acted immediately to put his armies on the move. It is this view that we want to explore today.

The story starts out without controversy. Early in the morning of Sept. 13, most of the Union army was on the move to Frederick, Md., including McClellan, who was relocating his headquarters there from Urbana. At the conclusion of the march, a copy of Lee's orders was found in an open field. What time this "Lost Order" was found, and when McClellan received it, has been relatively unchallenged until recently. We will address this in detail tomorrow.

In "Landscape Turned Red," Stephen Sears asserts that McClellan verified before noon that the papers were legitimate, then exhibited his usual excessive caution and failed to move his army for 18 hours. To back up this theory, Sears cites a telegram that McClellan sent to Abraham Lincoln at "12 M" — which Sears says stands for meridian or noon — in which McClellan confidently informs the president that he has the plans of the enemy and that "no time shall be lost" in attacking Lee.

In summary, the traditional view is:

1.     McClellan had the Lost Order by noon as is proven by the telegram from him to Lincoln that is dated "12M" for Meridian.

2.     McClellan waited 18 hours before moving his troops after finding the Lost Orders

The updated view is far different. Dr. Rossino contends that successive generations of authors harboring animosity towards McClellan have damaged the general's reputation. His research provides a detailed account of the actual sequence of events that transpired on September 13, extending into the early hours of September 14. Between 1:00 and 2:30 p.m., McClellan received the Lost Orders. By 3:30 p.m., he had sent a copy of these orders to Alfred Pleasonton, requesting confirmation of the marching instructions contained within. From 5:30 to 6:20 p.m., McClellan drafted orders for William Franklin, the commander of the Sixth Corps, outlining the planned assault on the South Mountain passes for the following day. Subsequently, from 6:30 to 11:00 p.m., orders were dispatched to mobilize troops en route to Frederick, particularly those under Joseph Hooker's command, while soldiers already in the vicinity continued their march through the city until after midnight. At 8:00 p.m., Pleasonton finally replied, affirming that he believed the marching orders in the Lost Orders were accurate, although McClellan had already initiated his attack plan for September 14. By midnight, Federal troops were still converging in the city as they moved westward. At 1:00 a.m. on September 14, the last regiments set up camp west of Frederick, and by 3:00 a.m., the sound of reveille signaled the army's renewed advance towards South Mountain.

In fact, McClellan responded immediately and efficiently. He continued marching his troops all day and into early the following morning. Even Franklin moved a brigade of the Sixth Corps over the Catoctins after dark on September 13. If McClellan hadn’t moved with energy, there would not have been battles for the gaps in South Mountain early the following day.

Rossino believes that the discovery of the Lost Order had several important effects:

1) It clarified for McClellan the piecemeal intelligence he had received suggesting Lee had divided his army. This prompted George the Timid to design and execute two major attacks against Confederate defenders at Crampton's and Turner's Gaps.

2) McClellan's attacks inflicted thousands of casualties on Lee's already depleted force, weakening the opponent. They also thwarted a trap Lee had laid for McClellan along the heights of Beaver Creek, 2.5 miles north of Boonsboro. Had Lee been able to fight there, McClellan would have encountered a position stronger than that taken by Lee at Sharpsburg. Largely because Lee's flanks would have been anchored against South Mountain and the heights along Lappans Road, not vulnerable as his left flank was at Sharpsburg.

3) Lee's design stymied, he fell back toward Virginia to move his portion of the army closer to that of Stonewall Jackson coming up from Harpers Ferry. This caused Lee to take position along the heights behind Antietam Creek, which looked similar in some respects to those behind Beaver Creek.

4) The reverse at South Mountain also forced Lee's army to reassemble before Lee wanted, which further reduced his effective combat strength.

5) McClellan ran for president 2 years later. This may well have been political bunko that has become American historical lore.

In short, the discovery of the Lost Orders and McClellan's use of them forced Lee to take up a less desirable position at Sharpsburg than Lee had planned to take at Beaver Creek. Furthermore, he did so with his army in a weakened state from forced marches and straggling. Lee himself referred to the position at Sharpsburg as a "bad one." These advantages make McClellan's mixed success on the field even more perplexing.

Major General William B. Franklin by Waud, Alfred R. (Alfred Rudolph),. Source: Public domain, Library of Congress, available here.

