The 17th of September, 1862 remains the bloodiest single day in American military history. More than 20,000 young men in blue and butternut fell that day, many of them never to rise again.
146 years later, the blood has dried, but the ground continues to give up its secrets.
Let Jules tell the tale.
Across from the Federals, in that wicked cornfield, were the war-thinned ranks of Hood’s Texas brigade, comprising the 1st, 4th & 5th Texas, the 18th Georgia, and what remained of 6 companies of infantry of Hampton’s Legion.
The 1st Texas infantry suffered more than 82% casualties, that morning, including 7 colour bearers killed holding the state flag.
After the battle, the flag of the 1st Texas was captured by a federal soldier. Captured, however, is a misnomer, because it was picked up off the field, bloodied and torn, entangled with the bodies of it’s last defenders. No one of the colour guard was left to protect it, and none of the Texans saw it fall for it’s last time amidst the smoke and fury of those last minutes.
After the war, the flag eventually made it’s way back to Texas, where it is currently undergoing restoration.
If anyone ever gets the chance to visit Antietam battlefield, they should. It looks today very much as it did then, with few modern bits of clutter to intrude upon the sightlines. Not too many visit, and so there is often the opportunity to walk alone amongst the fields and monuments, and listen to the sounds from that distant time, because they can still be heard by those who choose to listen.
The Antietem battlefield enjoys the all too rare distinction of largely being unspoiled by the encroachment of modern life. At least for the moment.
The other large significant battlefields in the east, all within 100 mile radius of where our new President will be sworn in shortly, require the tourist to utilize their imagination to a much more significant extent to block out the intrusion of tract housing and other visual intrusions. Unfortunately the westward march from Fredricksburg threatens to overwhelm the hallowed ground of Chancellorsville – scene of Lee’s most brillinant victory even as also the site of his most tragic loss.
Antietem still looks, at least as far as I have determined, a lot like it did in 1862. The Park Service does a nice job of framing the conflict and one can almost hear the sounds of musketry as you gaze out across the hallowed ground.
I often wonder, as a percentage of the acreage, how much these battefields represent and how, as nation, we could summon the national will to do more for their preservation. It would be, in the grand scheme of things, a pittance. Why bother some ask- after all it was a long time ago and was about slavery after all? Such a blot on our national conscience, that sort of thing.
I grew up in Virgnina when the memories of my grandparents were fresh from tales of their grandparents who bled and died defending these very fields so it was something that came up a lot when tales were told around the holiday table. I don’t need the battlefields to remember. But I close my eyes and imagine a time, maybe 100 years hence, when a schoolkid is transported by whatever means is used for transport in those days to come and, seeing a large open field, carefully groomed, asks his or her teacher – “Why is that space still so open….?”
And then hopefully that teacher will get the opportunity to explain, how just four score and seven odd years after the Republic was founded men fought and died and the nation truly was defined. Men stopped calling themselves Virginians, New Yorkers, Georgians, and Vermonters, and started to call themselves Americans. And, in the aftermath that was the slaughter that occured at Antietem, Lincoln reframed the debate by issuing the Proclamation.
If you have never been. Go. Go and take your children and their children. Close you eyes and you can here them marching; through the smell of gunpowder you can here them singing – “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again”.
AW1 Tim // Jan 9, 2009 at 10:39 am
OldT6Flyer // Jan 9, 2009 at 10:45 am
You two guys give me hope that our youth will not fail to learn what a devastating and yet honorable conflict the War Between The States was. History so important, and so lacking in school today.
Thanks you both, gents.
“I have lost my right arm.” –Gen Lee after the loss of BG Thomas Stonewall Jackson, at Chancellorsville
Subsunk
Subsunk:
Thank you.
Dr. James Robertson, Professor of History at Virginia Tech was selected by President Kennedyto head the Civil War Centennial Celebration Commission from 1960-1965. He also had the unfortunate task of assisting in the planning of President Kennedy’s funeral the family wanting to incorporate some elements of Lincoln’s into the ceremony. He has been tasked with planning the 150th anniversary celebrations in Virginia starting in 2010.
