Kevin Weddle discusses Antietam

well welcome everybody and hi they're out in seminar land I'm Kevin Waddell I am the professor of military theory and strategy here at the Army War College in the department distance education I'm also the course author for de 2303 worn military strategy so I inflicted Clausewitz on you in fact we're gonna do a little remedial Clausewitz right now this side is the pro Clausewitz side this side is man all right I will say that till the end and I'll ask you questions as you get on the buses tomorrow let me put something in perspective 3,000 Americans died on that horrible awful day 9/11 but on the 17th of September 1862 4,000 Americans died and in fact 6,500 or so probably more than that either were killed during the battle or died of wounds in the days that followed the battle making this the bloodiest single-day in American history but antonyms even more than that it was a tactical draw most historians say it was a tactical draw yet it had immense strategic impact so you know when we're looking at our first-year studies and we're talking about the importance of strategy and making strategy tactical events can have huge strategic impact and this is one of those one of those events in American history in fact as much as I love Gettysburg and will do Gettysburg next year and as much as useful as that is to to go over many of the things that we teach here at the War College I would almost argue that Antietam is even better for the types of things we talked about here at the War College I'm not going to get into any of the tactics of this campaign I'm going to primarily talk about the strategic context I'm going to probably primarily talk about the strategic background some of the personalities I'll get into a little bit of the operations but I'll leave the detailed information to your great guys you've got four absolutely outstanding guides who have done this dozens of times so you're very fortunate to be here and being able to link up with those folks but you know as you go through the campaign hopefully and we go through this talk today hopefully it will whet your appetite to ask some really good questions and engage in some really good dialogue as you get down there on the battlefield tomorrow some of the just a few of the things you know strategy formulation personalities how much have we talked about personalities just during these last five days right the critical importance of personalities meshing together and working together at the strategic level we talked about that a lot strategic leadership strategic decision-making operating in a Buch environment campaign planning theater strategy war in all of its infinite variety and chance and friction and all those things you see it in spades here at Antietam now if you spent the fast bet last five days in the lectures you know and doing doing a little bit of exercises and you know stewing in your own juice down in bliss Hall right so you're ready for a little fresh air and I think it's gonna be a little cooler tomorrow so or maybe not so first some context okay let's talk about little context you can almost put you had to give you all the closets right you can almost put the War College first-year studies in this one slide see I didn't give it to you before you started first year though we're primarily going to be talking about again this area right here from about that point up ok policy strategy formulation right in between the elements of national power and then we're primarily going to be we're not going to be talking about very much of the other elements of national power we're going to stick with the military there so that's going to be our primary focus now let me give you a little bit of context we all know on the 12th of April 1861 the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor but of course the tensions that led to the war started way way way before that you could almost trace it all the way back to the Declaration but for sure the Constitution the Constitution was a doctor that allowed slavery in the United States and this led to some tensions between north and south but it was a compromise document both sides both sections prove the the the document of course but then as the as the United States began to expand these tensions started to increase over the argument of is slavery going to be allowed in the new territories of the United States now this this tension was tamp down a little bit with the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and that lasted a long time kept the sectional tensions down and under control but but it came to fruition again in 1846 248 the mexican-american war which added vast swathes of new land into the United States so that again raised the tensions of okay is there going to be slavery allowed into the into the new territories or not this was again kind of tamp down with the compromise of 1850 which was a series of five different bills that tried to deal with what are you gonna do with all these new territories and then in 1854 the kansas-nebraska Act opened everything wide open again the kansas-nebraska Act essentially repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which led to huge upheavals in the United States political system and between the two the two sections several things happen number one the Whig Party fell apart there were two parties at the time Whigs and Democrats the Whig party fell apart and the anti-slavery Republican Party was formed so now you had a two-party system in which one party was explicitly anti-slavery the Republican Party the other party Democratic Party had both Pro and anti-slavery folks in it but here you had again one party that's explicitly anti-slavery so this really caused a lot of tensions in fact a there were fistfights on the floor of the house and không and sent a Massachusetts senator was almost beaten to death by a South Carolina congressman on the floor