Pelham in the Maryland Campaign - Part II: The Battle of Antietam
In the early morning hours of September 15, 1862, Major John Pelham withdrew his battery from South Mountain. Robert E. Lee had decided to concentrate his army at the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Covered by Fitz Lee's cavalry, Lee's army crossed Antietam Creek and formed a line of battle.
George B. McClellan's pursuit favored Lee. Lee about 18,000 effectives the 15th and a vigorous assault by McClellan would have had dire consequences for the Army of Northern Virginia. Yet true to form, McClellan rested his men instead of attacking and on the 16th he methodically oversaw the placing of each gun and unit on the field. Meanwhile, Harpers Ferry had fallen on the 15th, and Stonewall Jackson (still without the divisions of Lafayette McLaws, R. H. Anderson, and A.P. Hill) arrived to reinforce Lee.
The Confederate position was in a large bend of the Potomac River. The ground was hilly farmland, most of it in cultivation, broken by small copses of woods and sharp limestone outcroppings. James Longstreet held the right, which rested on Antietam Creek; D. H. Hill, the center; and Jackson, the left. The Confederates had the advantage of shorter interior lines, but space for maneuver was limited . The position was within range of the powerful Federal artillery east of Antietam Creek. Should Lee be defeated, his only avenue of escape was the Shepherdstown ford on the Potomac. Lee was still vastly outnumbered, and straggling had taken such a toll that "only heroes were left," as one staunch Confederate said. Despite these odds, Lee settled down to wait for McClellan's move.
On the extreme left, to the Potomac, was Lee's cavalry and Pelham with his battery. Pelham posted his guns on a high ridge, which dominated the northern part of the field and was somewhat oblique to the main Confederate line, called Nicodemus Heights.1 It was to prove vital to Jackson's defense.
At 2 p.m., September 16, McClellan made his long awaited assault. Major General Joseph Hooker's I Corps crossed Antietam Creek and attacked the Confederate left. Hood's Texans were sent in as a reinforcement and Jackson shifted his line northward to meet the attack. Darkness ended the fight just at the edge of the East Wood. The assault accomplished little except to warn Lee where to expect the first blow the next day.
The men slept on their arms, but it was a restless night. Their sleep was interrupted by occasional cannon fire or the nervous and premature discharge of a picket's musket. Sleepless officers walked up and down the line. One was J. E. B. Stuart, who was surprised at finding his chief of artillery sound asleep with his men in a fence corner. Shaking him awake, Stuart said, "My dear fellow, don't you know that the cornfield at the foot of the hill is full of Yankees?" Pelham quickly roused his men and moved elsewhere.2
At dawn, September 17, Hooker renewed the assault. His three divisions saw as their goal the whitewashed Dunker Church, nestling against the dark green West Wood, about a mile away. Between the East and West Wood was a 3D-acre cornfield belonging to farmer D. R. Miller. Awaiting Hooker were the divisions of J. R. Jones (Jackson's division) and Alexander Lawton.
As Hooker moved southward, Abner Doubleday's division, on the right, encountered Pelham's artillery fire, enfilading the line. Doubleday was forced to call a halt and called up his own artillery to answer. The horse artillerists shifted gun positions between bursts of fire, thereby creating the illusion that the line was solidly held.
Jackson, an old artillerist, recognized the importance of Nicodemus Heights. Every available gun which strayed in from Harpers Ferry ended up under Pelham's command -- guns from the Bedford Battery, the Louisiana Guard, the Richmond Hampden Battery, the 2nd Maryland, the Alleghany Battery, the Danville Battery, and the Rockbridge Artillery -- nineteen guns in all. Jackson's only reserve was Jubal Early's brigade, and this protected Pelham's artillery.
Meanwhile, the Confederate and Federal infantry were shooting it out in the cornfield. It is doubtful that Pelham's gunners could have seen much through the smoke, but the din of musketry must have attested to the ferocity of the battle, as regiment upon regiment entered the cornfield and fired pointblank at each other. "Every stalk of corn in the 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 stood in their ranks a few moments before," General Hooker wrote later. "It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield." By 7 a.m. Hooker's attack had crested, but now Joseph Mansfield's XII Union Corps was advancing into the fray.
Fighting was now raging in the vicinity of the Dunker Church, the Cornfield, and the West Wood. In the brief interim between Hooker's and Mansfield's assaults, Pelham shifted his guns to Hauser's Ridge, behind the West Wood. From here, Pelham was able to sweep the open ground to the Dunker Church. As S. W. Crawford's division entered the West Wood, they encountered Pelham's artillery barrage. While the Federals had gained ground north of the Dunker Church and east of the Hagerstown Turnpike, Jackson's left, aided by Pelham's guns, held firm. Mansfield's assault grounded to a halt. Only George S. Greene's division held a precarious position near the church, but without reinforcements he could do nothing.
After a brief lull, at 9 a.m., Edwin V. Sumner's II Corps came up. Two divisions, under William N. French and John Sedgwick, arrived on the field. Sedgwick's lead brigade was commanded by General Willis A. Gorman. As Gorman advanced into the West Wood, Pelham's gunners could hardly miss. Their rounds, if they went over the heads of the first Federal line, struck home in the second or third. To meet this threat, Jackson deployed his reserve under Early. Sedgwick, however, penetrated the West Wood and appeared on the verge of success. French was moving against the Confederate center. Every available Confederate unit was active. At this critical point, Jackson was reinforced by Major General John G. Walker's division and McLaws' division, just arrived from Harpers Ferry.
