Antietam's High Water Mark and Burnside . . . After the Action at the Bridge: Unknown Antietam 159

you everybody welcome back welcome back and here we are at you probably haven't stood here it is unknown and obscure but the high water mark of the antietam battlefield at least for the union okay so let me um set it up but before i do let me say share this with your friends please subscribe to this youtube channel or face or follow this facebook page we really appreciate it we really want as many people to see it and note that we now have a tick tock channel tell the younger people in your lives you might want to check out check us out on tik tok for short videos indeed um here we are on the antenna battlefield uh to be clear the town is less than a third of a mile over my shoulder over here excuse the wind there is a windscreen on there national cemetery is behind me i'll show you more orientation uh shortly or dennis fry off in this direction on the late afternoon of september 17th 1862 after the union captured burnside bridge they were moving forward with a couple of division orlando b wilcox's division behind me and of course isaac peace rodman's division off to my left we talked about that in another video over there so imagine two union division front up here uh a mile wide a mini pickets charge and while as tom de clements already said some of rodman's guys are falling back some of them are coming and moving and quite making quite a push in this area we'll get into that a little bit and that's why we're standing here but before we do let's get some orientation a little bit of setup from our good friend dennis fry co-founder of the american battlefield trust and of course save historic antietam foundation hey everybody glad to be back with you again at one of my very favorite places on the antietam battle and field and one reason it's such a favorite place is almost nobody is ever here if you want to be on the antenna battlefield and find a place of solitude of quiet a respite and contemplation you come here now you might say well the place to do that would be in the national cemetery and most of you been to the national cemetery in fact you can see it come on over here for a moment if you look off in the distance look off in the distance you can see that high ground behind me and the fence and you see the trees see those evergreen trees that's the national cemetery look at how high it is and look at how high we are and look at the ground between us look how the ground drops off into a huge chasm between us this really defines this sector of the battlefield uh gary and i were talking a little bit earlier about the terrain here the terrain the ground the landscape is so difficult it undulates it depresses it rises it caves and it elevates at extremes on this whole end of the battlefield this is the most rugged and i mean that word rugged difficult section of antietam and we're going to fight here and so quickly national cemetery high ground think of that as general lee's right center that's the ground that overlooks the sharksburg boonsboro turnpike which be extending to the right from that high ground and then pan this way a bit pan this way a bit there's south mountain in the background great view of south mountain in fact we can see all the way into pennsylvania today on the horizon the clouds have risen the light is just perfect the sunlight couldn't be better and way off in the distance all just about 20 miles from here mason dixon line south mountain so there you see it notice this hill nearest us the hill that's closest to us that is not south mountain this is red hill now red hill's the the eminence that you can see when you stand at the visitor center and you get that grand panorama of the battlefield from the back of the visitor center the mountain that's nearest you is red hill well look how near we are to it we're very close to it and mcclellan has a signal station up there which is able to see a lot of what's going on down here but the problem is it's a signal station they can't they can't communicate quickly it's all done through flag and they don't have a telegraph with them and so it's either done through flag or courier so they might see something but their communication is not immediate it takes a while to communicate what they're seeing that's going to have an effect upon burnside and the action here on this end of the field and so then as we swing this way you'll see another mountain range in the distance and that's the elk ridge that's the same elk ridge i spoke about on our last show down by the 16th connecticut the far left of the federal line elk ridge ends in the harpers ferry gap come this way with me and we could see the harpers fury gap come all the way over to the fence and look off in the distance and notice where the elk ridge starts to dive the elk bridge begins to dive that's the famous harpers ferry water gap right there that's how close we are to the ferry that's where ap hill was coming from and just in the nick of time so this gives you an orientation to the ground one more thing i want to show you looky here you go whoa that's quite a monument it might remind you of one similar to what you've seen in the west woods or perhaps a little bit like others that you've seen that aren't that massive and aren't that tall but i like to refer to this as the high water mark of the u.s attack and this monument really represents it so well we're going to hear more about who that monument is and who they are in just a moment one final thing and i have to report this with some sadness i'm not happy about this none of us are turn this way what do you see dead center in your frame yeah right that doesn't look like an 1862 house and it's not it's a 1973 house right in the heart of the battlefield we have ferocious fighting all around us here ferocious fighting this in many ways is going to be the key to the battle does lee hold does he stand does he defend or does he lose this ground and is he forced to withdraw or is he even worse cut off so that he can't get back to virginia so this in many ways is the climactic moment of the battle right where we are right now and look at that look at that intrusion i don't like that if you can't get that and i suspect you don't either 1973 how did that happen that's recent history well if you're my age it's recent history and so it once again goes back on easements easements the national park service back in the 1960s had acquired easements on all this ground swing with me all this ground around us toward the national cemetery the ground was purchased in easement that's good that's a good thing because that prevents it from development but there were loopholes in the easement language that permitted the owner to build two houses within this massive easement and there's one of them still here today almost 50 years later so i'm glad that the ground is protected from further