A Fierce Glory by Justin Martin

Author:Justin Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2018-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

A LURID SUNSET

A mammoth Union battle line had been formed, stretching for a full mile to the west of the Antietam. It was 3:00 P.M. Two entire hours had been devoted to crossing the creek, causing that remarkable stretch of placidity to settle over the field, right in the midst of what McClellan termed, “the most terrible battle of the war, perhaps of history.”

The crossing had been a demanding feat. It was necessary to convey to the other side of the Antietam twenty-nine regiments, consisting of the roughly 11,000 Federal IX Corps soldiers still capable of fighting. (The corps was down 1,500 from its strength when the standoff began.) Thousands of soldiers marched over that narrow bridge with space enough to accommodate maybe five men abreast. Thousands more forded the creek, arduous in its own right.

On the other side, the logistical challenges only multiplied. The men had to be arranged in that wide formation. The place selected was the brow of the bluffs on the west side of the Antietam, meaning the battle line extended along the higher ground above where the dug-in Georgians had made their stand. Entire regiments had to be shuffled around to get the Federals into position. The two 51sts, for example, were all fought out, exhausted and low on ammo after their heroic effort to take the bridge. They were moved behind the battle line, to act as reserves. Cannons and caissons had also made the crossing, along with wagons filled with sundry supplies. All these had to be positioned near the troops that needed them. So many details, so many particularities, yet working through them represented nothing beyond a point of departure.

An almost unfathomable challenge lay ahead. Lee had chosen his ground brilliantly, and this part of the field was his masterstroke. Here the severe topography approximated a fortress, the natural equivalent of one of those storybook Mexican castles to which he and McClellan together had laid siege, fifteen years earlier, during their first brief meeting. Think about it. What was the Rohrbach Bridge if not a drawbridge—and the Antietam, an improvised moat. And those Georgians: they may as well have been pouring hot oil down onto the heads of their attackers. Now that the Union had crossed the creek, the full dimensions of Lee’s redoubt were revealed, and it must have been sobering. The soldiers would need to climb three quarters of a mile up a hillside, negotiating rugged terrain, before reaching the broad plateau where Sharpsburg sat, its church spires doubling as towers in this castle fantasia.

Above the broad Union line waited roughly 3,000 Confederates, among them General Toombs’s resolute Georgians, having retreated to this spot. Looming, too, were forty malevolent cannons. Still, if the Federals could somehow take those heights, they might be able to cut off Rebel access to Boteler’s Ford, that vital route back across the Potomac to Virginia, and safety. Such a turn of events might even embolden McClellan, convince him to commit some of the thousands of Union soldiers waiting in reserve elsewhere on the field.

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