.......

............

"The final phase of the battle concerned the lower bridge -- the Rohrbach Bridge," says Jerry Holsworth. "After this battle, it will be forever known as the Burnside Bridge. Why? Because Ambrose Burnside is ordered to take his Ninth Corps and seize the bridge ! Take Sharpsburg ! The bridge is defended by 400 Georgians -- and they have the best defensive positions on the field!"

Union General Ambrose Burnside had been trying for hours to move a corps of 12,000 men across this 125 foot narrow stone arch bridge over Antietam Creek to the southeast of Sharpsburg, in an attempt to over-run Lee's right flank. On the west side of the bridge and greatly outnumbered was General Robert Toombs with about 400 Georgia sharpshooters who easily repulsed Federal troops by aiming down on them from a wooded bluff. Level fields to the east side of the bridge made Union troops easy targets; a virtually turkey shoot as the men in Blue had to come out into full view in order to get across the open structured bridge. Only with the promise of whiskey did Union troops propel themselves into a suicidal charge across the bridge. Fortune rings unpredictably though, for as the Confederates were finally being dislodged from this hill and driven toward Sharpsburg, they were reinforced by the arrival of General Ambrose Hill who had just led his troops on a hurried seventeen mile return march from Harpers Ferry. Georgia born Robert Toombs, who narrowly missed being selected as Vice-President of the Confederacy, was elated to welcome Hill's tired but committed troops. This unnamed bridge was later called Burnside Bridge.

Holsworth is really rolling now. Sweat is pouring from under his ranger hat and dripping down his face, but he keeps moving, telling the story of the battle with plenty of gestures and exclamation points.

"Early in the morning, Burnside attacks ! And it fails !

"Early afternoon, he tries again! And fails again!

"The third time, though, he takes the bridge !"

Holsworth pauses, looks at his audience. "Is there anybody here from Georgia? Your guys just ran out of ammunition."

He returns to his storytelling mode. "Burnside brings the entire Ninth Corps -- 9,000 Union soldiers -- across that bridge, forms them in line of battle, and begins to attack Sharpsburg ! Sharpsburg is defended by an under-strength Confederate division -- barely 2,000 men. They're hopelessly outnumbered! They're being pushed back everywhere because Burnside's attack is relentless !

It was nearly 1 p.m., September 17, 1862. The rumbling of artillery and rattle of musketry to the north had been going on for six hours now and word had reached Colonel Edward Ferrero that Major General Burnside wanted his troops across this stone bridge spanning Antietam Creek.
Some of General Robert E. Lee's Georgians were dug in on the opposite bank making the bridge a focal point for their fire. The Union assault had been held up since 10 a.m. that morning. Now, something must be done.
The 51st Pennsylvania and the 51st New York had nearly gotten into position. The Pennsylvanians were particularly surly that afternoon; for misconduct on the march, their whisky ration had been cut. Ferrero spoke to them: "It is General Burnside's special request that the two 51st regiments take the bridge. Will you do it?"
The silence was broken by one of the Pennsylvanians making a soldier's bargain: "Will you give us our whisky, Colonel, it we take it?"
"Yes, by God!" The colonel sealed the pact. "You shall have all you want, if you take that bridge."
Led by Captain William Allabaugh, three color bearers and their guards, and their Colonel John Hartranft, they stormed the bridge and established a Union foothold on that end of the field.

"Take Sharpsburg and Lee's escape will be cut! Lee is watching this disaster from a place pretty close to where our national cemetery is today. There, he's watching the destruction of his army! There, he's watching the end of the war in total defeat ! There, he's watching the lives of every one of his soldiers who has died so far in this war lost in vain ! He has a broken wrist on one hand, the other hand is sprained -- both from a fall off his horse a few days earlier. He can't hold a telescope, so he calls over a staff officer. He points in the direction of Burnside Bridge: Who are those men?' Staff officer comes over, pulls open his telescope" -- Holsworth mimes the action as he describes it -- "looks in the direction of the Burnside Bridge, says, General Lee, they're flying the United States flag.' "

Holsworth stops. "If you remember, don't say a word! But I'll bet most of you forgot."