McClellan’s Pursuit

The controversy started with Stephen Sears. In "Landscape Turned Red," Sears asserts that McClellan verified before noon that the order was legitimate, then exhibited his usual excessive caution and failed to move his army for 18 hours. To back up this theory, Sears cites a telegram that McClellan sent to Abraham Lincoln at "12 M" — which Sears says stands for meridian or noon — in which McClellan confidently informs the president that he has the plans of the enemy and that "no time shall be lost" in attacking Lee.

In summary, the traditional view is: McClellan had the Lost Order by noon, as is proven by the telegram from him to Lincoln that is dated "12M" for Meridian. Then McClellan waited 18 hours before moving his troops after finding the Lost Orders. Why? Because he had the “slows”.

Rossino has demonstrated that the original telegram received by the War Department is distinctly marked as being sent at "12 Midnight." Following the publication of Sears' book, researcher Maurice D'Aoust uncovered the original telegram receipt within the Lincoln papers housed at the Library of Congress. This document indicates that the telegram was dispatched at midnight—spelled out in full—contradicting Sears' earlier assertion by a full 12 hours.

In the contentious telegraph, McClellan informed Lincoln that "We have possession of Catoctin [Mountain]," a significant detail since the Confederates still controlled those two passes at noon. The Braddock Pass was not secured until 1 p.m., and the Jefferson Pass, located further south, was not captured until nearly sunset. This timeline serves as evidence that no message was sent at noon. Additionally, McClellan was reportedly riding through Frederick at 11 a.m., greeted by enthusiastic crowds eager to see him, which raises questions about the feasibility of receiving and relaying orders to President Lincoln in such a short timeframe. The Lost Order was not found until after the 12th Corps, of which the 27th Indiana Regiment belonged, ended its morning march. At least five accounts show that the Corps completed its march about noon, which would make it impossible for McClellan to have written and sent a telegraph that contained information about the Lost Order at the same time it was found. The commander of the unit that found the order notes that it was found after its march ended at noon and that it was carried to army staff soon thereafter.

McClellan issued orders at 3 p.m. for his cavalry chief to verify that the Lost Order was not a trick. It seems out of character for someone who is normally considered so cautious to confidently inform Lincoln of the find three hours before he tried to confirm the accuracy of its contents. From this, we can deduce that McClellan had the orders at 3 pm or sooner but after noon.

The Signal Corps reported that "in the evening" it transmitted a message from Lincoln to McClellan, and a return message from McClellan to Lincoln. The report mentions no other transmittal of information between the two men at any other time of the day.

McClellan had the vanguard of the army, Burnside's 9th Corps, on the move at 3:30 p.m. These men filled the road west to Lee's rear guard at South Mountain well into the night. Near sundown, at 6:20 p.m., he began to issue orders for the rest of his army to move, with most units instructed to be marching at sunrise. (They were roused from sleep at 3 a.m.) In the midst of this activity, at midnight, the general telegraphed the president to tell him what was going on.

By 9 a.m. on Sept. 14, the first troops had climbed South Mountain and met the Confederate rear-guard in battle. By nightfall, McClellan's army carried the heights and forced a defeated Lee to find a new defensive position along Antietam Creek. McClellan pursued the next morning and within 48 hours initiated the Battle of Antietam, which forced Lee back across the Potomac River. This seems like a pretty expeditious sequence of events, not a delay.

Additionally:

A detachment of the 9th Corps in conjunction with cavalry marched from Frederick and took the southern Catoctin pass at Jefferson before sunset.

The 6th Corps, about 12,000 men, marched from Buckeystown to the gap in the Catoctin at Jeffersonville, from the evening until at least 10 p.m. A night march beyond that point would have been risky since it was not known precisely where the Confederates were in the valley beyond.

The 1st Corps, about 10,000 men, marched to Frederick the evening of Sept. 13. to be ready for an advance on the Confederate rear-guard the following morning.