He teaches the largest lecture class of its type on The Civil War every semester. Some 30 odd years ago I took that class. Dr. Robertson stated on the first day of class – “I will make you laugh, I will make you think, and I will make you cry…”
He did all of those and received something I have never seen in any class and any level at the end of the semester – a standing ovation.
Most took the class as an easy humanities credit. All came away with much much more. As Dr. Robertson stated often: “You an never really understand America without understanding the Civil War”.
No truer words were ever spoken and given our educational professional’s tendancy to give it short shrift at best, it is up to those of use that share some passion on the subject to stir the coals seeking to fan some flames from the embers still glowing from the inspiration received so very long ago.
For more see: http://www.civilwar.vt.edu/
When I was ten or so, my family took a trip through several of the larger Civil War Battlefields, including Antietam.
I remember it distinctly as probably one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. Even as a kid, it was a very powerful place.
Concur with all above, except it’s Sharpsburg, dammit. Yankees!
Yes of course the proper name for the battle as recorded in Robert Edward’s dispatches. Its all there of course as is the quaint town of Shepardstown, WVA, where having escaped across the Potomac, so many of the wounded suffered for the cause.
One of the most illuminating books I have ever read is “The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee”.
Reading his official and personal correspondence puts things in a much different light and, in context, makes some things much more understandable.
Amen to all above.
Please do go visit this battlefield. It is well worth the time, and is easy to get to. A solemn place.
My Yankee forbears lived 30 miles from the battlefield and an ancestor snatched a cavalry sabre from the field as a souvenir shortly after the battle. Seeing it in my youth got me interested in history, especially the Civil War.
Had a college course with a history prof who later went to teach at USMA. He led his students on annual expeditions to tour many of the NORVA battlefields. Nothing like standing on the ground where Jackson “stood like a stone wall” and reading the unit’s reports on the action. Or tracing Emery Upton’s (then innovative) approach and assault on the Bloody Angle at the Wilderness.
Much to be learned from those places.
Alas, too many have forgotten, or do not wish to learn.
As the superior Union numbers began to tell, the Louisiana “Tiger” Brigade under Harry Hays entered the fray and forced the Union men back to the East Woods. The casualties received by the 12th Massachusetts Infantry, 67%, were the highest of any unit that day. The Tigers were beaten back eventually when the Federals brought up a battery of 3-inch ordnance rifles and rolled them directly into the Cornfield, point-blank fire that slaughtered the Tigers, who lost 323 of their 500 men.
The “Tigers” were one of the most respected Brigades in the Confederacy and were instrumental in Stonewall’s successes in the Valley and fought till the bitter end at Appomattox. They were almost entirely made up of foreign born Irish and German immigrants recruited in the New Orleans area.
If you click on the link to Jules article, the picture that accompanies it shows a group of Confederate dead along the Hagerstown pike.
Those soldiers are members of Hay’s brigade, who fell during the artillery fire described in the account mentioned above.
I thought that picture was of the sunken road – whatever it was the cornfield was a slaughter. On my first tour of the battlefield there was a gentleman in the group who said he was a decendant of a soldier from Texas (Hood’s Brigage prob?) that was wounded at Sharpsburg (there – better!). He allowed that the relative, somewhat recovered, was discharged and WALKED back to Texas.
His comment was: “Them people was tough…”
Indeed.
T6,
If you go here and scroll down, you’ll find the image with it’s modern look, and keep scrolling down you’ll find an image of the sunken road then & now.
http://yourehistory.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/civil-war-sites-then-and-now/
respects,
Yes – I stand corrected. I was actually thinking about the second picture when looking at the first.
I really wish every school kid in America could spend about 8 hours there with a interesting guide and it would open a lot of eyes and add appreciation of just what sacrifices were borne to build this great country.