He resumes his story: "Now, Lee sees dust clouds from another direction! Who are those men?' The staff officer brings forward his telescope, looks in the direction of Harpers Ferry, says, General Lee, they're flying the Confederate and Virginia flags.' Lee turns to the staff officer and very calmly says, It is A.P. Hill from Harpers Ferry.' "

Holsworth pauses dramatically, then proceeds. "Hearing the shots very early in the morning, A.P. Hill has moved his division out! They've marched 17 miles in eight hours! He's brought his whole division across the wide, rock-bottom Potomac River! It's one of the great military miracles in American history -- because now, as Burnside is about to seize Sharpsburg and end the war, A.P. Hill suddenly appears on his left flank! Crashes into it! Throws Burnside back to the bridge! Ends the battle! Saves Lee's army!"

Burnside's Bridge - Confederate view

"You don't know what a thrill this is for me," says Edmund Burnside Sr. as his son pulls his white Oldsmobile into the parking lot overlooking the Burnside Bridge.

He's so thrilled that he can barely wait for the people who are climbing into a car with Indiana license plates to hurry up and move out of the way. "Come on, you damn Yankees, get on in!"

Finally, the Indiana Yankees drive off and Burnside's son, Edmund Jr., parks the Olds. They climb out and walk past a group of tourists studying a sign about the battle.

"If these people only knew who was walking by them," says the senior Burnside.

"Calm down, Pop," says his son.

But he can't calm down. Burnside, 71, a retired General Motors manager, is all keyed up. He has come all the way from Georgia to see where his most illustrious relative fought. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was, he says, the nephew of his great-great-grandfather. Growing up in Michigan, Burnside was aware of this connection to history, but he never paid much attention to it. Then, in the '50s, GM transferred him to Georgia, where he learned that many Southerners looked askance at his surname. One day, he was introduced to a man who immediately asked if he was kin to that Yankee general. Burnside proudly answered yes, and the man promptly threw him off his property. "They take it real serious down South," he says.

Burnside's Bridge - Union view

Curious, he started reading up on his distinguished relative. To his dismay, he found that many historians regard the general as a bumbling incompetent. In fact, quite a few of them blame Gen. Burnside for failing to get his troops across Antietam Creek quickly enough to seize Sharpsburg. "Burnside wasted the morning and part of the afternoon crossing the stubbornly defended bridge," wrote James M. McPherson in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Battle Cry of Freedom, "when his men could have waded the nearby fords against little opposition." Other historians disagree, however, arguing that the creek was too difficult to ford, and Edmund Burnside Sr. is firmly convinced that they are right. So convinced, in fact, that he once delivered a lecture defending the general to a group of Civil War buffs in Georgia. And now he has come to Antietam to see the place for himself.

"I didn't know his bridge was this big," he says when he catches his first glimpse of the stone span. He lights up a cigar with a white plastic tip and watches the tourists wander by. "I could give these tourists a thrill if I tell 'em who we are," he says. "They want a history lesson? We'll give it to them. Give me a crowd! I'll tell you about this bridge!"

His son doesn't look too happy about that idea. A 28-year-old tree surgeon, the younger Burnside is a Civil War buff, too, but he's more interested in reenacting battles than in rehabilitating the Burnside name. The two men pose for pictures on the bridge, then cross to the other side -- the side that Burnside's troops attacked from -- and look at the scene from the general's perspective.

Not surprisingly, the elder Burnside quickly concludes that it would have been impossible to ford the creek. "If they woulda got across the water, they couldn't crawl across the bank," he says. "You've got a 10-pound rifle and 60 pounds of equipment on your back."

"I'd hate to be in the first dozen or so to get across," says his son.

On the bank, the Burnsides read a Park Service sign quoting Henry Kyd Douglas, a Sharpsburg native who fought with the Confederates at Antietam: "They might have waded it that day without getting their waist belts wet in any place. Why Burnside's Bridge? Is it sarcasm?"

"Stupidity," the senior Burnside mutters in disgust. "This is what the authors like Bruce Catton and all them bastards that wrote books about Burnside -- this is what they write."

A few yards away is a monument to the 51st New York Infantry, the regiment that seized the bridge. In steel letters, its plaque proclaims that the men took the bridge "at the point of a bayonet."

"They didn't use any bayonets here!" Burnside scoffs. "This is the kind of crap that I just blow my stack about! I'm gonna come here with my spray can and say, Burnside says bull!' "

As they walk back across the bridge, though, his spirits improve. "I love it!" he says. "I love walking where he walked!"

He stops, puffs on his cigar, thinks. "Actually, he rode," he says. "His horse's name was Major."

"The next day Lee -- his men down to their last two or three rounds of ammunition -- will stand on this ridge and dare McClellan to attack him again!" says Jerry Holsworth. "George B. McClellan, true to his personality, will not attack. That evening, Lee will take his army back to Virginia, thus ending the battle and the campaign."

