General Thomas J. (“Stonewall”) Jackson.
Lee now invaded Maryland with 60,000 men. Already the alarmed North heard him knocking at its gates. Hastily re-organizing the army, McClellan gave chase. Leaving a force to hold Turner’s Gap in South Mountain, Lee pushed on toward Pennsylvania. By the battle of South Mountain, September 14th, Hooker got possession of the gap, and the Union army poured through. Seeing that he must fight, Lee took up a position on Antietam Creek, a few miles north of Harper’s Ferry. Jackson had just received the surrender of the latter place, with 11,000 prisoners, and now hurried to join Lee.
By the night of September 16th, the two armies were in battle array on either side of the creek. To the rear of the Confederate left lay a cultivated area encircled by woods, a cornfield in its centre. At dawn on the 17th, Hooker opened the battle by a furious charge against the Confederate left, and tumbled the enemy out of the woods, across the cornfield, and into the thickets beyond, where he was fronted by Confederate reserves. The carnage was terrific. Re-enforcements under Mansfield were sent to Hooker, but driven back across the cornfield. Mansfield was killed and Hooker borne from the field wounded, Sumner coming up barely in time to prevent a rout. Once more the Confederates were pushed through the cornfield into the woods. Here, crouching behind natural breastworks—limestone ridges waist-high—the southern ranks delivered so hot a fire as to repulse Sumner’s men. Thus, all the morning and into the afternoon the tide of battle surged back and forth through the bloody cornfield, strewn with wounded and dead.
General Edwin V. Sumner.
General Winfield S. Hancock.
On the Confederate right no action took place till late in the day. Burnside then attacked and gained some slight advantage. But re-enforcements from Harper’s Ferry came up and were put in against him, forcing him back to the creek. During the next day McClellan feared to risk a battle. Being re-enforced, he intended to attack on the following morning; but Lee, who should have been crushed, having but 40,000 men to McClellan’s 87,000, slipped away in the night and got safely across the Potomac. The Union loss was 12,400; that of the Confederates probably about the same.
The general dissatisfaction with McClellan’s slowness caused his removal early in November, Burnside succeeding him. The new commander, who, as the head of the army, was an amiable failure, proposed to move directly against Richmond, but Lee flung himself in his path at Fredericksburg.
Fredericksburg lies on the south bank of the Rappahannock. Behind the city is a gradually ascending plain, bounded by heights which bend toward the river. Lee’s army, 80,000 strong, lay in a semicircle along these heights, its wings touching the river above and below the town. Two rows of batteries, planted on the heights, swept the plain in front and flank. A sunken road, sheltered by a stone wall, ran along the base of the declivity. Burnside’s army of 125,000 men occupied a range of hills on the north side of the river.