Role of General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Antietam

Role of General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Antietam

For a time, it looked like the South just might actually pull it off and succeed in the War for Southern Independence. After all, under the able leadership of General Robert E. Lee, the Confederate Army had already strung up a series of impressive victories. By 1862, all signs indicated that the Union was unable to stop this Confederate juggernaut, especially after the South invaded the North at the Battle of Antietam in late 1862 in what would result in the bloodiest one-day battle in the military history of America. For the Confederacy, this battle also represented the beginning of a lengthy series of other costly defeats, culminating in the North's victory in 1865. To determine what happened and what the consequences of the Battle of Antietam were for the United States, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature concerning the Battle of Antietam including an overview and background, the role of General Lee and his strategic victory based on primary resources such as diaries and memoirs and as well as secondary resources including historians' views on this matter. Finally, a discussion concerning the long-term implications of the battle for the Civil War is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Background and Overview

Many of the men that marched off to war on both sides of the conflict believed that the Civil War would be over in just a few weeks. The first few months of the conflict, though, made it abundantly apparent that despite the North's overwhelming superiority in military resources, the South had the will to win and despite their logistical disadvantages, they just might be able to do it given the North's apparent inability to respond effectively to their military advances, especially at Bull Run.

For instance, Browne (2003) reports that, "The Civil War before the battle of Antietam seesawed back and forth between Yankee and Rebel forces, between inept Union generals and the very competent Confederate leaders. Northern generals were weak or incompetent, constantly bickering around a president they despised. Lee, on the contrary, was always ready to take a chance, win or lose."

This "win-or-lose" and "all-or-nothing" strategy of the South was abundantly clear in the Battle of Antietam where General Robert E. Lee fought the Union Army to a standstill despite paying a high price for the privilege. Some historians suggest that General McClelland could have won the war at this point if he had prosecuted his battlefield advantages. In truth, though, Lee did enjoy some strategic advantages over the North simply by virtue of better generalship. Although Lee's counterpart in the North shared a similar background, McClelland was a better desk jockey than he was a field commander. Another Northern general, perhaps, could have exploited the Battle of Antietam to the extent that the South would never have recovered and the war would have ended three years sooner, saving tens of thousands of lives and millions of dollars in national treasure in the process.

In reality, then, McClelland was the wrong man for the job but President Lincoln lacked any viable alternatives, at least from his perspective, and it was this general that would lead the Union forces against the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Antietam and who General Lee would be fortunate to face at Antietam. For example, Breeding (2012) reports that, "Within a few months of the Battle of Fort Sumter, George B. McClellan's small army had driven Confederate forces out of western Virginia in the first campaign of the Civil War."

Despite this initial success, things went sour for the North as the war progressed, with Southern victory after victory leading up to the Battle of Antietam. In this regard, Breeding points out that, "After the Northern collapse at First Manassas (Bull Run), Abraham Lincoln needed a successful general to take command of the routed Federal forces, and the Union victories in the mountains of Virginia were enough to put McClelland in command."

Someone had to do the job, though, and General Lee enjoyed this strategic advantage of having McClelland leading the Northern forces from the outset of his invasion of the North. For example, Rosentreter reports that:

Students of American history are familiar with the importance of the Battle of Antietam: Confederate general Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North; the final battle of controversial northern general George B. McClellan; a northern victory that allowed President Abraham Lincoln to change the direction of the war with his Emancipation Proclamation; and-despite terrible times since that fateful September day in 1862-the bloodiest day in American history.

Asking if he could perhaps "borrow" the Army if his favorite general was not going to use it, it is unclear why Lincoln would continue to place any trust in McClelland given his demonstrated lack of fighting spirit, preferring to organize rather than carry the battle to the enemy. In this regard, Breeding emphasizes that, "McClellan was able to build the Army of the Potomac into an effective fighting force, but Lincoln's faith in McClellan was at this point the highest it would ever be. McClellan showed himself inept at commanding a large field army and the two men quickly proved that they had little in common besides their loyalty to the Union."