And so the bloodiest one-day battle in American history ended in anticlimax. With 30,000 fresh troops that he'd held in reserve, McClellan could almost certainly have crushed Lee's battered army if he'd launched an attack on September 18. But he was, as historian Stephen W. Sears wrote, "so fearful of losing that he would not risk winning." So Lee was permitted to retreat, rebuild his army and fight on for another 2 1/2 horrific years.

Next Friday we will revisit "The Lost Orders of Antietam".

Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Battle of Antietam(Sharpsburg) (9/17/1862) - Sep. 17th, 2003

Additional Sources:

www.wsu.edu/~jlance
www.pbs.org/civilwar
www.americaslibrary.gov
www.washingtonpost.com
civilwarprints.com
www.quartermaster.army.mil
www.wildwestweb.net
www.worldburnsclub.com
www.ferenzi.com
www.cob-net.org
www.kidport.com
webpages.marshall.edu
www.johnpaulstrain.com
www.pf-militarygallery.com
www.dixieprints.com
www.southernartcreations.com
www.gallon.com/gallery
www.alincolnbookshop.com
www.civil-war-life-clara-barton.com
www.historicalartprints.com

............

Still, the Union army had repulsed the Confederate invasion and driven the Rebels off Northern soil. That was certainly a victory, and Abraham Lincoln, a man with a deep mystical side, had already privately concluded that "if God gave us victory" it would be an indication that "God had decided this question in favor of the slaves." Somewhat less mystically, Lincoln had already concluded that a crusade against slavery would infuse the Union cause with a new moral fervor -- and keep England and France from intervening in support of the Confederacy. On September 22, five days after the battle, he issued a proclamation decreeing that on January 1, 1863, all slaves held in rebellious territories "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."

"As a result of this battle -- as a direct result of this battle -- Abraham Lincoln will issue the Emancipation Proclamation that will begin the process that will eventually put an end to slavery in the United States of America," Holsworth says. He has come to the conclusion of his speech. "Today, it doesn't really matter where you're from, folks, or who your ancestors fought for. I'd like to encourage all of you to visit our national cemetery. There, you'll find the final remains of 4,776 Americans who, here on Sharpsburg Ridge on September 17, 1862, gave up all of their tomorrows so that this nation might have a new birth of freedom. Thank you."

His audience applauds. Somebody says, "That was wonderful!" Holsworth takes off his Smokey Bear hat and mops the sweat off his balding pate. Half a dozen people rush up to congratulate him. A couple from Oregon tell him that they've traveled cross-country, stopping in national parks all the way, and his speech was the best they've heard yet. Somebody else tells him he speaks with the cadence and the spirit of an inspired evangelist.

"I grew up in a Baptist church in Dallas, Texas," he says, smiling. "And we are evangelists here. Our religion is this battlefield. We love it more than words can describe."

He pulls out a pack of cigarettes. "Mind if I support the North Carolina economy?"

Nobody minds, so he lights one up, takes a long drag, and starts talking about how he came to work here. He'd spent 13 years teaching history in Dallas, but he got sick of middle school kids and decided to try something new. A Civil War buff since he was 7 years old, he'd been spending a couple of thousand dollars every summer visiting battlefields, so he decided to move to Virginia, where he'd be closer to them. "I was going to spend the rest of my life studying the Civil War," he says.

And he has. First, he started volunteering at Antietam; then, a couple years ago, he got a job as a seasonal ranger. Now, he works summers at Antietam and spends his winters writing freelance newspaper and magazine articles, many of them about the Civil War. These days, he's toying with the idea of writing a novel that would popularize the battle of Antietam the way Michael Shaara's bestselling novel The Killer Angels popularized the Battle of Gettysburg. "We've got so many human interest stories here," he says.

President Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton and Major General McClernand at Antietam after the battle

All these activities have the same goal: remembrance. "How do we thank those people who we'll never meet, who did these things 130 years ago?" he asks. "The answer is: We can come here and remember. We make them immortal when we remember."

They climb out of the blue-and-tan pickup truck, leaving the motor running, as if they're only going to take a quick look at the Cornfield and then move along. But they end up lingering for a while.

They look down at a sign titled "Every Stalk of Corn." It's illustrated with a Gardner photograph of dead soldiers lying next to a split-rail fence, and it quotes Union Gen. Joe Hooker's description of the Cornfield after the battle: "In the time I am writing, every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before. It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield."

They read the sign, then stand for a long moment, silently staring out at the field where the tall grass trembles in the gentle breeze.