of the Senate so you know we talked today about you know you hear commentators on CNN and Fox saying it has never been so polarized this is just crazy you know they you know crack open a history book for God's sake you know we have had yeah it was a lot worse back then so arguments over the debt ceiling looked pretty puny by comparison when you're when you're when you look at at our history the Dred Scott decision 1857 John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry 1859 the awful of Buchan administration the only Pennsylvania president just totally ineffectual to deal with any of these crises and finally leading directly to the election of Abraham Lincoln November of 1860 which is the proximate cause of secession so Abraham Lincoln Republican remember explicitly anti-slavery party elected 1860 with not a single electoral vote from the south so he's elected on the 20th of December 1860 South Carolina will secede followed by the rest of the south over a series of several months so you'll end up with eleven Confederate states 20 northern states and three border states the border states are essentially defined as slave states that do not secede so they stay they stay with the Union so those are those are in green and then of course you have the firing on Fort Sumter on the 12th of April work we've we've gone all the way back in a week later the President President Lincoln will issue the proclamation of blockade on the 19th of April 1862 or 1861 which is essentially a de facto declaration of war against the south so let's look at a couple of the advantages and disadvantages of the different sides the north there's some obvious ones you've got there already a sovereign nation they don't have to come up with a federal government there's continuity of government obviously industrial capacity let me give you a few statistics of the 470 locomotives built in the United States in the years before the Civil War 453 were built in the North 97 of all the firearms built in the United States was built manure New York State had twice the industrial capacity of the entire south so just to give you an idea population 22 million in the North 9 million in the South three million of those 9 million in the South are slaves so if you're looking at white population the North has almost a four-to-one advantage there and of course you've got these these other things down here you've got you know a regular army and navy you've got a structure you've got an arms industry and so forth and then railroads 22 thousand miles of rail in the north and about 6,000 miles of rail in the south there are some disadvantages that the north has though Regular Army is scattered around the frontier and in coastal fortifications they have inexperience with both sides are going to have any experience with new technology using the railroads leading to Telegraph steam warships ironclad warships rifled muskets rifled artillery and things like that the terrain in the East favors the defender one hundred miles will separate Washington DC and Richmond six to nine rivers major rivers run east and west between those two places so depending on the route you go you're gonna have to cross a bunch of rivers so that's going to obviously favor the defender you've got to attack to win I mean if you want to restore the Union you've got to do something about the south right you can't just let them go political disunity you've got Democrats and Republicans in the north and the south you have pretty much most folks are Democrat weapons shortages obviously if you're gonna build a big army you're going to have weapon shortages southern advantages they do have advantages central position they've got a lot of depth slave labor those three million slaves can free up the white population to fight let's talk about commitment for a second both sides are committed to this war one in ten of the entire population not just male population not just war aged population or military age population one in ten of the north will serve in the war one in five in the south will serve to give you just a world war two it was one in ten in the United States just to give you comparison so both sides are pretty committed give you a comparison what is it now it's less than one out of a hundred have served or will or are serving so just give you an idea of the the committed Ness of both sides cotton I'll talk about that a little bit later they have control of the Mississippi obviously and quality of leaders this is a little controversial but if you look at I think it's hard to argue that at least in the first two years of the war at least in the senior leadership when I say senior leadership I mean you know regimental commanders Colonels and above the South has pretty darn good leadership and it's it's pretty much superior I think to the to the north and you know why would that be well in the south and this is this is pretty simplistic but it is and there is some scholarship that shows that it's true the best and brightest and then in the north would go into business you know you become a merchant you become a manufacturer you do something like that you know you're going after the buck in the in the south the best and brightest went went into the military or they at least went to military academies there's all kinds of private military academies in the south Citadel VMI the Louisiana Military Academy and a bunch of others so you know and there's a lot of natural horsemen in the south and things like that so they do have really good leadership early on so there are disadvantages well they have inexperience with technology just like the north does slave labor that's a two-edged sword they can free up the white population to fight but you also have a security potential security problem in your rear with them industrial capacity eighty percent of the southern industrial capacity is in those border states so that means they're pretty