Antietam leading to The Battle of Shepherdstown: 158th Anniversary of Antietam

hey everybody welcome back now we can call this officially shepherd's town 158. if you've ever heard of the battle of shepherdstown before maybe it's some sort of an afterthought to the battle of antietam or the button on the end of the maryland campaign but there's really a lot going on with this you know there are some accounts that suggest maybe lee was going to continue the campaign even you know after the 18th you know before this battle at shepherdstown if you've heard of this maybe you've heard of you know that there's a ford nearby maybe you of course talk about the potomac river which is right behind you and we'll see shortly um and if you've heard of anything on the battlefield itself you know maybe you've heard about pendleton and there's lots of some artillery an ap hill lashing back but if you've heard of anything on the battlefield itself it's usually the cement mill and we're standing not at the cement mill but at the furnace for the cement mode what cool ruins we can see right here these are really nice and i'm really happy that the american battlefield trust and its partners and members have held to preserve more than 350 acres here at the shepherdstown battlefield smaller than the battle of antietam but very important indeed um nonetheless and we're going to talk about that but before we do we have to get from the end of the battle of antietam you know up until two days later on the 19th so let's just pan over to our friend dennis fry let's go on down to the river come on down here for a moment now the first thing i want you to do is just look at this you can see the potomac river potomac river in the background now keep in mind during the civil war the potomac river is this i'm going to give you two words that i bet you've never thought of with regard to definition of the potomac river potomac river equals international boundary international boundary right now we're standing in the confederate states of america that is the united states yeah i'm not in the united states i'm on the confederate bank of the potomac river yeah we got two countries here you can see both countries this is a really important place because there's a ford here known as boatler's ford or blackford's ford they're not here because of the furnaces or the cement mill but because of the crossing this fort is so important so important to robert e lee both coming and going the coming part is this antietam is this direction not very far from here about three miles sharksburg antietam that's where lee is you know where stonewall jackson is he's not there he's not over there you know where two out of every three confederate soldiers is they're not there with lee they're this way at harpers ferry and so when lee stops at sharksburg to reunite his army that's been divided by special orders 191 jackson finally succeeds in bringing about the capitulation of harper's ferry on september the 15th yesterday lee sends an immediate call to jackson get your tail up here or words to that effect get up here i need you here and so this isn't the most direct route but the safest route from harpers ferry to sharpsburg and antietam was via boatler's ford across the potomac river now you can see a break in the river here this actually is not the ford that's way too straight for a ford that's a dam that's a hydraulic dam that backs up water on the potomac to give us water that's fed into the furnace and into the mill here the cement mill but it but just below us and i can hear it you may not be able to hear it i'm gonna i'm gonna stop for just a moment and see if you can hear the river that roar sounds like rapids in the river what is rapids shallow those rapids are part of butler's or blackford's ford and of course all of ford is is an upheaval where the rock comes up in a body of water and it allows you to cross over that water without a boat these got no pond dunes here there's no bridge crossing here you get across the river by going through the river on this upheaval of rocks boatler's ford so this is critical to lee because this is how jackson joins the army so on the 15th and the 16th jackson and his men are racing from harpers ferry towards sharksburg crossing the river here and going that way into maryland remember about three miles to join general lee all right let's fast forward battle of antietam happens on september the 17th yeah you know about ap hill the last confederate troops that arrive on the field just in the nick of time to save lee's army from possible destruction you know what hill crosses the river right here this is where his men come across so this is really part of the 17th well despite hill's valiant efforts lee determines that he cannot hold the field at sharpsburg and on the 18th the night of the 18th lee orders the withdrawal of a draw back into virginia in the darkness so mcclellan doesn't know he's disappearing and that night of the 18th 19th the confederate army will come to the other side see this huge burning torches flaming torches out in the river as a guide to light up this place in the darkness so the confederates can see their way hours see their way across the river back to virginia back to the old dominion back to home they are home this is not where lee wants to be he wants to be in pennsylvania not in virginia so this campaign has failed in terms of its mission but lee's not finished yet because you see the battle of antietam or sharksburg that wasn't the end point that wasn't the concluding point lee is literally doing a retrograde not a retreat not a retreat it is a retrograde gary mentioned that some say lee intended to continue the campaign well i