Volume I Part 13 (1/2)
Greene was calling for support about the Dunker Church, for he was close under the ridge on which Hill and Jackson were forming such line as they could, and he was considerably in advance of our other troops. Williams withdrew one regiment from Goodrich's brigade and sent it to Greene, and directed Crawford to send also to him the Thirteenth New Jersey, a new and strong regiment which had been left in reserve, as we have seen, in a bit of wood northeast of the field of battle. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 476, 505.] Gordon's brigade was withdrawn by Crawford to enable it to reorganize in rear of the East Wood, and Crawford's own brigade held the further margin of it. It will thus be seen that the Twelfth Corps was now divided into three portions,--Greene's division at the church, Crawford's in the East Wood, and Goodrich's brigade near the north end of the West Wood.
Meade had withdrawn the First Corps to the ridge at Poffenberger's, where it had bivouacked the night before, except that Patrick's brigade remained in support of Goodrich. The corps had suffered severely, having lost 2470 in killed and wounded, but it was still further depleted by straggling, so that Meade reported less than 7000 men with the colors that evening. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 349.] Its organization had been preserved, however, and the story that it was utterly dispersed was a mistake.
The Twelfth Corps also had its large list of casualties, increased a little later by its efforts to support Sumner, and aggregating, before the day was over, 1746.
But the fighting of Hooker's and Mansfield's men, though lacking unity of force and of purpose, had also cost the enemy dear. J. R.
Jones, who commanded Jackson's division, had been wounded; Starke, who succeeded Jones, was killed; Lawton, who commanded Ewell's division, was wounded. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 956.] Lawton's and Trimble's brigades had been fearfully crippled in the first fight against Hooker on the plateau between the Dunker Church and the East Wood, and Hood was sent back to relieve them. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 923.] He, in turn, had been reinforced by the brigades of Ripley, Colquitt, and McRae (Garland's) from D. H. Hill's division.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 1022.] When Greene reached the Dunker Church, therefore, the Confederates on that wing were more nearly disorganized than our own troops. Nearly half their numbers were killed and wounded, and Jackson's famous ”Stonewall” division was so completely broken up that only a handful of men under Colonels Grigsby and Stafford remained, and attached themselves to Early's command. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 969.] Of the division now under Early, his own brigade was all that retained much strength, and this, posted among the rocks in the West Wood and vigorously supported by Stuart and the artillery on that flank, was all that covered the left of Lee's army. Could Hooker and Mansfield have attacked together, or, still better, could Sumner's Second Corps have marched before day and united with the first onset, Lee's left must inevitably have been crushed long before the Confederate divisions of McLaws, Walker, and A. P. Hill could have reached the field. It is this failure to carry out any intelligible plan which the historian must regard as the unpardonable military fault on the National side. To account for the hours between daybreak and eight o'clock on that morning, is the most serious responsibility of the National commander. [Footnote: A distinguished officer (understood to be Gen. R. R. Dawes) who visited the field in 1866 has published the statement that at the Pry house, where McClellan had his headquarters, he was informed that on the morning of the 17th the general rose at about seven o'clock and breakfasted leisurely after that hour. (Marietta, Ohio, Sentinel.)]
Sumner's Second Corps was now approaching the scene of action, or rather two divisions of it, Sedgwick's and French's, for Richardson's was still delayed till his place could be filled by Porter's troops. Although ordered to be ready to move at daybreak, Sumner emphasizes in his report the fact that whilst his command was prepared to move at the time ordered, he ”did not receive from headquarters the order to march till 7.20 A. M.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 275.] By the time he could reach the field, Hooker had fought his battle and had been repulsed. The same strange tardiness in sending orders is noticeable in regard to every part of the army, and Richardson was not relieved so that he could follow French till an hour or two later. [Footnote: _Ibid_.]