The Sept. 13 timeline that Gene Thorp and Alex Rossino detail in The Tale Untwisted is as follows:
1) The leading elements of the XII Corps reach the outskirts of Frederick City around noon.
2) Shortly thereafter, Barton Mitchell finds the packet of 2 cigars wrapped in the 2 page orders.
3) Mitchell reads the orders. His sergeant John Bloss reads the orders. Col. Silas Colgrove reads the orders. BG George H. Gordon reads the orders. Samuel Pittman reads the orders at XII Corps HQ. MG Alpheus Williams reads the orders at XII Corps HQ. Pittman attempts to scratch out a copy of the orders, but Williams stops him. All of this takes time, perhaps as long as an hour.
4) Williams' courier starts out for McClellan with the orders in hand. The streets of Frederick are crammed with marching troops and spectators.
5) The orders probably reach McClellan between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m.
6) McClellan orders a copy made and sent to Pleasonton at 3:00 p.m. with instructions to verify the order of march as best Pleasonton can.
7) Around 5:00 or so, McClellan still has not heard back from Pleasonton. He decides to issue attack order to Franklin anyway, w/o having verified the lost orders are authentic.
8 Federal troops march through Frederick to the west all day and into the night. The procession finally comes to an end around midnight.
9) Commanders rouse their troops between 2:00-3:00 a.m. to get back onto the road.

Harper’s Ferry

There were two significant engagements in the Maryland campaign before the Battle of Antietam. Both directly impacted the major battle to come. Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's captured Harpers Ferry on September 12. This is important because Jackson’s Corps, a large portion of Lee's army, was absent from the Battle of South Mountain and AP Hill’s Corps was not present at the start of the Battle of Antietam, attending to the surrender of the Union garrison..

The Battle of Harpers Ferry took place over 4 days. Stonewall Jackson found Maryland Heights stoutly defended but brigades led by Barksdale and Kershaw attacked strongly, with retreat of the Union troops across the Potomac the next day. On September 14, the rest of his infantry arrived and found Loudon Heights undefended. Jackson placed his artillery on these heights while his infantry confronted the Union army on Maryland Heights. An attack on the Union left flank was threatened by AP Hill while 50 guns began a bombardment. The Union commander realized the situation was hopeless and surrendered.

Colonel Dixon Miles was the union commander at Harper’s Ferry.. At age 58 he was the oldest active colonel in the Union army; a West Point graduate, he led a division at First Manassas but was held in reserve on account that he was drunk. A court of inquiry confirmed this, but he was given command of Harpers Ferry instead of a court martial. Miles was given orders on September 5 by Maj Gen John Wool: "you will not abandon Harpers Ferry without defending it to the last extremity." Wool sent another saying "there must be no abandoning of a post, and shoot the first man that thinks of it". The likelihood that the town would be attacked was appreciated by the Union leadership. Why they sent no more men to defend it isn’t clear, Why Miles kept his men in the town and not positioned on the heights isn’t comprehensible. Miles was mortally wounded in the artillery barrage.

Following his feud and threatened duel with General Longstreet after newspaper articles concerning the Battle of Glendale, AP Hill was transferred to Jackson’s command. He had performed magnificently at Second Manassas. But he clashed with Jackson during the march in Maryland, who had Hill arrested and charged him with eight counts of dereliction of duty after the campaign. For this reason, Jackson left him behind when Harper’s Ferry was captured to process the POWs.

It’s hard to see how things could have been done any faster. Had Miles positioned his troops with more thought, it would have taken even longer. Had Jackson considered this in his placement of the troops around the town? Did Lee make an error in not taking charge of this mission himself instead of giving it to an independent Jackson?  Was this really worth the time it took? The answers to these questions remain unclear, but it is noteworthy to keep in mind that Lee didn’t try to take Harpers Ferry in the Gettysburg invasion. And that neither Hooker nor Meade were interested in defending the town.

The implications were enormous. Recall that Special Order 191 was written September 9 but not retrieved by Union forces until September 13. Even though the intelligence was four days old, McClellan knew that Jackson was behind schedule at Harper’s Ferry, which was surrounded but not yet taken, and that Lee’s army was divided and separated over miles of Maryland countryside. Aware that a portion of Lee’s army was now vulnerable to attack, McClellan advanced toward the South Mountain range to attack Lee’s forces there.

Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War, September 1862. Source: Hlj, available here, reproduced according to Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

South Mountain

The Battle of South Mountain took place on September 14, 1862. It is very important to re-emphasize that the Lost Orders were given to McClellan on September 13, and a battle occurred the very next day. How slow is that?