development but that that ruins the scene and it makes a civil war soldier cry finish with this why are you never out here why have you not been here before if this is such a critical mass of land it's hard to get to now it's not hard to walk to but there's virtually no parking to this point from the harper stray road it's not on the battlefield interpretation in terms of a numbered stop and the only place that you can go is in this square right here look at look at the fence the fence is the national park land this fence look at the fence this is what the nps owns it's like a postage stamp a postage stamp everything else around you is all private property so we don't have access to it so there's a lot to do here at antietam still in terms of land preservation we've done a really really good job of keeping it from development but now we need to get even more ground so that we can access it open it so that you can get out and walk these battlefields and feel the land feel that land beneath you so that the souls of your feet can connect with their souls that's our next that's our next goal well to talk about the details of exactly what happens here at this high water mark my friend president of the save historic antenna foundation tom clemons thank you dennis and what a wonderful job of highlighting how important this ground is one of the things we like to say at shaff is wherever an american soldier fought bled and died that land is now sacred and should be treated as such that's our philosophy and uh certainly dennis has given you a great example of what needs to be done yet dennis calls this the high water mark and it is this was the closest that the union army got to getting to the town of sharpsburg cutting off lee from any retreat to the potomac river and perhaps ending the army in northern virginia as we know it maybe even ending the war it could have happened here now when you talk about a lot of casualties and union forces at antietam you might think about john gibbons brigade in the cornfield later known as the famous iron brigade suffered a lot of casualties you might think about thomas francis marr and those irishmen that stood in front of sunken roads 75 yards out in the open and duked it out with the confederates in the sunken road and took horrific casualties you might even think about edward ferrero's ninth core brigade that launched the attack at the burnside bridge and suffered a number of casualties there but the brigade union brigade at antietam that suffers the highest percentage of casualties of any union brigade in the battle is right here this is lucius fairchild's brigade of rodman's division of the ninth corps three new york regiments and in getting to this ground taking this hill they lose men all the way down the slope it is a horrific loss uh and they fight their way up here one of those regiments has come back with their veterans their survivors those that weren't killed or mortally wounded here and erected the monument that is in front of me and i'll turn around so you can see it this was colonel hawkins ninth new york infantry regiment known as hawkins zouaves they wore a zhuav style uniform and were considered something of an elite regiment a lot of esprit de corps in that regiment part of this brigade along with the 89th and 103rd new york fight their way up this hill suffering horrific casualties in fact the 103rd new york is the only union regiment to lose a flag at antietam captured by the defending confederates kemper's virginia brigade kemper of course not here and micah jenkins of south carolinians also the commander not here under a subordinate at this point in time a handful of confederates and on either side of where that monument sits along the crest of this ridge there was a stone wall that the confederates had used to great advantage inflicting casualties on fairchild's men as they struggled to ascend this incredibly steep hill under a withering fire of musketry and confederate cannons from cemetery hill on their flank and those men suffered greatly to get here and they get up to this point happy that they have driven the confederates from the stone wall general rodman on his horse actually rode through the gap in the stone wall to try to push on the advance he was mortally wounded and carried back through the gap and brought back to the rear where he expired that evening so general rodman the division commander killed right on this area in here on this ground and as they're gathering themselves to make the final push into town and cut layoff they get word from the core commander jacob cox to fall back now if you read the ninth new york's regimental history through the pages you can feel the pain the anger of those men fall back are you kidding me do you know how many men we lost to get here why are we falling back why are they falling back because ap hill has arrived he has flanked this position and if these guys don't fall back they're going to be subjected to fire in their flank and rear and suffer more casualties and today reading their regimental history you can still feel that pain of what they suffered only to give it back only to retreat from this ground that they had paid for in gallons of blood uh so that's what happened here that's why it's important that's why we should save it and not just this little postage stamp that the fence encloses but this whole hillside is literally watered with the blood of those union soldiers fighting their way up here and the confederates took of course some significant losses holding this stone wall as well and so this is important ground and i'll turn it over to my friend gary here to wrap up this program oh good i'm so glad tom considers me a friend i was always feeling a little insecure about that so i'm feeling good about that now um thank you for that tom excellent stuff i wanted to i'm not sure if if on any of the videos we've done we've really uh sort of talked about those mortuary cannons let's take a walk annelise uh you know because again there are six of these on the battlefield and there is no consistency people ask this all the time you know what does this mean at a battlefield what about stacked cannon barrels what about a uh you know a cannon barrel or you know cannon balls versus cannon barrels and what does it mean if there's a penny on it the answer is there's no real consistency between any of it but at antietam a downward pointing cannon barrel means that's where a general was killed or mortally wounded isaac peace rodman is of course one of those um who uh you know was killed or morally wounded here uh and then you know we were at our last video we were at branches right there so one union one confederate if you go to the bloody lane you can see israel richardson and george b anderson's mortuary cannons there one union one confederate if you go over near the cornfield you can see joseph k fenno mansfield's uh mortuary cannon as well