Sumner advanced, after crossing the Antietam, in a triple column, Sedgwick's division in front, the three brigades marching by the right flank and parallel to each other. French followed in the same formation. They crossed the Antietam by Hooker's route, but did not march so far to the northwest as Hooker had done. On the way Sumner met Hooker, who was being carried from the field, and the few words he could exchange with the wounded general were enough to make him feel the need of haste, but not enough to give him any clear idea of the situation. When the centre of the corps was opposite the Dunker Church, and nearly east of it, the change of direction was given; the troops faced to their proper front, and advanced in line of battle in three lines, fully deployed and sixty or seventy yards apart, Sumner himself being in rear of Sedgwick's first line and near its left. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p.
305.] As they approached the position held by Greene's division at the church, French kept on so as to form on Greene's left, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 323.] but Sedgwick, under Sumner's immediate leading, diverged somewhat to the right, pa.s.sing through the East Wood, crossing the turnpike on the right of Greene and of the Dunker Church, and plunged into the West Wood. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 305.]
The fences there had been destroyed by the Confederates before the battle began, for the purpose of making room for their own manoeuvres as well as to make barricades in front of the cornfield.
Sedgwick's right did not extend far enough north to be obstructed by the fences where the Twelfth Corps men had lain along them in repulsing Jackson. When he entered the wood, there were absolutely no Confederate troops in front of him. The remnants of Jackson's men, except Early's brigade, were cl.u.s.tered at the top of the ridge immediately in front of Greene, and Early was further to the right, opposing Goodrich and Patrick; Early, however, made haste under cover of the woods to pa.s.s around Sedgwick's right and to get in front of him to oppose his progress. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 970.] This led to a lively skirmis.h.i.+ng fight in which Early was making as great a demonstration as possible, but with no chance of solid success.
Sedgwick pushed him back, and his left was coming obliquely into the open at the bottom of the hollow beyond the wood, when, at the very moment, McLaws's and Walker's Confederate divisions came upon the field. The former had only just arrived by rapid marching from Shepherdstown beyond the Potomac; the latter had been hastily called away by Lee from his position on the lower Antietam opposite the left wing of Burnside's Ninth Corps. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 857, 914.]
Walker charged headlong upon the left flank of Sedgwick's lines, and McLaws, pa.s.sing by Walker's left, also threw his division diagonally upon the already broken and retreating brigades. Taken at such a disadvantage, these had never a chance; and in spite of the heroic bravery of Sumner and Sedgwick with most of their officers (Sedgwick being severely wounded), the division was driven off to the north with terrible losses, carrying along in their rout Goodrich's brigade of the Twelfth Corps which had been holding Early at bay.
Goodrich was killed, and his brigade suffered hardly less than the others. Patrick's brigade of Hooker's corps was in good order at the rocky ledges north of the West Wood which are at right angles to the turnpike, and he held on stubbornly till the disorganized troops drifted past his left, and then made an orderly retreat in line toward the Poffenberger hill. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 245.] Meade was already there with the remnants of Hooker's men. Here some thirty cannon of both corps were quickly concentrated, and, supported by everything which retained organization, easily checked the pursuers and repulsed all efforts of Jackson and Stuart to resume the offensive or to pa.s.s between them and the Potomac. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 306.]
Sumner did not accompany the routed troops to this position, but as soon as it was plain that the division could not be rallied, he galloped off to put himself in communication with French and with headquarters of the army and to try to retrieve the situation. From the flag station east of the East Wood he signalled to McClellan, ”Reinforcements are badly wanted; our troops are giving way.”
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 134.] Williams was in that part of the field, and Sumner sent a staff officer to him ordering that he should push forward to Sedgwick's support anything he could. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 477.] Williams in person ordered Gordon's brigade to advance, for this, as we have seen, had been reorganized behind the East Wood. He sent the same order to Crawford for the rest of that division. Crawford had withdrawn his men in the East Wood to let Sedgwick pa.s.s diagonally along his front, and now advanced again to the west margin of the grove. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
485.] Gordon was ahead of him in time and further to the right, and again charged up to the turnpike fences. But the routed troops were already swarming from the wood across his front, and their pursuers were charging after them. Again the turnpike was made the scene of a b.l.o.o.d.y conflict, and the bodies of many more of the slain of both armies were added to those which already lined those fences.
