Battle Of Antietam, Staff Ride Guide [Illustrated Edition]

By Ted Ballard

Contains more than 20 maps, diagrams and illustrations
The Battle of Antietam has been called the bloodiest single day in American History. By the end of the evening, 17 September 1862, an estimated 4,000 American soldiers had been killed and over 18,000 wounded in and around the small farming community of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Emory Upton, then a captain with the Union artillery battery, later wrote, "I have heard of 'the dead lying in heaps,' but never saw it till this battle. Whole ranks fell together." The battle had been a day of confusion, tactical blunders, individual heroics, and the effects of just plain luck. It brought to an end a Confederate campaign to "liberate" the border state of Maryland and possibly take the war into Pennsylvania. A little more than one hundred and forty years later, the Antietam battlefield is one of the best-preserved Civil War battlefields in the National Park System.
Antietam is ideal for a staff ride, since a continuing goal of the National Park Service is to maintain the site in the condition in which it was on the day of the battle. The purpose of any staff ride is to learn from the past by analyzing the battle through the eyes of the men who were there, both leaders and rank-and-file soldiers. Antietam offers many lessons in command and control, communications, intelligence, weapons technology versus tactics, and the ever-present confusion, or "fog" of battle. We hope that these lessons will allow us to gain insights into decision-making and the human condition during combat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781782898603

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Text originally published in 2007 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

BATTLE OF ANTIETAM Staff Ride Guide

by

Ted Ballard

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

FOREWORD 5

THE AUTHOR 6

PREFACE 7

ANTIETAM: AN OVERVIEW 8

Prelude to Battle 8

The Battle 27

Summary 51

FURTHER READINGS 53

CHRONOLOGY 54

4-7 September 1862 54

9 September 54

10 September 54

12 September 54

13 September 54

14 September 55

15 September 55

16 September 55

17 September 56

18 September 57

19 September 57

ORDER OF BATTLE, 17 SEPTEMBER 1862 58

Army of the Potomac, United States Army — Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan 58

I Corps (Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker) 58

1st Division (Brig. Gen. Abner Doubleday) 58

2d Division (Brig. Gen. James B. Ricketts) 58

3d Division (Brig. Gen. George G. Meade) 59

II Corps (Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner) 60

1st Division (Maj. Gen. Israel B. Richardson) 60

2d Division (Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick) 60

3d Division (Brig. Gen. William H. French) 61

V Corps (Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter) 61

1st Division (Maj. Gen. George W. Morell) 61

2d Division (Brig. Gen. George Sykes) 62

3d Division (Brig. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys) 63

Artillery Reserve (Lt. Col. William Hays) 63

VI Corps (Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin) 63

1st Division (Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum) 63

2d Division (Maj. Gen. William F. Smith) 64

Couch's Division (Maj. Gen. Darius N. Couch) 64

IX Corps (Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox) 65

1st Division (Brig. Gen. Orlando B. Willcox) 65

2d Division (Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis) 66

3d Division (Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman) 66

Kanawha Division (Col. Eliakim P. Scammon) 66

XII Corps (Maj. Gen. Joseph K. F. Mansfield) 67

1st Division (Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams) 67

2d Division (Brig. Gen. George S. Greene) 67

Cavalry Division (Brig. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton) 68

Army of Northern Virginia, Confederate States of America — General Robert E. Lee 69

Longstreet's Command (Maj. Gen. James Longstreet) 69

McLaws' Division (Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws) 69

Anderson's Division (Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson) 69

Jones' Division (Brig. Gen. David R. Jones) 70

Artillery 71

Walker's Division (Brig. Gen. John G. Walker) 71

Hood's Division (Brig. Gen. John B. Hood) 72

Artillery 72

Jackson's Command (Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson) 73

Ewell's Division (Brig. Gen. A. R. Lawton) 73

Hill's Light Division (Maj. Gen. Ambrose P. Hill) 74

Jackson's Division (Brig. Gen. John R. Jones) 75

Hill's Division (Maj. Gen. Daniel H. Hill) 76

Reserve Artillery (Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton) 77

Miscellaneous Artillery 77

Cavalry (Maj. Gen. James E. B. Stuart) 77

CASUALTIES 79

TABLE 1: ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, CASUALTIES DURING THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM, 17 SEPTEMBER 1862 79

