The fighting that occurred around Burnside Bridge at the Battle of Antietam remains one of the most controversial subjects of the engagement. It was in the vicinity of the bridge, known at the time as the Rohrbach or Lower Bridge, that a small contingent of approximately 400 Georgians held off three separate assaults by elements of the Union 9th Corps for three critical hours.
At roughly midday, during the third assault, Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman’s 9th Corps division managed to cross Antietam Creek at Snavely’s Ford, located about ¾-mile south-southwest of the bridge as the crow flies. These troops flanked the Confederate defenders at the bridge and sealed their fate. Most historians agree that had the flanking movement at Snavely’s Ford happened sooner, rather than later, Antietam would have been a different battle.
Many popular historians lay the blame for the tardiness at Snavely’s Ford on the shoulders of the Union Army commander, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, or more specifically, his chief engineer, Captain James C. Duane. As the story goes, on the day before, September 16, McClellan, Duane, and other staff officers inspected 9th Corps locations and found it necessary to redirect their positions.
About noon McClellan stopped at Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s headquarters and left Duane to post the 9th Corps divisions. Duane proposed that Burnside give him three staff members so he could show them their desired positions. Those three staffers in turn would guide the divisions to their intended locations. Rodman’s division was shown a spot where Duane indicated there was a usable ford. Unfortunately, on the morning of September 17 Rodman discovered “Duane’s ford” was unusable. Rodman did the best he could to correct Duane’s mistake and after a two-mile overland march found Snavely’s Ford. The time lost because of Duane’s faulty intelligence resulted in the lateness of Rodman’s attack. Historians that support this popular narrative mostly agree that had Captain Duane positioned Rodman’s division correctly, the assault at Snavely’s Ford would have occurred sooner.
ost of these popular narratives share a