Nevertheless, McClelland was who he had to do the job and with this general in charge, and in retrospect, it is only by the fates of fortune that the Army of Northern Virginia did not march into Washington, D.C. And win the war right then and there.

The Role of General Robert E. Lee

The events that led up to the Battle of Antietam are therefore more understandable given the capable generalship buoyed by the initial victories enjoyed by the South led by Lee on the one hand and the organizationally capable but weak-in-fighting spirit with McClelland on the other. The role of General Lee in fighting the Northern forces to a stalemate at Antietam was therefore based on some hard-won battlefield experiences that were required to win these previous victories. Indeed, Lee realized that it was essential to fight this war to its bloody conclusion as quickly as possible because of the enormous disparities in manpower and war-related resources that existed between the North and the South, and the Battle of Antietam was fought over these specific issues. In the spirit of taking the war to the enemy, the Battle of Antietam represented the first invasion of the North by Confederate forces during the Civil War which took place on September 17, 1862 when General Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia into western Maryland.

On September 17, 1862, the 12-hour Battle of Antietam began at dawn and within the first seven hours, the casualties for the South amounted to at least 15,000 troops killed or wounded; all told, there were more than 23,000 casualties on both sides with more than 200,000 troops being involved.

According to the account of the battle provided by Sutherland (2001):

The peaceful countryside was unprepared for the sudden onslaught of 200,000 armed men, and the Marylanders welcomed neither Federals nor Confederates with complete enthusiasm. When the shooting started, the noise of battle was terrible, and noncombatants fled or hid in cellars. The bloody consequences shocked people, but they did what they could to attend the wounded.

Some indication of the strategy conceptualized by General McClelland for the Battle of Antietam can be discerned from his personal reports. Although Jamieson (1995) points out that, "As for McClellan's plans for the Battle of Antietam, he failed to communicate them clearly, to either his subordinates or posterity,"

Moreover, the battle unfolded in a way that confirmed the military adage that no battle plan survives the first shot and it is surprising that there were not even more causalities under the circumstances. For instance, an account of the battle provided by Civil War historian Colonel Fullenkamp (2002) notes that, "Commanders screamed orders that were rarely heard in the chaos; great billowing clouds of white smoke belched from cannon; shells ripped trenches into the plowed fields; and men were dying at a great rate on both sides of the fight."

To his credit, General McClelland did make some preliminary plans that would be followed during the day-long battle that would have significant consequences for the Confederacy. For instance, Jamieson adds that McClelland planned, "The attack against the Confederate left would be made by the corps of Hooker and Mansfield, the only ones west of the Antietam at dawn on the seventeenth. The attack on Lee's right would be made by Burnside's Ninth Corps, the sole one in position to do so."

Although other accounts placed the number of combatants at the Battle of Antietam at around 200,000, the official account provided by the U.S. National Park Services points out that, "Neither flank of the Confederate army collapsed far enough for McClelland to advance his center attack, leaving a sizeable Union force that never entered the battle. Despite over 23,000 casualties of the nearly 100,000 engaged, both armies stubbornly held their ground as the sun set on the devastated landscape."

This point is made time in again among the accounts of the battle, where historians laud General Lee's relentless fighting spirit even in the face of growing losses of precious men and materiel. For example, despite his enormous losses, General Lee continued to prosecute the battle in an opportunistic fashion throughout the daylong battle in hopes of ultimately turning the tide. In this regard, Jamieson advises that, "Even [after sustaining devastating losses], Lee conceded the initiative grudgingly and during the day-long battle he made division-sized counterattacks, exhausted all of his reserves, and looked for opportunities to seize the offensive."