Gordon's men were overpowered and fell back in the direction they had come. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 495.] The enemy's attack spread out toward Greene and toward Crawford, who was now at the edge of the East Wood again; but both of these held firm, and a couple of batteries on the rise of ground in front poured canister into the enemy till he took refuge again in the wood beyond the church. It was between nine and ten o'clock, probably about ten, [Footnote: The reports on the Confederate side fix ten o'clock as the time McLaws and Walker reached the field, and corroborate the conclusion I draw from all other available evidence.] when Sumner entered the West Wood, and in fifteen minutes or a little more the one-sided combat was over.
Sumner's princ.i.p.al attack was made, as I have already indicated, at right angles to that of Hooker. He had thus crossed the line of Hooker's movement in both the advance and the retreat of the latter.
This led to some misconceptions on Sumner's part. Crawford's division had retired to the right and rear to make way for Sedgwick as he came up. It thus happened that Greene's division was the only part of the Twelfth Corps troops Sumner saw, and he led Sedgwick's men to the right of these. Ignorant as he necessarily was of what had occurred before, he a.s.sumed that he formed on the extreme right of the Twelfth Corps, and that he fronted in the same direction as Hooker had done. This misconception of the situation led him into another error. He had seen only stragglers and wounded men on the line of his own advance, and hence concluded that Hooker's Corps was completely dispersed and its division and brigade organizations broken up. He not only gave this report to McClellan at the time, but reiterated it later in his statement before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. [Footnote: C. W., vol. i. p. 368.] The truth was that he had marched westward more than a mile south of the Poffenberger hill where Meade was with the sadly diminished but still organized First Corps, and half that distance south of the Miller farm buildings, near which Goodrich's brigade had entered the north end of the West Wood, and in front of which part of Williams's men had held the ground along the turnpike till they were relieved by Sedgwick's advance. Sedgwick had gone in, therefore, between Greene and Crawford, and the four divisions of the two corps alternated in their order from left to right, thus: French, Greene, Sedgwick, Crawford, the last being Williams's, of which Crawford was in command.
It was not Sumner's fault that he was so ill-informed of the actual situation on our right; but it is plain that in the absence of McClellan from that part of the field he should have left the personal leaders.h.i.+p of the men to the division commanders, and should himself have found out by rapid examination the positions of all the troops operating there. It was his part to combine and give intelligent direction to the whole, instead of charging forward at haphazard with Sedgwick's division. Both Meade and Williams had men enough in hand to have joined in a concerted movement with him; and had he found either of those officers before plunging into the West Wood, he would not have taken a direction which left his flank wholly exposed, with the terrible but natural results which followed. The original cause of the mischief, however, was McClellan's failure to send Sumner to his position before daybreak, so that the three corps could have acted together from the beginning of Hooker's attack.
But we must return to Sumner's divisions, which were advancing nearer the centre. The battle on the extreme right was ended by ten o'clock in the morning, and there was no more serious fighting north of the Dunker Church. The batteries on the Poffenberger hill and those about the East Wood swept the open ground and the cornfield over which Hooker and Mansfield had fought, and for some time Greene was able to make good his position at the church. The Confederates were content to hold the line of the West Wood and the high ground back of the church, and French's attack upon D. H. Hill was now attracting their attention. French advanced toward Greene's left, over the open farm lands, and after a fierce combat about the Rullett and Clipp farm buildings, drove Hill's division from them.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 323.] At what time the Confederates made a rush at Greene and drove him back to the edge of the East Wood is uncertain; but it must have been soon after the disaster to Sedgwick. It seems to have been an incident of the aggressive movement against Sedgwick, though not coincident with it.
It must certainly have been before French's advance reached the Rullett and Clipp houses, for the enemy's men holding them would have been far in rear of Greene at the church, and he must by that time have been back near the burnt house of Mumma and the angle of the East Wood. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 505.
Greene says that he held the ground at the church for two hours, and that his men were in action from 6.30 A. M. to 1.30 P. M. The length of time and hours of the day are so irreconcilable as given in different reports that we are forced to trust more to the general current of events than to the time stated.]