vulnerable and you can see all the rest I'm not going to go into them weak central government and so on so but it's important to remember that northern victory given this disparity in statistics and so forth is not preordained you know as we I think we all know war doesn't equal yo you don't calculate whether you can win or lose a war by a spreadsheet or Excel spreadsheet it's based on those intangibles of leadership morale will and of course the making of strategy which as we know is the calculated application of ways and means to achieve a political or policy objective so jump right to that what are the national policy objectives now these gentlemen across the top Jefferson Davis president his his military advisor robert e lee he's not yet the general-in-chief Winfield Scott who is the general chief of the United States and President Abraham Lincoln okay national policy objectives independence maintain the institution of slavery and in the South or excuse me in the north preserve and/or restore the Union you can you can argue that the war was total almost from the beginning if if not in ways and means certainly in ends because you know it's either free Confederacy or not or restored Union or not so you know both sides were all in at least in terms of ends not in ways and means that will come later okay now we sometimes think of you know dime is is this modern concept and you know we got a we got to incorporate all the elements of national power which is certainly a good thing but but these were smart folks back then they maybe didn't have first-year studies but they did understand it implicitly what they had to do here so certainly we see it diplomatic Charles Francis Adams the son of a president grandson of the president he was the United States ambassador to Great Britain worked tirelessly to try to maintain British neutrality during the war one of the things he did I have the layered rams there were private shipbuilding companies and Great Britain building ironclad seagoing warships for the south and Charles Francis Adams worked very very hard to force the British to not allow those ships to be sent to the Confederacy very important economic the South believes that they have a trump card and that's their cotton crop very very lucrative crop and they believe that they can pursue a king cotton strategy in that that will they what they think they can do is they can stop export of cotton to the hungry textile mills of Great Britain which will force Great Britain to recognize them and maybe even intervene in the war on their side turns out the Brits are able to find other sources of cotton it does not work but they do try some economic elements of strategy of course the north is doing the naval blockade an informational Lincoln will issue the Emancipation Proclamation which is a big big signal sender especially to the European powers and we'll talk about that later okay but the most important thing here for us is military strategy in the north Winfield Scott comes up with the Anaconda plan no he doesn't call it that that's a term of derision the press jumps all over it they think it's really dumb basically what he says is have a blockade very strong blockade and then ultimately raise a large army send them down the Mississippi River to ultimately crush the South but he says this was going to take a while he understands that this might be a long war well this is rejected out of hand and most folks want to do the on to Richmond route in other words build an army send it to Richmond Richmond seize the Confederate capital and all will will collapse after that we'll find out that that doesn't work so hot okay the Confederacy what do they want to do well in order for part of this is political you know and of course there's Clausewitz 'i'm very close what's in Jefferson Davis first comes up with and they kind of fall into this basically a cordon defense defend everywhere defend your borders keep the north out but I think you know I'm I've got a roomful of national security professionals you know if you try to defend everywhere you're gonna be weak everywhere you can't defend you can't succeed everywhere and they find out very quickly that that's just not going to work the reason he does this is he wants he wants to make sure that all the states in the south keep on supporting the war he's oh he did you know he doesn't want the you know any of his states to be invaded and then cause morale problems and support for the war might wane and things like that so so that's primarily or largely a political decision off top but very quickly they realized they can't do that and that will fall they'll ultimately fall into what most historians call the defense offense strategy where they go on the defensive they defend keep on and they wait for the opportunities to do offensive counter strokes against against the north that's ultimately what they'll fall into but at least at least for robert e lee here in our campaign he wants to undermine federal will and and caused this war weariness to to force the the northern population to demand the end of the war alright let's do a quick overview of before we we get to Antietam all right you know generally speaking you can separate the eastern and western theaters by the Appalachian Mountains usually the Western theater is actually also considered this part of Georgia down here but so you've got the eastern theater western theater there and of course we have the the firing on Fort Sumter on the 12th of April 1862 the Union will attempt to go up against the initial Confederate Army there at the First Battle of Bull Run it's a ignominiously feat for the North Lincoln will cast around trying to find a a dynamic young general in chief he casts aside Winfield Scott and he pulls pulls in a young brash Major General George B McClellan to be general and chief of the Union Army okay Battle of Wilson's Creek also in northern defeat out there