McClellan had followed Lee’s army based on the routes identified in Special Order 191. Union forces attempted to break through South Mountain to advance toward Lee's army, which would eventually concentrate near Sharpsburg. Lee was surprised that the lethargic McClellan had caught up with him so rapidly. He did not know at that time about Special Order 191. Jackson was just wrapping up Harpers Ferry. He only had Longstreet and DH Hill to defend the passes.

Although the Confederate troops ultimately had to retreat, they put up a strong resistance and delayed the Union's progress, giving Lee valuable time to reposition his forces.. While Union forces were able to gain control of the mountain, they could not stop Lee from regrouping.  Confederate defenses delayed McClellan's advance enough for Lee to concentrate the remainder of his army at Sharpsburg, setting the stage for the Battle of Antietam three days later.

During the Battle of South Mountain, engagements took place at various passes and gaps within the South Mountain range. The passes and gaps of South Mountain, particularly Turner's Gap, Fox's Gap, and Crampton's Gap, offered natural defensive positions. Lee was using South Mountain as a screen, but McClellan had pursued faster than was anticipated. With Jackson at Harpers Ferry, Lee fell back along the roads that led mainly to the northern gaps.

The Union forces, commanded by General George B. McClellan, aimed to seize control of the mountain passes and break through the Confederate defensive positions. In the battle, Union army attacked at 3 gaps.

Longstreet was atop South Mountain at Turner’s Gap, the northernmost pass. Lee ordered Longstreet back to the mountain from around Hagerstown after he heard cannon fire on the morning of September 14. Given that Lee and Longstreet knew only about the main gap that carried the National Road over the mountain, it made sense for Longstreet to join D.H. Hill there.

DH Hill had been the rear guard and naturally came to these 2 passes. Hill situated his headquarters at the stone house that sits in the middle of Turner’s Gap. Longstreet joined him there later and used the same house for his headquarters.

The first fighting broke out at Fox’s Gap, about one mile south of Turner’s Gap.

Fox's Gap: Located just south of Turner's Gap, Fox's Gap saw intense fighting between Confederate forces commanded by General Samuel Garland and Union troops led by General Jesse Reno. The Union forces eventually managed to seize control of this pass. Federal troops with Jesse Reno’s Ninth Corps attacked Confederates under Sam Garland there. That fight gradually went against the Confederates as the Federals forced them back. A single 5,000-man Confederate division under D.H. Hill protected Fox’s and Turner’s Gaps at South Mountain. Early on September 14, Union Gen. Jacob D. Cox’s Kanawha Division of the Union IX Corps launched an attack against Samuel Garland’s brigade at Fox’s Gap. Cox’s 3,000 Ohioans overran Garland’s North Carolinians, driving the Southerners from behind a stone wall and mortally wounding Garland. However, by nightfall, Confederate soldiers still held the western edge of Fox’s Gap.

By nightfall, Reno’s men controlled the gap and the Old Sharpsburg Road running through it.

Turner's Gap: This was the northernmost and most heavily defended pass. Confederate forces, under the command of General D.H. Hill, held strong defensive positions on the slopes of Turner's Gap, while Union troops, led by General Joseph Hooker, made determined efforts to dislodge them. Turner’s Gap saw heavy fighting. A brigade of men under the command of John Gibbon attacked the gap late in the day on September 14, but darkness fell before that attack could carry the gap (see #5). At Turner’s Gap, Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s I Corps arrived on the steep mountainside near Frostown, and divisions under George G. Meade and John P. Hatch made relentless charges on the gap’s northern edge. After a brutal firefight along a cornfield fence, Hatch broke through the Rebel line. Only the timely arrival of reinforcements from Longstreet prevented the Confederate line from collapsing. By nightfall, the Confederates still maintained control of Turner’s Gap.

Lee never intended to defend the gaps in South Mountain. His decision to do so was primarily influenced by two factors: Jackson had not yet compelled the surrender of Harpers Ferry, and McClellan launched his attack sooner than Lee anticipated. If Jackson had completed his mission by September 14, Lee would likely have instructed his troops in Maryland, positioned near Harpers Ferry, to cross into Virginia and regroup with the rest of the army to the west of South Mountain. Additionally, Lee would have repositioned D.H. Hill to the elevated terrain north of Boonsboro at Beaver Creek, which was the site where he intended to engage in a decisive confrontation with McClellan’s forces, rather than at South Mountain.