could do better than that lee says he's going to continue the campaign he writes to his president jefferson davis i am going to continue or word similar to that so when lee comes back here to virginia it's not to quit it's not to stop it's not the end what lee intends to do is maneuver he comes back to virginia gets his force here in virginia and then he intends to go upstream and re-cross the potomac river at williamsport and continue the campaign in yankee land that's what lee's plan is so don't think of it as an end don't think of it as an end well to make this plan effective lee needs to make sure the yankees stay over there in maryland they gotta stay over there so he will defend this location this forward to ensure no harassment and that's where our story continues now we're going to go just a little ways up the hill here we'll be back in a sec we're standing here at the foot of what soldiers in this battle called the cliffs and i don't think they're underestimating i think they're exactly right now it's not all cliffs but there is a substantial portion of this virginia shore that is cliffs practically right down to the river and lee is counting on this as a defense to buy him some time he has already sent jeb stewart and the confederate cavalry up to secure the crossing at williamsport upstream preparatory to lee moving the entire army there to re-enter maryland and so this is a continuation of the campaign but he's got to hold this forward and to do that he leaves behind 44 cannons of various some of his reserve artillery some of the guns that were not heavily engaged at the battle and he leaves this under the command of his head of artillery of his army this is general pendleton and he tells pendleton you have two brigades of infantry to support your guns pendleton says that ought to be sufficient to hold the forward against the union what pendleton didn't do was count his men two brigades of confederate infantry after the battle of antietam was about 600 men 600 men in two brigades and so essentially what's going to happen is the union fifth core is pursuing with uh pleasanton's cavalry out front they get to the maryland side and they exchange some shots back and forth artillery and uh some small arms but toward dusk there's going to be a volunteer party that rushes across the river down at the ford here and essentially the confederate guns take off everybody leaves because there's only 600 infantrymen to oppose this union infantry force that's coming across the river and far superior numbers so on the night of the 19th after lee has crossed that morning and through the night before now on the evening of the 19th the confederate defenses here have collapsed at the ford and this is not what lee needed pendleton will ride to these headquarters and basically alert them that hey things have gone badly and so lee will order ap hill and his entire division in fact he orders jackson's wing but the only one capable of obeying the order is ap hills division to come back in the morning of the 20th and secure the ford and essentially then ap hill is moving back toward the ford from the direction of charlestown and on the morning of the 20th the fifth corps is pretty much occupying the maryland bank mcclellan is here bits john porter the commander of the fifth corps orders a reconnaissance and force and so the battle on the 20th is essentially a reconnaissance and force that went bad for those who are not familiar with the term are reconnaissance and forces where you send out a sufficiently strong amount of troops hopefully with some cavalry out front to contact the enemy see what strength they're in and then fall back to report that information back to your commander the problem on the 20th number one there's no cavalry they've received word that steward is crossing up the williamsport half the cavalry is sent up there to confront him the other half are back on the other side of sharpsburg at keatysville still getting food for their horses getting themselves equipped etc so this is now going to be reconnaissance and force with infantry not ideal but they send out a brigade of regulars across the ford and they go up the trough road in the direction of charlestown where they believe that the confederates are located and another brigade crosses behind these regulars that is to take this road in this direction and secure the town of shepherdstown about a mile and a half upstream and full of confederate wounded soldiers who could now be made prisoners and a second or third brigade after that was coming over again as a support and when this brigade of regulars that went out the trough road gets about a mile and a half from the ford they find ap hills division advancing they're now going to as a reconnaissance force would be supposed to do fall back in good order and essentially the idea is that other troops the third brigade uh that's been put up on the high ground here to cover the retreat of the regulars down the trough road are now going to fall back as well everybody's going to fall back across the river no problem but the problem occurs when one regiment a new regiment recently recruited in philadelphia 118th pennsylvania the corn exchange regiment the colonel didn't think the order had been conveyed to him properly so he didn't obey it technically he's right practically he's made a huge mistake and so what happens now is as ap hills division descends from the high ground toward this regiment which is poised literally about 150 yards of in front of that cliff they're now going to be faced with a very uncomfortable decision they're pretty much alone facing hill's division of over 3 000 men with a couple of hundred men in this new pennsylvania