as that to william stark six in total three confederate three union distributed throughout the battlefield uh just by chance pretty interesting stuff nonetheless when you go to shiloh and uh and chickamauga that stacked cannonballs means something totally different okay and without even looking i'm sensing somebody looming near me so it sounds like brian might have a question or a comment yes i do have a question uh and the mortuary cannon thank you um does anyone know where these cannon come from were they from this battle or they uh you know this guy's personal cannon or whatever it was does anybody know anything about the history of these i'm assuming that they are original civil war canon yes yeah but does anybody know anything special about them other than the the obvious history well it looks like chris wants to come on here yeah i'm working on a little project that you may eventually hear about but um brian to answer your question you'll see mortuary cannons in different places and they're not always barreled down they might be barrel up uh some people think that if you put a barrel down it's disrespectful like the monument that's maybe to benedict arnold up at saratoga but doesn't say his name on it um because the barrel is down there's actually as gary was kind of pointing out there's no consistency with it but most of these cannons were gonna be placed by the war department they're owned by the war department at the time which is today the department of defense and they're essentially surplus cannons so they're actually going to keep records of these things so you can go and look them up and see what they have some of them are easier to see than others um they'll have larger 32 pounder howitzers in like national cemeteries if you walk into antietam national cemetery fredericksburg national cemetery cold harbor national cemetery you'll a lot of times see these howitzers pointing up with a plaque on it telling you how many men are buried in there those were simply old service tubes that would have been um either aboard ship or be in coastal fortifications or or static fortifications so this is what you're looking at is the army surplus now um you also see a lot of the cannons because there's so many of them after the war that'll be given out to for lack of a better term the the um you know veterans organizations put in put it beside honor rolls and towns um they'll be given to you know the vfws that we think of then world war ii comes around when world war ii comes around we start to lose some features on battlefields because we're looking for scrap drives these are obsolete canons sometimes so they'll sometimes have stacks of cannonballs beside the old cannons gettysburg if you notice in places of gettysburg you'll see a nice little flat piece of of concrete right beside um the cannon and there used to be stacks of cannonballs there well a lot of those will disappear with the salvage drive there and things like that so these would have been just repurposed cannons if you would have actually you can see that they've actually filed down the rear sight on here these trunnions themselves have been um there's nothing on the sides of these trunnions but the barrels you may have may be able to see something on those um sometimes they're going to just create fake cannons to put out on fields but the war department has so many surplus cannons and cannon balls and everything they'll start to put them across battlefields but as gary said unfortunately we're not as consistent albert sydney johnston at shiloh has a big stack of cannonballs for his his mortuary monument out here we have this uh and then we also have you know the individual monuments put to people like a john reynolds or a stonewall jackson on battlefields purchased usually by the veterans of their organizations so there's again there's other mortuary cannon on other battlefields that is really interesting i am yes associated uh familiar with these uh at antidote the six three union three confederate but that is interesting and hopefully if i make it to chattanooga or something i'll be able to check those out yeah and and what you see here at antietam and chickamauga um the plaques that you see around our first five national military parks which are chickamauga chattanooga antietam gettysburg shiloh and vicksburg you're gonna see markers all over the place they're not always consistent out here they're all black with um with basically gray painting on it you go out to shiloh you'll see yellow ones you'll see blue ones you'll see red ones and they all have different organizations they mean so again they'll make them in chattanooga ship them out here but nobody seems to come up with hey this is the manual of how we should do this so that's why it becomes confusing sometimes to figure out the the memorialization on these battlefields there's not one set book unfortunately but if you're looking for books on them there are plenty on amazon all right thanks chris yeah i was going like this like chris take us out i was about to so thanks gary um and the one thing i want to close with up here is get out here to antietam if you can whenever you come to antietam if you go to the dunker church you go to the cornfield and you head up to the west woods you'll notice it feels like a very compact battlefield but if you get down here more than just the burnside bridge if you are able to come up the final attack trail even if you drive along you'll see that this battlefield truly opens up and this is a great huge battlefield here at antietam it's much larger than most people give it credit for um so you know on behalf of the american battlefield trust i'm chris white i want to thank brian cheeseborough i want to uh thank tom thank dennis frye thank jeremy thank uh annelise behind the the camera there and gary edelman of course you all for supporting battlefield preservation through the american battlefield trust and head over to the safe historic antietam foundation they also have a website they're a great partner of rc do a lot of boots on the ground work out here at antietam you know you can always come out to volunteer to help for a park clean up day with them if you're not able to financially support them or support us you can check out our park days which are always taking place in april otherwise i want to thank you for watching thank you for supporting battlefield preservation please share this with your friends with your family click that subscribe button on youtube and click that follow button on facebook you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 8,987

Rating: 4.9712229 out of 5

Keywords: American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trust, unknown civil war, unknown antietam, 159th anniversary of antietam, antietam video tour, antietam battlefield tour

Id: jD7eW9uMTmY

Length: 21min 48sec (1308 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021