V/R
Like Tim, I had a great grandpa that fought with First Texas at Sharpsburg. I remember reading a book about the First Texas that recounted how how a Private West penned a letter to his wife in Texas after the battle and remarked, “We can not be whipped, though they may kill us all.”
Like T6 Flyer says, “them people was tough…”
As Dr. Robertson stated often: “You an never really
understand America without understanding the Civil
War”.
That is so true. And Faulkner said, “…the past isn’t forgotten. It isn’t even past.” Here where I live, all this is just yesterday, and people’s feelings about the War of Northern Aggression and the lives of their great-grandfathers are still very close to the surface.
Like all professional infantrymen Marines spend a considerable amount of time in study of past campaigns in order to understand the lessons learned, and paid for in blood.
As a Southerner I grew up sharing much of the oral traditions and history of the South. I learned of the War of Northern Aggression and the grievous wrongs done to the South in retribution for what was still viewed as a righteous war. And, it seems to me, that the sharing of oral traditions is a far stronger trait in the South than it is in the North, and that may help explain why there is far more interest in the past down South. And why there is still a sense that the Civil War is still a living part of our experience, and traditions, here in the Old Dominion.
In my lifetime I have observed society bend and twist the history of that period. Today is is difficult, if not almost impossible, to understand how, and why, our young nation almost destroyed itself. The causes were deeply social and economic in nature, and were exacerbated by the politics of the day. And they are all but forgotten by the average American today.
There is much to be learned from a careful study of both the politics, and the tactics, of that war. As was mentioned by others, it was our transition from seeing ourselves as Virginians, or Texans, or New Yorkers to seeing ourselves as Americans. It also marked the transition from battle tactics developed during the Napoleonic Wars using overwhelming mass, to wars of mobility to avoid overwhelming firepower.
The National Park Service has done a generally good job in attempting to preserve the history of the war. They seem to get too caught up in “interpreting” history based on today’s political correctness. And, I feel, they have not fought hard enough in many instances to preserve and protect battlefields from encroachment and development. But, in general, your tax dollars are well spent with NPS.
Sharpsburg is one of the most moving experiences you will ever find. The battlefield is well preserved, and relatively small, so it is easy to grasp the tactical significance of each terrain feature. The Park Service does a fine job of providing an outline of the battle, so that as you walk the field you can picture, and hear the action. And, if you are like me, you will, towards the end of the day, sit on the hill overlooking the Stone Bridge, and ponder why Ambrose Burnside did not attack across fords that existed immediately upstream, and shortly downstream.
Another battlefield that has special magic is Chickamauga. It is exceptionally well preserved and I was highly impressed with the NPS crew there. I will admit that I arrived on the field shortly after dawn, on a morning in mid-November, several hours before the visitor center would open. So I walked much of the field by myself while I waited. By my own count I saw 14 deer, and more that 50 wild turkey, along with an abundance of other wild game.
For those who are interested in finding more information about specific units, or are looking for a wider range of books than are generally found in most bookstores, I would recommend 20thMaine.com. This is a small organization in Freeport, Maine, that specializes in the Civil War. They started out as a small store, but were squeezed out a year or so ago, and now operate on the internet. They are great people (including their dog, Dixie,) and have been very helpful to me over the years. The store, by the way, is named after the 20th Maine Regiment which held the right of the Union line on July 2, 1863, on Little Round Top at Gettysburg. On that day, it is safe to say, that Coronel Joshua Chamberlin, and the 20th Maine, probably saved the Army of the Potomac and the Union.
I’ve half a hankering to burn some vacation time in Europe, ship the motorcycle by boat in late May and start out on the beaches of France June 4th, then head onward into the Benelux nations, divert towards family in Denmark and Norway, then on to Germany and finally south through Italy, where the motorcycle goes onto a container ship and I’ll head home from Milan.
Has anybody visited The Continent and would be willing to render an opinion of their battlefield upkeep?
I’ve toured Civil War battlefields, but I’ve few kin who trod that soil. I’d kind of like to know the soil my great-uncles and grandparents fought across was likewise preserved.
– Max