"I try to envision what they had to go through, what they did and how they did it," says Kevin Master, a 22-year-old college student from Palm, Pa. "I don't think the people of this country will do the things they did anymore. Attitudes change. Government changes. I don't know if people will fight."

"I don't know if people have that respect for the government anymore," says his fiancee, Barbara Decker.

"They're too much involved in material things," Master says, "and not what this country really stands for -- the democratic ideals."

They look at the Cornfield for another few moments, then climb back into the pickup and drive off, headed for Bloody Lane and the Burnside Bridge.

The Cornfield is quiet for a while, and then another car pulls up and two brothers step out. Their great-grandfather fought in a West Virginia regiment that stormed the Sunken Road, and they've come to see the battlefield. They, too, read the sign, and they, too, begin to stare silently out at the field of grass.

"It's just incredible to me the way these people fought," says John Pratt, 40, a corporate investigator from Mount Gilead, Ohio. "I think I wouldn't have done it. I wish I could, but I tend to think I would have looked for a wall somewhere to hide behind."

"I don't believe in war," says his brother Ray, 51, a steelworker from Weirton, W.Va. "I believe it's a waste. But I admire their courage. I don't think the generation we have now would fight that way."

"They kill each other in the street," says John. "They just won't fight for a cause."

"What a waste," Ray says, looking out at the field where 10,000 men once fell. "When you think of the widows and the orphans -- what a waste."

In time, they, too, move on, and the Cornfield is quiet again. Across the rolling country road stands a beige farmhouse with a white satellite dish in the yard and red, green and purple clothes hanging out to dry. Little white butterflies dart playfully past metal plaques erected by the War Department a hundred years ago. Designed to teach military tactics to young soldiers, they are simple, matter-of-fact statements of where a regiment was and what it did. Here at the Cornfield, however, the various plaques end with chilling statistics: "Of the 550 engaged, 323 were killed or wounded," or "226 officers and men, of whom 186 were killed or wounded."

Now, a woman, two boys and a dog walk along the edge of the Cornfield and sit down on the base of a monument to the troops from New Jersey. It's a 20-foot-tall pedestal crowned with a statue of a soldier raising a sword over his head. The two boys -- Kevin Kunkel, 9, and his brother Scott, 10 -- are filling out the Junior Ranger activity booklet they got at the visitors center. Their mother, Debbie Kunkel, 40, is gazing out at the Cornfield.

General James Longstreet holding the horses for his staff while they worked Miller’s Battery of the Washington Artillery, September 17, 1862, Sharpsburg, MD

"I get goose bumps sitting here," she says. "I wonder, when it comes down to it, how many of us could pick up a gun and charge into the lines?"

She and her sons have come from Pennsylvania to camp nearby. They're here because she wants them to to learn about their country's history. "I don't think most Americans really understand the significance of this," she says. "I worry about the generation coming up. We have a really hard problem talking about slavery issues and black-white issues, and they need to be talked about."

She is a slender woman with curly hair. As she talks, she is petting the family sheep dog and looking out at the Cornfield, imagining the battle that was fought there and the soldiers who fought it. "I'm a psychologist," she says, "and I get into wondering what they were feeling. What gave them the courage?"

She thinks a moment, then tries to answer her own question. "You're in a situation where you've got two possibilities -- you win or you die. It's the fight-or-flight thing. I kill this individual or he kills me. There were also those who ran in fear -- more of them than we realize. Men would literally pick each other up and say, Let's go! Let's go!' I think in those days to be a coward was such a disgrace" -- she mimes the act of shooting herself -- "that you may as well do it yourself. I don't think we have as much of that now as we did then -- fighting was a way of life."

Her son Scott has finished his activity book, and she turns to him. "You're a 10-year-old," she says. "Could you pick up a drum and march to war?"

"I wouldn't want to," he says.

"Could you have done it?"

"I don't know."

They move on, heading off to see the rest of the battlefield. Other tourists come and go. Then the sun begins to set and the people stop coming.

To the west, the horizon is splashed with pink. To the south, a half moon hangs in a sky turning a darker shade of blue. There is no breeze at all, and the grass in the Cornfield is perfectly still. There is the sound of crickets and a motor running at a nearby farmhouse. The sky darkens. The motor stops. Far away, a train blows its whistle, then blows it again, then again. The whistle fades as the train moves on. Now the only sound is the chirp of a million crickets. A faint breeze rises. The grass quivers, then sways gently.

It's night now, and the Cornfield -- the bloodiest part of the bloodiest day in American history -- is as peaceful as any place on Earth.