in the West in Missouri you have the Battle of Port Royal most folks don't even know about this this is the the largest American joint operation in history up to that point 10,000 American soldiers a naval flotilla of over a hundred ships seizes Port Royal sound in deep in South Carolina as a base for the blockade and they stay there the whole war so deep in the South we've got a major contingent of Union Union troops down there in the south ok Forrest Henry and Donaldson the rise of a young Brigadier General named US Grant trying to take control of the Tennessee Cumberland rivers and then George McClellan will take the Army of the Potomac down by sea landing on the peninsula there and trying to take Richmond from the south during the Peninsula Campaign now you can see you know from the time you know a first bull run till the time he conducts the Peninsula Campaign is almost a year so he takes this army McClellan and he organizes it he rearranges it and he organized does a great job he's a very good organizer but he did theirs he complains he whines he sniffles and he he he keeps on asking for more troops and Lincoln has just absolutely exasperated the poor guy you can imagine Lincoln dealing with a subordinate like that and finally he takes away command of all the armies from McClellan in March of 1862 it says you just worry about the Army of the Potomac just worry about this operation that's the rest of it's too much for you so Lincoln actually becomes his own general in chief for about three months so it's it's tough OJT for Lincoln but he does learn a lot and he's he's very very capable guy all right we'll continue on as an attempt to send some troops down the Shenandoah Valley to link up with McClellan Jackson Stonewall Jackson will conduct a brilliant campaign over the several months March to June 1862 thwarting any Union attempts to use the Shenandoah Valley brilliant campaign and then he will force march down to join the forces guarding Richmond and then there's a series of joint operations small joint operations along the coast where the north will attempt to improve the blockade seizing coaling stations and and maintenance bases and things like that Island number 10 an attempt to open up the Mississippi River is successful by the north their Battle of Shiloh grant moves the army down again trying to control the Tennessee River flowing into the Mississippi he surprised its shiloh in horrendous casualties the worst casualties of the war up to that point really shocks both sides in north and south and then David Farragut will run the the batteries at New Orleans he'll seize New Orleans and then try to take Vicksburg from the from the south coming up the river but he fails to do that okay and then finally the seven days battles which it basically battles right in front of Richmond that protected that that saves rich man forces my clone to withdraw and this is where Lee comes to the fore now about a month earlier the commander of the Confederate Army down here Joe Johnson was severely wounded he had to be replaced by robert e lee robert e lee comes in at the 7 days battle and performs brilliantly again forcing McClellan to retreat so he saves Richmond so very very aggressive guy Lee looks around he says now what can I do and he decides to leave a small force there to watch McClellan and then he moves up to the north to try to do something with the small army that's been left up there which he does and but first Braxton Bragg will go into Kentucky and then the Second Battle of Bull Run will take place in late late August 1862 so that kind of gives you the the overall military operational context you'll note or you may note that there's very little cooperation between these two theaters very little cooperation you really aren't gonna see any major cooperation between those two theaters until grant will take the man in the spring of 1864 ok so Western strategy basically the USA is trying to control the rivers in the coasts on the eastern onto Richmond and then the the Confederate States trying to do this Court on defense but they're starting to think more about conducting an offensive operation here you see Bragg doing that starting in August of 1862 that that ends up not being successful but they are trying it okay so there is no general-in-chief from March to July of 1862 John Pope is named commander of the army of Virginia he was the victor at Island number 10 the Union Army of Virginia is that small army that's left up to protect Washington DC Henry Halleck is brought from the West to take command of all the armies so he's the one who basically replaces McClellan actually replaces Lincoln as general and chief McClellan keeps whining and asking for reinforcements in mid-august Lee moves against Pope who's up near near Washington DC the Union Army's failed to cooperate and that's Pope and McClellan personality issues there they hate each other several the generals within each armies hate each other and so you run into some definite personality problems McClellan does not come to Pope's aid and Pope is is defeated decisively by Lee at the Second Battle of Bull Run so now Lincoln's dilemma what do I do now I've just had a major army beaten badly right outside the gates of Washington DC I've got McClellan sitting on his butt down in the peninsula and slowly moving his army back up to Washington DC and I've got Lee who's just won this great victory and you know what's he gonna do next so Lincoln's got a dilemma what do I do what he decides to do against the cabinet wishes is he puts both those armies McClure's current army and popes defeated army together again and he makes he leaves McClellan in command the cabinet is dead set against it they do not like McClellan but you know Lincoln looks around he says who else do I have so he puts McClellan back in command the troops are thrilled because they love McClellan this great organizer I mean he's