A Day of Death

President Lincoln meets with Gen. McClellan on the battlefield at Antietam to order a final push against the Rebels. McClellan ignored his commander in chief.


Tuesday morning broke for us, but bleakly. Mist hung in the hollows on the northern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, up in the panhandle of Maryland. The cutting breeze made us wrap an extra layer of warm clothing around us as we ventured out onto the battlefield at Antietam.

It provided a fitting sense of chill at this the site of the ultimate day of death on the battlefield in all of our history.

Twenty-three thousand men died or were wounded on that one day, Sept. 17, 1862. It did not matter whether they were from the North – the Federals – or the South – the Rebels. They came together on that fateful day and faced thousands of cannon balls, muskets and rifles. And they fell in the Cornfield, on Bloody Lane, at the Middle Bridge that crossed Antietam Creek which ultimately joins the Potomac River.

Gen. Robert E. Lee brought his southern troops north, because he'd been winning the war to that point. He wanted to hurt the North and perhaps get the recognition of the European countries – particularly Britain – that the South was a separate country.

Gen. George B. McClellan believed Lee had many more troops in the area that his Union forces. He was wrong. He was a timid man, a good planner, loved by his men, but a lousy leader.

He sat in an overstuffed arm chair, overlooking the battlefield. The ladies and gentlemen of Washington had driven out to watch this decisive battle and they tittered and swooned at being so close to the star of the show. McClellan loved the adulation and played to the crowd while his men fell, and fell, and fell.

More than 10,000 men fell in the first three and a half hours after dawn broke on Sept. 17. By dusk, the battle was over. It was effectively a draw. The sounds of crying and groaning and begging calls for water could be heard all through the night.

The germ theory of infection was unknown back then. Surgeons operated on wounded soldiers in unsanitary conditions with unsterilized instruments. An amputee had a 65 percent chance of surviving surgery - but a 90 percent chance of dying from infection.

Jo and I drove and walked the fields, passing the 96 monuments that have been placed where the men fought and died. Only one monument honors soldiers who fought for both the North and the South. This was erected by the State of Maryland – a border state – because it had men who served on both sides.

It was chilling and sobering to linger along the split-rail fences and feel the presence of the spirits of so many souls. Sharpsburg, MD, would be a difficult town to live even now, I think. There is a sense of endless loss in the place.

We stopped in at a little tavern for lunch but there was no energy in the place. We returned to the field and spent an outstanding half hour with a park ranger who talked us through the strategy of Gen. Lee. He explained the power of the terrain, the way Lee moved his troops, the lack of coordination of the Federals as they came up the hill and were sliced in half by the cannon.

He also told us that five days after the battle, President Lincoln issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The document became final on Jan. 1, 1863, and gave the war a twofold purpose – reuniting the country and freedom of four million slaves.

Lincoln came here to the battlefield and to the many hospitals that were set up in an attempt to save the wounded. He spoke with men of the South as well as Northern soldiers. The war would continue for another two-plus years because of the ineptness of McClellan's lack of follow-through on that day in 1862. Lincoln replaced him but the blood continued to flow on both sides so that, by the end of the war, 600,000 men had been killed or wounded.