Walker and McLaws launched a vicious flank assault. It took Sedgwick by surprise and it was greatly aided by Pelham's guns, which leapfrogged northward from Hauser's Ridge, keeping pace with the infantry. The combination of shelling and musketry was too much, and Sedgwick's men with elements of the I and XII Corps dispersed, leaving 2200 casual ties. The Federals reached the safety of 30 massed Federal guns in the North Wood. McLaws pursued, but this Federal artillery fire caused the loss of almost forty percent of his command. On the left, Pelham tried to silence these troublesome batteries and for his pains he received terrible punishment in an unequal contest. So many horses were killed that Lee's quartermaster had to issue him a new supply after the battle.
By 10:30 a.m. all Federal attempts to turn Jackson's flank had failed. Pressure was now put upon the Confederate center, near the Bloody Lane, which barely held; then on the Confederate right, where at 3 p.m. A. P. Hill foiled Burnside's assault and saved the day. McClellan had foolishly committed his army piecemeal, allowing Lee to shift reinforcements to the threatened sector of his line. The Confederate line had been severely bent and battered, but it held.
The aggressive Jackson in the afternoon contemplated a turning movement against the Federal right. Stuart, with Pelham's artillery, and 5500 men were organized to attempt it. Pelham made the reconnaissance. He found a solid mass of Federal artillery north of his position, with a field of fire all the way down to the Potomac, and reported the effort could not succeed. This opinion was later confirmed by General Stephen D. Lee to Robert E. Lee himself.
On September 18, Lee presented a bold front and held his position, but it was obvious he could not afford another assault. That night the Army of Northern Virginia began its withdrawal into Virginia. Out of 51,844 effectives, the Confederates lost 13,724; the Federals' loss was 12,410 out of 75,316 men. It had indeed been, "desperate hours on the Antietam."
Pelham's role in the Battle of Antietam has been greatly underestimated. The possession of Nicodemus Heights was absolutely essential to Jackson's defense. Hooker has been criticized for not seizing this hill, but this is a criticism based on hindsight. The fact is that Hooker believed the height to be a mere extension of the Confederate line -- an illusion created largely by the artillery -- and he deployed his troops accordingly.
Pelham's movement to Hauser's Ridge was a stroke of genius, for he had grasped the key of Jackson's whole line. About this movement, Jennings C. Wise in The Long Arm of Lee wrote: "But in Pelham he [General Henry J. Hunt, Chief of the Union artillery] found an equal in the aggressive handling of artillery, for no one movement on either side bore a greater influence upon the final issue of the battle than did the advancement of Pelham's group during the interim between Hooker's and Mansfield's attack. This was a move on the chess board, though perhaps by a pawn, which baffled the most powerful pieces of the enemy. It was one of the master strokes by a subordinate of highly developed initiative, -which has so often been found to play a major part in the tac tical success of the superior." Beyond the reach of Hunt's guns, Pelham had a clear field of fire which proved devastating to Mansfield's assault. It is a good example of Pelham's eye for terrain and position.
The duel with Hunt's guns perhaps displayed more zeal than sense, but Pelham showed appropriate discretion in recommending that the flanking movement not be tried. In this battle, Pelham showed he was up to handling new responsibility -- in essence he was Jackson's chief of artillery in the battle. Undoubtedly, without the superior handling of his artillery, Jackson could not have held the left; had Jackson not been able to hold his part of the line, Lee undoubtedly would have been annihilated. No, wonder that Jackson, in a conversation with John Esten Cooke following the battle, said: "Wi th a Pelham on each flank, I believe I could whip the world!"
1 Ironically, this was the property of William J. L. Nicodemus, who had been an upperclassman at West Point when Pelham first arrived there in 1856. Milham, p. 19.
2 Stephen W. Sears, Landscape Turned Red, pp. 177-78. It is interesting to note that Milham, p. 198, says this incident occurred on the evening of November 2, 1862, near the town of Union in Loudoun County. They both ci te the testimony of colorbearer Robert M. Mackall. Sears, op. ci t., p. 389, "Robert M. Mackall, Pelham's Battery, Antietam Studies, National Archives."
This article first appeared in Volume 3, No. 1 of The Cannoneer.
Sources:
"The Battle of Antietam," Civil War Times Illustrated, August
1962.
Stephen W. Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam, New
Haven and New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1983.
Jacob D. Cox, "The Battle of Antietam," Battles and Leaders of
the Civil War, Volume 2, pp. 630-660.
D. H. Hill, "The Battle of South Mountain," Battles and Leaders
of the Civil War, Volume 2, pp. 559-581.
H. B. McClellan, I Rode with Jeb Stuart.
Jennings C. Wise, The Long Arm of Lee, Lynchburg: J. P. Bell &
Co., Volumes 1 and 2, 1915.
Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, Vol. 2.
Charles G. Milham, Gallant Pelham: American Extraordinary.