TABLE 2: ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, CASUALTIES DURING THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN, 14-19 SEPTEMBER 1862 80

ORGANIZATION 81

SMALL ARMS 82

TYPICAL CIVIL WAR SMALL ARMS 82

ARTILLERY 84

TYPICAL CIVIL WAR FIELD ARTILLERY 85

Artillery Projectiles 85

Solid Projectiles 85

Shell 86

Case Shot 86

Canister 87

LOGISTICS 88

U.S. Army Bureau System 89

Supply Operations 90

The Soldier’s Load 90

Annual Clothing Issue 90

Rations 91

Wagons 91

Forage 91

Tents 91

Baggage 92

SELECTED BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 93

Union Officers 93

George B. McClellan — 1826-1885, Pennsylvania 93

Ambrose E. Burnside — 1824-1881, Indiana 94

Joseph Hooker — 1814-1879, Massachusetts 95

Edwin V. Sumner — 1797-1863, Massachusetts 96

Joseph K. F. Mansfield — 1803-1862, Connecticut 97

Confederate Officers 98

Robert E. Lee — 1807-1870, Virginia 98

James Longstreet — 1821-1904, South Carolina 99

Thomas J. Jackson — 1824-1863, Virginia 101

James E. B. Stuart 1833-1864, Virginia 102

SUGGESTED STOPS 104

Stop 1: North Woods. 104

Stop 2: East Woods. 104

Stop 3: Cornfield. 104

Stop 4: West Woods. 105

Stop 5: Sunken Road. 105

Stop 6: Burnside Bridge. 106

Stop 7: National Cemetery. 106

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 108

FOREWORD

The U. S. Army has long used the staff ride as a tool for professional development, conveying the lessons of the past to contemporary soldiers. In 1906 Maj. Eben Swift took twelve officer-students from Fort Leavenworth's General Service and Staff School to the Chickamauga battlefield on the Army's first official staff ride. Since that time Army educators have employed staff rides to provide officers a better understanding of past military operations, of the vagaries of war, and of military planning. A staff ride to an appropriate battlefield can also enliven a unit's esprit de corps—a constant objective in peacetime or war.

To support such Army initiatives, the Center of Military History publishes staff ride guides, such as this one on the Battle of Antietam. This account is drawn principally from contemporary and after action reports, as well as from reminiscences of participants, both officers and enlisted men.

The Battle of Antietam provides important lessons in command and control, leadership, and unit training. This small volume should be a welcome training aid for those undertaking an Antietam staff ride and valuable reading for those interested in the Civil War and in the history of the military art.

JOHN S. BROWN

Brigadier General, USA

Chief of Military History

Washington, D. C.

15 September 2005

THE AUTHOR

Ted Ballard has been a historian with the U. S. Army Center of Military History since 1980 and a part of the Center's staff ride program since 1986. Battle of Antietam joins his other battlefield guides to Ball's Bluff and First and Second Bull Run. He was a contributor to the Center's publication The Story of the Non-commissioned Officer Corps; the author of Rhineland, a brochure in the Center's series commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of World War II; and a contributor to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command publication American Military Heritage and to the Virginia Army National Guard publication The Tradition Continues: A History of the Virginia National Guard, 1607-1985.

PREFACE

The Battle of Antietam has been called the bloodiest single day in American History. By the end of the evening, 17 September 1862, an estimated 4,000 American soldiers had been killed and over 18,000 wounded in and around the small farming community of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Emory Upton, then a captain with the Union artillery battery, later wrote, I have heard of 'the dead lying in heaps,' but never saw it till this battle. Whole ranks fell together. The battle had been a day of confusion, tactical blunders, individual heroics, and the effects of just plain luck. It brought to an end a Confederate campaign to liberate the border state of Maryland and possibly take the war into Pennsylvania. A little more than one hundred and forty years later, the Antietam battlefield is one of the best-preserved Civil War battlefields in the National Park System.

Antietam is ideal for a staff ride, since a continuing goal of the National Park Service is to maintain the site in the condition in which it was on the day of the battle. The purpose of any staff ride is to learn from the past by analyzing the battle through the eyes of the men who were