After 12 hours, it would seem reasonable to suggest that both sides would have had enough and would have been exhausted to the point where they could fight no longer, but General Lee never really gave up the offensive. For instance, Jamieson adds that, "While the Federals were driving in his center along the Sunken Road, the Southern commander considered an attack against McClellan's right. The battle in fact ended with a Confederate offensive, a.P. Hill's timely thrust into the left flank of the Ninth Corps."

In response to McClellan's refusal to pursue the Confederates into their own territory and perhaps end the war three years sooner was regarded as treasonous by some U.S. congressmen. For example, Michigan's Senator Zachariah Chandler, considered McClellan "an imbecile if not a traitor," and if a "traitor he ought to be shot."

Although it is important to qualify that this statement about treasonous behavior and suggesting his execution was made in a letter to the senator's wife, there were some clear indications among lawmakers that if McClelland was not colluding outright with the South, he otherwise lacked the skills or wherewithal need to win the war in general and the Battle of Antietam in particular. For instance, McPherson reports that, "These statements, like McClellan's about Stanton, were made in letters to their wives. But publicly Chandler -- and others -- challenged the claim that the Army of the Potomac was outnumbered. In this they were right. McClellan's problem was not lack of reinforcements, they charged, but lack of the will to fight. 'We feel much obliged to you for your exposure of that windbag and humbug McClellan,' wrote one of Chandler's correspondents."

Likewise, Armstrong (2008) points out that, "McClellan, as the principal Federal commander from the summer of 1861 until November 1862, is easily one of the most controversial figures of the war. His performance as commander of the Army of the Potomac during the Maryland Campaign is usually characterized as excessively slow, overly cautious, and blind to the opportunity presented him for defeating the Army of Northern Virginia and ending the war at the Battle of Antietam."

One of the consistent themes that emerges from the relevant literature is just how well General Lee did at Antietam despite the overwhelming Northern forces that were arrayed against him. For instance, in an evaluation of the criticism directed at McClellan's half-hearted advances and demonstrated failure to deploy the superior manpower that was available to him at the Battle of Antietam, Duncan (1999) notes that in reality, many were not a match for the Confederate troops. For instance, Duncan emphasizes that, "Nearly one-quarter of McClellan's infantry consisted of green troops as opposed to Lee's veterans, whereas they constituted one-half of the Harpers Ferry garrison."

Likewise, Duncan cites the vital roles played by J.E.B. Stuart and John Pelham in the manner in which artillery pieces were handled on Nicodemus Heights and Hauser's Ridge and concludes that notwithstanding better performances in a number of other battles, the "success [of southern batteries] was especially tangible at Antietam."

Other historians have also emphasized that superior generalship of Robert E. Lee during the Battle of Antietam as contributing to the hard-fought outcome. For example, Cannan (1994) reports that, "In supervising the battle, Lee and his lieutenants once again demonstrated their outstanding brilliance, shifting troops where needed to blunt the thrusts of his adversary."

The relentlessness of the Confederate leadership provided by General Lee even in the face of overwhelming odds is also made evident by Cannan's observation that, "In the cases where they did not have organized reinforcements available, lines were improvised and thrown into the fray. Though hard pressed throughout the battle, the generals and men had refused to quit and retreat. However, they had reached the limits of their endurance and without reinforcements they could do no more but retreat."

Despite the valiant sustained performances by the Confederate troops during the Battle of Antietam, the scope of the toll it exacted on the Southern troops can be discerned from some first-hand accounts in the historical record. For example, an account of the battle provided by a member of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's Winchester camp by 21-year-old Sergeant Benjamin F.J. Hyatt, Third Arkansas Infantry, relates the inordinately high casualty rates among his comrades: "Every letter I receive from home bears a sad tale. [a]lmost every homestead is in mourning for some gallant member of the homecircle."

The sergeant specifically cites the Battle of Antietam as a factor in these losses. According to Bledsoe (2008), Sergeant Hyatt was "a student at the University of Mississippi and the eldest son of a minister from Monticello, Arkansas [who] had good reason to grieve, and not just over bad news from home."