It was here that the iron Brigade made its name. This was the brigade that was part of General John Gibbon’s division of I Corps, composed of 5 Midwestern regiments: 2nd Wisconsin, 6th Wisconsin, 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana and later joined by the 24th Michigan. They wore distinctive black Hardee hats, which were regulation dress hats (unlike the more common kepis). These black hats made them instantly recognizable on the battlefield—and helped them stand out even more due to their discipline and performance. They fought a fierce uphill battle against Confederate forces under D.H. Hill, taking heavy fire from wooded ridges and stone walls. They helped push the Confederates off the ridge by late evening, though at a steep cost. General McClellan exclaimed, “They must be made of iron!” and the nickname “Iron Brigade” stuck.

The Battle of Crampton’s Gap is typically overlooked by Civil War enthusiasts as merely a prelude. In fact, Antietam happened precisely because of this battle. Fighting at the third gap, Crampton’s Gap, near Burkittsville, located five miles south of Turner’s Gap, proved to be the most decisive, as McClellan had intended it to be. Around 1,500 Confederate troops there attempted to hold off the entire Union Sixth Corps of around 13,000 men. Franklin began his attack very late in the afternoon on September 14, which was a mistake on his part. If anyone on the Federal side dawdled during the campaign, it was William B. Franklin. Nevertheless, he had the gap in hand by nightfall and had pushed men into Pleasant Valley beyond it. McClellan ordered Franklin to attack the Confederates where he found them, but Franklin believed he was outnumbered 2-1 and declined to do so on the morning of September 15.

McClellan ordered Maj. Gen. William Franklin and his VI Corps to set out for Burkittsville from his camp at Buckeystown 9/14 at daybreak, with instructions to drive through Crampton's Gap and attack McLaws' rear. Although he sent the order immediately, by allowing Franklin to wait until morning to depart, his order resulted in a delay of nearly 11 hours. When the Federals reached Burkittsville around noon, the Confederate artillery opened up. In Burkittsville, while under artillery fire, Franklin assembled his troops into three columns. At 3 p.m., after a delay of nearly 3 hours, the VI Corps finally began its assault. The reason for the delay has never been ascertained, but it would prove costly.

The Confederate force consisted of one battery of artillery, three regiments of infantry under Brig. Gen. William Mahone, one brigade under Brig. Gen. Howell Cobb, and a small cavalry detachment under Col. Thomas T. Munford. After the report of a very large number of camp fires indicating a much larger Union force than anticipated, General Lee recognized the threat this posed to his split forces, so the order was sent down to General Cobb to ..."hold the gap if it cost the life of every man in my command".

Only about one thousand Confederates defended Crampton's Gap, the southernmost of the South Mountain passes. At around 4:00 p.m., Maj. Gen. Henry Slocum's division charged into the gap and dislodged the Confederates from the protection of a stone fence. The arrival of four regiments under Gen. Howell Cobb did little to stem the Union tide. Reinforced by a brigade of Vermonters, the Federals made a second attack and drove the remaining Confederates down the western slope of South Mountain, leaving the VI Corps in possession of Crampton's.

The Union attack broke the makeshift rebel line, but not until 6 pm, too late for a follow-up attack. This gave Lee a chance to salvage his army.

Crampton's Gap: Situated south of Fox's Gap, Crampton's Gap was the southernmost pass where significant fighting occurred. Union troops, led by General William B. Franklin, engaged Confederate defenders commanded by General Howell Cobb. The Union forces successfully captured Crampton's Gap, further pressuring the Confederate positions. When Crampton’s Gap was taken, the other gaps were indefensible. Roads behind South Mountain were such that once one gap fell, the rest were in danger of being encircled. Once any gap is in Union hands, a road connects it to all of the roads behind the mountain, and so Hill and Longstreet can be surrounded.  Turner’s and Fox’s Gap were held by the Confederates at the end of the day but had to be abandoned. By sunrise on September 15, the Confederates had completely withdrawn.

There are 2 roads leading west from Frederick; one goes to the north gaps to Hagerstown and one goes south toward Williamsport. Lee left the southern gap exposed, likely due to limitations on manpower and supplies.

Now read part 3 on the Battle of Antietam here. 

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