The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2) / A Narrative and Critical History

by George Cary Eggleston

These actions were fought on the fourteenth of September, 1862. They were quite separate in their strategy and action, but they are classed together in history as the Battle of South Mountain. The struggle at both points was a fierce one and the casualties were heavy on either side. At the end of it all McClellan held the passes and was free to push his army through them. To that extent he had won a victory. But by his stout defense Lee had gained the time he so badly needed in which to bring his scattered forces together for the decisive struggle, and as that was his sole object at the time, he justly felt that he had accomplished the purpose with which he had undertaken the battle.

Lee promptly prepared himself for the decisive struggle. Retiring behind Antietam Creek, he took up a strong position and awaited McClellan's assault. He had by this time an army of less than 38,000 men with which to meet McClellan's 70,000 or 75,000—for reinforcements were hourly coming to the Federal commander, and none to the Confederate.

This defensive battle was not at all what the Confederate general had hoped for or intended. He had been baffled of his purposes by adverse circumstances. Had his enemy promptly evacuated Harper's Ferry as he had expected and as McClellan had urged, Lee would have pushed on towards Washington or Baltimore, giving battle as the assailant wherever his march might have been opposed. The necessity of pausing to reduce Harper's Ferry had delayed him during precious days, during which McClellan's advance had completely changed the aspect of the campaign. Instead of advancing to conquer Washington or Baltimore, Lee fell back into a defensive position, there to meet an army nearly or quite twice as large as his own. In the meanwhile the necessity of living upon the country had completely demoralized those "lewd fellows of the baser sort," who constitute a pestilently important contingent in every fighting force. Men were away raiding chicken coops when they should have been in line with guns in their hands. Straggling was general beyond precedent, so that Lee declared that his army was "ruined" by it, while D. H. Hill said in his report of operations that "Had all our stragglers been up McClellan's army would have been completely crushed or annihilated. Thousands of thievish poltroons had kept away from sheer cowardice."

But the fact stares us in the face that McClellan had under his command quite all of 70,000 men and probably more, while Lee had at most considerably less than 40,000,—and as both armies were composed of seasoned soldiers who had fought before, it is by no means safe to say that if this or if that had been changed the result would have been other than it was. With an "if," it is easy to demonstrate anything.

The simple facts are that on the seventeenth of September, 1862, the two armies met on Antietam Creek in front of Sharpsburg, that they fought all day with high courage and desperate determination on both sides; that the Federals lost, by official report, 12,469 men, while the Confederate loss, never accurately reported, was estimated at between 9,000 and 10,000 men; that at the end of the struggle each army held the position it had occupied at the beginning, neither having yielded position to the other.

So far were both reluctant to renew the struggle that they lay still, facing each other during the whole of the next day, neither side firing a gun, and neither undertaking a maneuver of any kind.

That was what is technically called a drawn battle, a battle in which neither army can claim advantage over the other. And in fact that was the exact situation. Lee's men prided themselves upon the fact that they had held their own against nearly or quite twice their numbers, McClellan's men were proud to think that they had not been beaten as other armies had been by this phenomenal fighting machine of Robert E. Lee's; that they had not been flanked or caught in the rear, or in any other way outmaneuvered or outfought, but had been able to hold their own throughout the day and to maintain their ground when the day was done.

Considered by itself this was in fact a drawn battle. But considered more broadly in its relation to the general course of the war, it was very clearly a defeat for Lee, and a victory for his adversary. It made a final end of the Confederate general's scheme of invasion. It baffled all of his cherished purposes. It rendered utterly futile the plans in pursuit of which he had crossed the Potomac. It ended his hope of winning the war by the conquest of Washington or Baltimore, or both. It referred military operations again to Virginia, relieving all states north of the Potomac of their share in the sufferings incident to battles and campaigning.

Lee, being too badly crippled to continue his campaign, retired after a day's rest, to Virginia. McClellan, being too badly hurt to risk another contest, declined to follow him or in any way to interfere with his purposes.

The net results of Lee's campaign were that he had captured 11,500 prisoners at Harper's Ferry together with seventy-three guns and a vast store of food and munitions. He had inflicted upon his enemy in battle a loss of 12,469 men. On the other hand he had suffered a loss of 9,000 or 10,000 men; his army was reduced to 30,000 or less, and the strategic purpose of the campaign had utterly failed. He had encountered no disaster, but the expedition undertaken with high hopes and positively Napoleonic purposes had come to naught.