Although Sergeant Hyatt did not participate in the Battle of Antietam because he was assigned elsewhere, the impact of the battle on the collective Southern spirit can be discerned from Bledsoe analysis of his journal entries about the event:

Two weeks earlier, on September 17, 1862, Benjamin Hyatt's 'homecircle' had been shattered when his brothers Elijah and Robert fell at the battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Third Arkansas Infantry Regiment had suffered heavily on that bloodiest single day in American military history. The regiment went into combat with 350 men. By the end of the day, 202 of them had been killed, wounded, or captured. Twenty-six of the casualties were men from Hyatt's Company C, the 'Confederate Stars.'

Because many of the regiments that comprised the Confederate Army were men from the same towns and communities, this scope of loss must have been a devastating blow to towns a majority of the men who marched off to battle died or were mortally wounded. Indeed, the battle was fought hard by the South and the efforts of many regiments were sufficiently noteworthy to be recognized by the Confederate government for their distinguished service. For instance, the famed "Iron Brigade" of the Army of Northern Virginia was comprised of "four battle-hardened Virginia infantry regiments (the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th and 33rd)" who earned this distinction following the Battle of Antietam.

As a West Pointer, General Lee also knew how to use terrain to his advantage and was relentless in his prosecution of the battle even as the grisly consequences of these efforts were unfolding. Indeed, Jamieson cites a personal record from Lee to illustrate this propensity for victory at all costs:

Even after his army took its ghastly losses and had its brush with disaster at Sharpsburg, Lee's aggressive spirit remained undaunted. Just four days after the bloodbath at Antietam, he told President Davis: '...it is still my desire to threaten a passage into Maryland, to occupy the enemy on this frontier, and, if my purpose cannot be accomplished, to draw them into the Shenandoah Valley, where I can attack them to advantage.'

Given that General Lee was renowned for personally knowing many of the soldiers he led, and recognizing the implications these losses would have for the people of the South, he remained committed to exploiting the potential opportunity this initial incursion onto enemy soil represented. He had what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia, and he was going to use it to his best advantage given the circumstances that the South faced in sustaining a long-term conflict with the resource-superior North. In this regard, Jamieson concludes that, "Few generals in American history, faced with Lee's circumstances on September 21, 1862, would have written such a dispatch."

Few generals have sustained such losses and kept their jobs, though, and the fact that Jefferson Davis remained faithful to his favorite general is proof positive that the total war being experienced by the South was worth it. This commitment is understandable, at least to some degree from a modern perspective, because the war was still relatively young and it was difficult to envision the enormity of the losses that would be experienced in the years to come. Nevertheless, the scope of the battle was profound by any historical measure. For example, Browne (2003) emphasizes that, "The bloody battle left more dead and dying casualties on the ground than any other conflict the United States has ever fought, including Normandy. Stories, only slightly exaggerated, recount how one could walk over the battlefield on the bodies of the dead, never touching the ground."

In a reconstructed America where people fly to Atlanta to change planes every day, it may be difficult for modern observers and even historians to fully appreciate the vehemence and outright hatred over the fundamental issue of state's rights and slavery over which the Civil War in general and the Battle of Antietam was fought. It is clear that the men at Antietam were ready and willing to fight each other to the death if necessary over these issues. Miniballs and cannon shot, bayonets and hand-to-hand combat where commonplace on the battlefields at Antietam, and the gore involved in difficult to conceptualize without seeing the carnage firsthand. Nevertheless, it is possible to discern some degree of the scope of the conflict at Antietam by Janney observation that, "Numerous soldiers appeared to delight in killing" and quotes one Confederate officer "who after the battle of Antietam relished the sight of the 'several limbs, decapitated bodies, and mutilated remains' of dead Yankees. This did his soul good, he claimed.' Such statements should encourage historians to reconsider how such attitudes about death and slaying of the enemy might have affected postwar efforts at peace and reconciliation."