turned this army into a really good looking machine but they don't they haven't fought very well to this point so here's our strategic situation second Bull Run okay northern fortunes very very low who's got the strategic initiative well I think in the in the east you can certainly say Lee does Lincoln is starting to look at major changes in the overall policy and strategy of the war he's starting to think that okay we have remember I said that the ends are total but the ways and means are not yet Lincoln is starting to look at maybe changing that maybe changing into maybe we start maybe we start confiscating escaped slaves or and not returning them to their masters maybe we start doing a little bit more of the hard hand of war really kind of going after the population and the resources and things like that which they hadn't done up to this point France and England after the seven days battle and after second Bull Run are debating in Parliament whether they should recognize this big deal big big deal this is this is dangerous dangerous for the United States and very very hopeful for the Confederacy so Lincoln decides over the course of the summer that he needs to go after Confederate war resources and one of their big war resources are there say those three million slaves so he decides he's going to go after that directly with the Emancipation Proclamation which will free the slaves in the Confederate territories he's already had bills passed to outlaw slavery in Washington DC and outlaw slavery in the territories so he's moving in that direction he's starting to send those signals out to the population that this war is is gonna change things it's not just gonna be restore the Union to the status quo it's gonna become something else but he realizes after two straight defeats three if you count what what went on with seven days battles that he can't issue the Emancipation Proclamation right away because that will look like you're operating from a position of weakness great weakness so he decides not to do that he wants to wait for a victory and there's a there's a big peace movement starting to starting to come come forward in the North story's call them the copperheads they were called the copperheads back then basically it's anti-war Democrats for the most part but also you know a lot of Republicans are going what the heck I mean we are we are we're not getting anything out of this war yet so you've got all these other issues and of course the south is really fired up after second blow run in particularly so the reaction the second Bull Run here you can see the New York Tribune disguised it as we made the Union arms have been repeatedly disgracefully and decisively beaten well McClellan gets word that he's been placed back in charge of those two armies he says this okay but Lee says this the Union is much weakened and demoralized and Lee seized the opportunity to do something to follow up on his great victory there at Bull Run so these are the two guys that we're going to mainly talk about today and you're going to talk about them at at length tomorrow McClellan and Anne Lee McClellan West Point class of 46 an engineer great Mexican War career he was an observer during the Crimean War again a great really good organizer but as one historian a famous historian said McClellan could load the gun but he couldn't pull the trigger he would take no action without quote absolute assurance of success unquote and one of his contemporaries said he had every social equality except to fight now robert e lee lee up against this is who Malone's up against he's west point 29 first in his class he was superintendent of West Point so he knows he knows almost all the major figures figures of both sides he knows them personally brilliant Mexican War career of course and if you look in the dictionary under the word audacity there should be a portrait of robert e lee so you might seen the movie Gettysburg in here a lot of you write what I think is the most the worst example of casting in Hollywood history was Martin Sheen as robert e lee robert e lee is a killer he is audacity he will take risk calculated risk I mean he doesn't take foolhardy risks but he will take a calculated risk and he'll do that several times here at Antietam so let me ask you who do you think said this it was actually McClellan talking about leap yeah yeah and that great shrink could have a field day with that so is leadership the center of gravity remember that for your second year studies you're gonna you're gonna need that okay so the military situation in the in the West the armies are starting to encircle the south and naval blue naval blockade is building Eastern armies are reforming after second Bull Run so you can say they're winning and I use air quotes on that Confederacy Lee's victory at second Bull Run Bragg driving into Kentucky you could say again quote-unquote they're winning in the East morale is very high Lee thinks it's the time to strike so what he decides to do is he decides he's going to take the army into the north and he's going to take the air take the war to the north and here's what he wants to do wants to carry carry the word to the north have that psychological effect on the will give material aid to Maryland's oppressed peoples that turns out to be a big disappointment for him can't afford to be idle he doesn't want the the armies just sitting around especially with the Union armies big Union armies lying around so he wants to enter Pennsylvania sever the Susquehanna River bridges those are up by Harrisburg at the time a little bit easter Harrisburg obtain foreign recognition because he knows how close they are to to recognizing the south and he wants to influence the upcoming northern congressional elections these are the off term elections he's you know we think we're the only ones who care about that they were really worried about the off term elections Lincoln was