Battles and leaders of the Civil War

17 September 1862

Battle of Antietam

SCALE OF MILES

OF WASHINGTON I>ri:lNG THE ANTIETAM CAMPAIGN,

FROM THE PENINSULA TO ANT1ETAMJ

j After General MeClellau had written the article on the Peninsular Campaign ( published in "The Century " magazine for May, 1885 [see p. 160] ), he was requested to write an account of the battle of Antietam, which he promised to do at his leisure. He had kept the promise in mind, and as occasion served had sketched introductory portions of the proposed article. In the morning after his sudden death, these manuscript pages were found on his table, with some others freshly written, possibly on the previous day or evening. There was also an unsealed note to one of the editors (in reply to one he had received), in which he said that he would at once proceed with the article and finish it.

NOTES ON CRAMPTON'S GAP AND ANTIETAM.

BETWEEN the 2d and 6th of September, the Sixth Corps remained in eamp near Alexandria and collected horses and transportation for ammu- nition and provisions, which were gradually disembarked. On the latter date it marched to Tenallytown, beyond Georgetown, D. G, crossing the Potomac by the Long Bridge, and beginning the Maryland campaign. Its daily marches thereafter, to the date of the battle of Antietam, were regu- lated by orders from General McClellan, who, in turn, was in direct communi- cation with Washington. It appears from the telegraphic correspondence which was carried on between Halleck and McClellan, that while the latter believed that General Lee's object was the invasion of Pennsylvania, the former could not divest himself of the notion that Lee was about to play the Union army some slippery trick by turning its left, getting between it and Washington and Baltimore, and then taking each city by a coup-de-main. The following are extracts from some of General Halleck's dispatches :

NOTES ON CRAMPTON'S GAP AND ANTIETAM.

Later on that day the enemy withdrew from Pleasant Valley and Harper's Ferry toward Sharpsburg. Couch's division joined me, and the corps remained stationary without orders from McClellan until the evening of the 16th, when I was ordered to march the next morning to join the army and to send Couch's division to occupy Maryland Heights. Accordingly the corps started at 5:30 a. m., and the advance reached the field of Antietam at 10 a. m., about twelve miles distant from the starting-point.