Richardson's division followed French after an hour or two, [Footnote: Hanc.o.c.k says the division crossed the Antietam about 9.30. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 277.] and then, foot by foot, field by field, from fence to fence, and from hill to hill, the enemy was pressed back, till the sunken road, since known as ”b.l.o.o.d.y Lane,” was in our hands, piled full of the Confederate dead who had defended it with their lives. Richardson had been mortally wounded, and Hanc.o.c.k had been sent from Franklin's corps to command the division. Colonel Barlow had been conspicuous in the thickest of the fight, and after a series of brilliant actions had been carried off desperately wounded. On the Confederate side equal courage and a magnificent tenacity had been exhibited. Men who had fought heroically in one position no sooner found themselves free from the struggle of an a.s.sault than they were hurried away to repeat their exertions, without even a breathing-spell, on another part of the field. They exhausted their ammunition, and still grimly held crests, as Longstreet tells us, with their bayonets, but without a single cartridge in their boxes. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 840.] The story of the fight at this part of the field is simpler than that of the early morning, for there was no such variety in the character of the ground or in the tactics of the opposing forces. It was a sustained advance with continuous struggle, sometimes ebbing a moment, then gaining, but with the organization pretty well preserved and the lines kept fairly continuous on both sides. Our men fought their way up to the Piper house, near the turnpike, and that position marks the advance made by our centre. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 279.] The crest of the ridge on which the Hagerstown turnpike runs had been secured from Piper's north to Miller's, and it was held until the Confederate retreat on the 19th.
The head of Franklin's Corps (the Sixth) had arrived about ten o'clock, and had taken the position near the Sharpsburg bridge, which Sumner had occupied in the night. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 376.]
Before noon Smith's and Sloc.u.m's divisions were both ordered to Sumner's a.s.sistance. As they pa.s.sed by the farm buildings in front of the East Wood, the enemy made a dash at Greene and French. Smith ordered forward Irwin's brigade to their support, and Irwin charged gallantly, driving the a.s.sailants back to the cover of the woods about the church. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 402, 409.] Franklin's men then formed under the crest already mentioned, from ”b.l.o.o.d.y Lane” by the Clipp, Rullett, and Mumma houses to the East Wood and the ridge in front. The aggressive energy of both sides seemed exhausted.
French and Richardson's battle may be considered as ended at one or two o'clock. There was no fighting later but that on the extreme left, where Burnside's Ninth Corps was engaged, and we must turn our attention to that part of the field.
CHAPTER XVI
ANTIETAM: THE FIGHT ON THE LEFT
Ninth Corps positions near Antietam Creek--Rodman's division at lower ford--Sturgis's at the bridge--Burnside's headquarters on the field--View from his place of the battle on the right--French's fight--An exploding caisson--Our orders to attack--The hour--Crisis of the battle--Discussion of the sequence of events--The Burnside bridge--Exposed approach--Enfiladed by enemy's artillery--Disposition of enemy's troops--His position very strong--Importance of Rodman's movement by the ford--The fight at the bridge--Repulse--Fresh efforts--Tactics of the a.s.sault--Success--Formation on further bank--Bringing up ammunition--Willc.o.x relieves Sturgis--The latter now in support--Advance against Sharpsburg--Fierce combat--Edge of the town reached--Rodman's advance on the left--A. P. Hill's Confederate division arrives from Harper's Ferry--Attacks Rodman's flank--A raw regiment breaks--The line retires--Sturgis comes into the gap--Defensive position taken and held--Enemy's a.s.saults repulsed--Troops sleeping on their arms--McClellan's reserve--Other troops not used--McClellan's idea of Lee's force and plans--Lee's retreat--The terrible casualty lists.
We have seen that the divisions of the Ninth Corps were conducted by staff officers of Burnside's staff to positions that had been indicated by McClellan and marked by members of his staff. The morning of Wednesday the 17th broke fresh and fair. The men were astir at dawn, getting breakfast and preparing for a day of battle.