so what are his objectives force a political settlement for an intervention by driving into the north and having a major victory in northern soil sever the Union locks over the Susquehanna River and tactically try to seek a decisive battle that would be his desire he really wants to do that in particular so on the 3rd of September he writes a letter to Jefferson Davis saying hey boss I'm going north and then on the 4th he crosses the river crosses the Potomac so he doesn't wait for for permission he's gonna ask forgiveness so he moves up into into Maryland so okay but what about South excuse me what about the north well you've got two people who have different conceptions of what success would be Lincoln wants a victory he wants to destroy the Robin not only a victory he wants to destroy the rebel army and get rid of you know finish this war McClellan has a completely different conception of what success is he wants to avoid defeat he wants to preserve the army he wants to force the Confederate Army back down into into the south and then ultimately restore the Union so he's not looking to do the same thing that his boss wants him to do so here the forces available here you can see 84,000 for the north about 55,000 for Forli you can see two infantry cores six infantry cores different sizes obviously cavalry division's and you can see they're Tillery there here are the personalities I'm not going to get into too much of this your your guides will probably talk about this some tomorrow but the word dysfunction kind of works I think when you're talking about this cast of characters down here you've got this guy is is Porter is is the he's going to get court-martialed after this as is Franklin for failing to come to the aid of Pope during the Second Battle of Bull Run Burnside is the only person who's had an independent command and he was actually offered the Army of the Potomac earlier and turned it down so McClellan who used to be friends with Burnside is very suspicious of him so they will not get along McClellan thinks Sumner is an idiot and in fact has said that Sumner is the oldest corps commander out there he's 65 Mansfield even though he looks older he's he's actually 58 but anyway you've got you've got all these internal bickering going on between all these folks so again you know personalities are everything getting these guys to do what you want them to do Confederates on the other Confederates on the other hand you've got three really capable folks Stewart has just made a name for himself by driving his cavalry division all the way around the Clone when he was down on the peninsula Longstreet is Lee says he's my old warhorse a great fighter and Jackson of course has made his reputation both a first Bull Run and in the valley brilliant operation in the valley and Lee calls Stonewall Jackson his right arm so here you have the span of control these quarters aren't aren't numbered yet that'll come a little bit later they're just called Longstreet's Corps in Jackson's Corps but here you have the different Corps numbers here for but you can see the span of control is a lot there this is a much flatter organization here that's okay if if you've got a bunch of really capable folks but if you've got folks who are bickering and arguing and don't like each other and can't cooperate that could lead to some some problems so by almost all measures I think you could say that the Confederate Army is in better shape as you start this campaign not in terms of numbers perhaps but at least in terms of leadership morale initiative experience in the north it you've got you've got some other issues though you've got new troops in there quite a few new troops who haven't had combat experience you've got these personality issues but the rebel army isn't as good in the northern army isn't as bad as as Lee things here's some of our operational maneuver gates Second Battle of Bull Run on the 4th of September Lee crosses the Potomac that's what he says and his note back to Jefferson Davis on the nice September Hill issued the special order we'll talk about that in a second battles of South Mountain Harpers Ferry will surrender McClellan will cover all this in a second and then and then the actual battle this just shows you on the set by the 7th of September Lee is up here near Frederick he's moved across the Potomac nearly berg and gotten up to Frederick Maryland McClellan is reorganizing the army pulling that defeated army back together and he's getting ready to start moving and here you can see some of the movements here Lee moves on and I'll show you exactly what happens there McClellan is following an accident clones following very very quickly remember I said he's a very very good organizer and he does a good job getting the army back together getting the morale back up and moving forward okay so here's kind of our whole air this is where you're gonna be tomorrow in this in this area here and you can see would spread out over quite a quite a distance here's Frederick here okay there are two union Garrison's that are gonna play a large role in this campaign you've got about 10,000 down here at Harpers Ferry a little bit less than 5,000 over here in Martinsburg they're gonna they're gonna play a big role here you have South Mountain which is just a continuation of the the Appalachian chain down here this actually runs all the way up to if you look out to the west here from Carlisle that's South Mountain all right rather that's North Mountain but South Mountain is just just east of us all right and then you have here this is a elk mountain Pleasant Valley here Hagerstown up there Sharpsburg Shepherdstown and so forth so when Lee moves north into Maryland he expects these two Union Garrison's to leave because they will be cut off from all their supplies all their reinforcements from Washington DC that's what he expects what actually happens though is as he moves across