regiment and they can either surrender or they can try to come down those cliffs under fire and get back across the river somehow and of course they can stand where they are and get shot and killed and so essentially this reconnaissance and force did everything it was supposed to do except for one regiment the 118th and they went into this battle with 737 men and they're going to lose 269 casualties all because their colonel didn't like the way he received an order it's a classic example of what can go wrong in an untrained and new regiment and so the ultimate result of this is the confederates have driven the union soldiers back across the river but as dennis alluded to earlier and gary the importance of the battle of shepherdstown cannot be overlooked because this is where the maryland campaign ends lee crossed this river hoping to re-enter maryland upstream mcclellan pushes this reconnaissance and force out because he wants to pursue lee into virginia and even though the casualties here are small about 300 and some federal casualties altogether and fewer than that in the confederates the importance is this both commanders decide to abandon the campaign lee is going to fall back ultimately the vicinity of winchester and rest and recuperate the army of northern virginia by the end of october he's got sixty thousand men again mcclellan is going to do the same thing with the army of the potomac he's going to guard the forge to keep lee from coming in again but he is going to let the army of potomac rest and recuperate that's what they need but as the former superintendent of antietam used to say the battle of antietam ends at shepherdstown and i would say more than that the maryland campaign of 1862 ends at shepherdstown and that makes it a vitally important battlefield and one that is well worth all the money that we have put into preserving and interpreting it watch out i so adore my dear friend tom and i agree with everything he just said with one exception one exception and i think tom would actually agree with this and that is that yes the battle of antietam ends at shepherdstown but the maryland campaign does not the maryland campaign ends up river at williamsport because as tom mentions jeb stewart has crossed the river there a confederate cavalry has created a bridge head there and that's where general lee intended to re-cross the potomac and continue the invasion well what happens if there aren't any yankees up there to stop him why would he not continue the invasion even considering what happened here at shepherdstown if there's nobody at williamsport to block lee let's go let's go but mcclellan yes i'm going to compliment george mcclellan so get ready for this mcclellan blocks him again he thwarts him yet again mcclellan had to stop let that car go mcclellan anticipates lee's maneuver mcclellan actually sees four sees what lee is doing now that is something he gets no credit for mcclellan sends cavalry half of his cavalry to williamsport not on an excursion but to block the confederates from going north and not only does he send his cavalry there he's going to send most of the union sixth corps there 11 000 men infantry to block lee from going north and so yes shepherdstown is a stunner lee doesn't expect it lee's rear is threatened lee is confused once again mcclellan has attacked unexpectedly but the real real stopper that convinces lee okay i'm done we're not going anywhere we're not going into pennsylvania occurs at williamsport where george mcclellan purposely intentionally once again blocks him i just love hearing my friend dennis fry talk about how smart and good mcclellan is as a general thank you thanks everyone i'm coming back on with my mask to show that there are historic masks out there our good friend jeff griffith uh on his zazzle account is actually making these and if you can combine the hamilton movie or the hamilton show and the battle of yorktown of the siege of yorktown done get this mask in any case um as i mentioned at the beginning i'm not very graceful with this uh you know the trust and its partners there's a great local shepherdstown preservation group here as well as the save historic antietam foundation have been able to save more than 350 acres plus additional easements in the area including the cement mill location and the furnace and uh up beyond there as well so there's more work to be done but we're really happy here two um when you come to shepherdstown this is a great place after you've had your nutters ice cream and checked out the antidefied and the back streets of sharpsburg come on to shepherdstown what a cool place enjoy a meal or maybe even a stay on the potomac river at the bavarian inn great restaurants here it's a cool town you might even see the name of wesley culp hanging around there so check that out as well finally thank you to everybody uh for watching so much as this has been uh going on during antietam and maryland campaign 158 chris white who put a lot of this together and has done the yeoman's work behind the camera thank you and to connor townsend and to shannon doherty and to um all of our guests that we've had today and the other days as well i thank them and thank you all and thank you mostly for spreading this word and for supporting battlefield preservation you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 14,872

Rating: 4.965517 out of 5

Keywords: American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trust, Battle of Shepherdstown, Antietam Shepherdstown, American Battlefield Trust Antietam, Civil War Trust Antietam, Dennis Frye, Garry Adelman, Tom Clemens

Id: M7R76JRMPMY

Length: 20min 30sec (1230 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020