The Impact of Antietam

The Union army finally was able to win a major battle, and especially a battle waged in their own territory. Although, the Confederates were not destroyed and would be allowed to fight yet another day.

So far the Civil War tormented Lincoln as he may have paced in the Oval Office. The main problem at this point was that the Union Soldiers had nothing to fight for in their minds, note they weren't thinking like Lincoln. The Confederates had everything to fight for. They were being attacked near their homes and were fighting for the South. Many of the Union soldiers believed the South had the right to secede and didn't fill it necessary to restore the Union with force. At this point the war was waged as a major disagreement over State's Rights with slavery spurring on this issue, but Slavery was not the main issue.

Slavery in Europe was outlawed and thought to be an atrocity, and in many parts of the north was also thought of as an atrocity but not by all in the North. Lincoln was faced with a difficult decision and one which would inevitably restore the Union, he announced the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves. Well it was a bit more complex than this. But what it did is really make the war over Slavery and give the Northerners something to fight for, a cause if you will, and this strategy worked brilliantly. It kept Europe from supporting the South and this isolated the Confederacy. The greater impact of the Emancipation Proclamation was that it also was a major step in eliminating the practice of Slavery in the United States, and eliminating this evil eventually restored the Union.

James Ross Lance

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Good Saturday Morning Everyone.

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When do you sleep?

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

The Sunken Road was later renamed "Bloody Lane" by the Veterans of Antietam. James Hope of the 2nd Vermont made sketches during the battle and later made them into a large oil paintings. Over 5,600 dead, Union and Confederate filled the road by 1 pm of that fateful day.

Morning E.G.C.

Man! We had some nasty weather last night. Found out this morning a tornado touched down a few miles away in Manassas Park. That explains all the sirens yesterday.

WOW!!!!!! Unbelievable. We've had hot weather for the last few days and it doesn't seem to be lettting up anytime. We almost hit 100 yesterday. And it's September!!!!!!!

The effects of Ivan have hit this area pretty hard. Just saw the latest long range forcastand they've changed it to partly sunny for the rest of the week starting Sunday. If we can get through today looks like we'll have good weather for the rest of the trip.

Morning Skeeter.

Snippy sleeps?

Well, that's a good deal. Hopefully, Jeanne and Karl will stay out in the Atlantic and not bother anybody. The latest forecast have both of them staying out there for the near future.

How's it going, Snippy?

When do you sleep?

LOL. In the wee hours of the morning and not long enough!

Good morning EGC. Looks like it will clear up today. The remnants of Ivan came through here last night and are moving through DC this morning and out to the coast. It is a lot cooler this morning since the storm went through.

Great painting. True to form except there is more vegetation on the high ground now all these years later.

Many of the Union soldiers believed the South had the right to secede and didn't fill it necessary to restore the Union with force.

--the spelling police

Morning Snopercod. Thanks for keeping us on our toes. ;-)

I'm pretty sure my ancestors fought in that battle. Seventh (Seventeenth?) Virginia Cavalry. All the records are in the basement, and I will try and dig them out over the next few days.

Present!

September 18, 2004

Feeding The Wolf

Read: Romans 6:15-23

Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. —Romans 13:14

Bible In One Year: Proverbs 30-31; 2 Corinthians 11:1-15

There's a story about an old Cherokee chief sitting before a flickering fire with his grandson. The boy had broken a tribal taboo, and his grandpa wanted to help him understand what made him do it. "It's like we have two wolves inside us," said the chief. "One is good, the other is bad. Both demand our obedience."

"Which one wins?" asked the boy.

"The one we feed!" said the wise old chief.

Every follower of Jesus Christ can identify with that struggle. We fight an ongoing battle with selfish and sinful desires. They rise up within us and put incredible pressure on us to satisfy them. They are like ravenous hungers and unquenchable thirsts. First they are small "harmless" desires, but they grow stronger and can ultimately control us (Romans 6:16).

To resist we must believe what the Bible tells us about temptation's power. We must also believe that the Holy Spirit will help us to resist or to break free from its power.

But then comes the hard part. When an evil desire demands to be fed, we must say no—perhaps again and again and again. Paul said, "Make no provision for the flesh" (13:14).

Remember, what we feed will control us. —Dave Egner

Lord, grant me strength from day to day—
How prone I am to go astray!
The passions of my flesh are strong;
O God, please shield me from all wrong. —D. De Haan

It is easier to resist the first evil desire than to satisfy all the ones that follow.