he crosses on the fourth he arrives in Frederick on the seventh they don't move anywhere so Lee gets up there and he does okay I got to take care of these guys because what are they they're lying right across right astride the Shenandoah Valley which is his his retreat route so Lee has to do something about that so he issues orders 191 which is his Harper's Harpers Ferry plan and the Harpers Ferry plan is like so he'll issue that plan on on the 9th and on the 10th through the 13th they'll execute that plan ok so here are all the Confederate forces here and I'll run through what they do ok first Stonewall Jackson we'll move his army up like so or as his core rather and the Union garrison in Martinsburg will fall back to a Harpers Ferry you see another Confederate force will move to Maryland Heights down here Lee and Longstreet will move up to Hagerstown and then walkers division will come down here again surrounding the garrison at Harpers Ferry and Jeb Stuart's cavalry and D H Hill's infantry will guard the passes to South Mountain they're followed closely behind by the Union Army and as the Union Army's getting in position okay as they get into position on the 13th they find a copy of the order okay you talk about talk about friction you find a copy of the order and and McClellan is heard to say with this paper I will whip Bobby Lee because he knows that Lee is spread all over creation Lee does that because he doesn't think McClellan can move that fast because he saw him on the peninsula McClellan slow-moving he's very deliberate so he he is willing to take this risk to separate his army like that what he doesn't know is that McClellan has moved pretty quickly right behind him and of course he finds the order so McClellan finds the order and what does he do he sits on it for 18 hours before he orders the army to move so he's just sitting around gloating that I've got the you know I've got the key the Rosetta Stone to beat Lee so he sits around for about again about 18 hours he finally gets the army moving late in the day very late in the day so the army finally starts moving forward and finally on the 14th oh they'll move to the two passes on actually three passes Turner's Gap cramped ins gap and Fox's gap well though they'll run into the Confederates trying to trying to stop those gaps now in the meantime through a Confederate sympathizer Lee finds out that that McClellan has that order and so he hasn't heard anything about what's going on down here so he thinks okay I this is this is it we've got it we got to fall back this this this campaign is over because McClellan is in fantastic position even the slow McClellan can do me some damage here so he orders a retreat early in the morning on the 15th about 2:00 in the morning on the 15th he gets word that Harpers Ferry has fallen so he says ah okay so now I can bring all these guys up and we can we can face McClellan so here again showing the audacity of Lee Lee's up against McClellan he's got his forces separated and what does he say instead of retreating he says I'm gonna fight this guy so he orders the concentration of the army at Sharpsburg and that's where we'll have the big fight and once once this fight is done the rest of these forces except AP Hill's division that has to handle the POWs down here will come up and join Lee at Sharpsburg so just to give you an idea that there's a kind of relief map just to give you an idea of the you know the the relief here the the terrain here you can see you know South Mountain you're gonna be down here Frederick you'll be crossing over the the gaps you can see the South Mountain gaps here Sharpsburg Harpers Ferry down here Hagerstown Hagerstown was right up here so I would almost argue that if McClellan had not found those orders we might be talking about the great battle of Carlisle up here you just just never know one of those great what-ifs but McClellan will cautiously follow and as Lee is pulling his forces together he'll have to actually sit there and and wait well welcome a clone or excuse me while Lee pulls his forces together for the big fight okay again I said I'm not going to talk about the the actual battle itself except to give you a quick terrain overview here are some of the key terrain that you'll see once you get down there this is a battle map but here you can see the Potomac River okay it's a big Horseshoe Bend here in the Potomac River but you can see the town of Sharpsburg Lee's forces are going to be congregated around sharp spur you can see he's basically got his back to the river but he's got the Antietam Creek in front of him separating him from McClellan's forces there's three bridges lower bridge the middle bridge the upper bridge several Heights in here there's some woods cornfields and whatnot and you'll see all that stuff tomorrow basically there's three phases to this battle the morning phase in which you've got three cores will attack through the through the woods in the cornfield from the north the midday phase two divisions of second Corps will hit the sunken Lane and then finally the ninth Corps will attack the lower bridge or famously known today of course as Burnside's bridge on the 18th of September nobody does much of anything and on the 19th Lee will retreat basically onion unbothered by McClellan back across the Potomac so basically again three phases and you'll you'll talk about all that tomorrow one historian I thought he did he he he laid it out really nice he said the and remember this tomorrow when you're down there Lee fought one battle McClellan fought three so just think about that a huge chunk of that big northern army does not even get engaged in this battle never never fires a shot in anger so you got to ask yourself you know what are some of the reasons for that and you can talk about that tomorrow okay so you know what what's the big deal about it well just look at those casualties I mean they're almost incomprehensible to us today you know Omaha Beach I mean just about any other thing you can think of doesn't even come close doesn't even come close 6,500 killed in action or died of wounds Confederates force but the Confederates are forced to retreat McClellan says that is the you know everybody everybody I talked to say I fought a brilliant battle those in whose judgment I rely tell me that I fought the battle splendidly and that it was a masterpiece of art Lincoln will say that the kind of an understatement of the year the action of the army against the rebels has not been quite what I should have liked so but is it a northern victory well because Lee retreats back across the Potomac Lincoln is going to seize that opportunity to issue that Emancipation Proclamation so he issues the Emancipation Proclamation isn't one historian Ishrat written changed the war from one to restore the Union into one to destroy the old Union and build a new one purged of Human Bondage you have a major change in the overall policy of the war that will require a major change to the strategy and and we'll see that as the as the north starts moving toward more more of a harder hand of war okay European powers will now back away from recognition and in fact let me read you this quick quote from Charles Francis Adams again our ambassador to I say our I'm from Minnesota sorry the ambassador to the United Kingdom everyone can understand the significance of a war where emancipation is written on one banner and slavery on the other the Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us here than all our former victories and all our diplomacy McClellan calls the Emancipation Proclamation infamous and he tells the actually issues this order or proclamation to the army he says the remedy for political errors if any are committed is to be found an action of people at the poles so here here's a here's an army commander basically saying can you believe that Emancipation Proclamation you guys better go vote in these midterms because that's just nuts okay so civil military relations the Democrats will gain in the midterms but the Republicans will hold on to the house so they'll keep supporting Lincoln's war efforts so leadership well you know Lee although Lee is is devastated by what happens at Antietam everyone recognizes that he fights a quite a brilliant campaign despite being outnumbered despite the enemy having basically reading your mail Lee does a great job McClellan Lincoln over the next month and a half continues to push him and push him and push him to do something McClellan dinners and dinners and does nothing and and Lincoln finally release him as of his command two days after the midterms so Lincoln very very shrewd politically he waits til the midterms because McClellan is popular and relieves them after the election so the war aims change more of a hard hand of war so national policy objectives post Antietam Confederacy doesn't change the north change restore the Union remake the south because essentially that's what you got to do if you're gonna eliminate slavery so you know how how decisive was it I know this is just wells you know Civil War military turning points but I would argue it's really important mainly because that change of policy a tactical event that had a huge huge impact on strategy and policy seven days battle I think is a critical turning point because that's the rise of Lee Antietam because we just talked about that the combination of Gettysburg and Vicksburg essentially stops Confederate initiative you don't see very you know basically the Union has the initiative after Gettysburg and Vicksburg grants Overland campaign of course the rise of grant you've got a General in chief who's trying to coordinate both the Western and Eastern theatres and you got a guy who's not gonna let go and then finally when Sherman takes Atlanta that asurs Lincoln's re-election in 1864 which essentially means that the north is going to win because he's not going to he's not going to back down from from doing whatever it takes to win though that war so tomorrow basically what's going to happen is as when you get on your bus at your hotels you'll be coming down Route 15 you'll go to Fredericksburg you'll come up all 40 which is essentially the route both armies took or elements of both armies took you'll see the Turner's gap the South Mountain gap or the Battle of South Mountain up here you depending on your guide you'll come down here and see cramped ins gap and then you'll drive down Pleasant Valley down to Harpers Ferry where you'll stop at Bolivar Heights and you'll talk a little bit about the Harpers Valley piece of this campaign and then you'll come to Shepherdstown where we'll have lunch at Sheppard University and then you'll finish up your staff ride at the actual battlefield okay so it's a pay particular attention when you get down here to some of these distances you know instead of just dozing off on the bus you know just kind of kind of think about these guys marching and I think you saw when I showed that little kind of temperature chart they were these guys were moving out over long long distances and fighting immediately after they get to their their location tomorrow's supposed to be pretty nice we're getting this cold front moving through it's supposed to be a high of about 85 the humidity supposed to be down a bit uniform is battlefield casual which is essentially carlisle casual but you can wear shorts or jeans wear something comfortable to walk in you're not going to be walking a whole lot but you will there will be some walking will actually walk more next year so what are your questions

Channel: USArmyWarCollege

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Rating: 4.5907593 out of 5

Keywords: Kevin, Weddle, Consolidated, 0, WMV, 480p, 4x3

Id: orsHewn72H4

Length: 51min 18sec (3078 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2012