Kicking Off Unknown Antietam LIVE in The Cornfield: Unknown Antietam 159

hey everybody welcome welcome this is antietam 159 and you're with the american battlefield trust and i'm not even all that worked up yet but don't worry that's going to happen i'm gary edelman chief historian at the american battlefield trust we got chris white behind the camera soon to be in front of it we've got jeremy and annelise helping us out as well as special guest brian cheeseboro with us you'll see soon we've got other special guests joining us throughout the day as we bring you as much antietam 159 as we can remember we are trying to cover some of the more obscure parts of antietam because in part you know we have gone to the cornfield umpteen number of times we've been to the dunker church and the burnside bridge in the hagerstown pike so many times so i'll encourage you to check out our antietam 155 156 157 158 coverage where we probably have more than 150 antietam videos on our youtube and on our website as well i'll also encourage you right now to hit that subscribe button um on youtube we you know youtube subscribers the best way to know when we're live what's going on and whatnot so thank you so much for joining us first we are on the antietam battlefield okay and you know people often think that the armies got together and decided where to fight or something no most battles while there's some urban fighting are fought on people's farms okay and these people such as david r miller here um had been living life peacefully for decades and then one day one day the soldiers showed up um and changed this place forever that's not an exaggeration at all i mean everything you know their crops are destroyed their well is poisoned there are going to be tourists coming to their house forever their community is just torn apart after the soldiers came for one or two terrible days now david r miller a lovely house he was somehow had a conflict of interest and had to have his dad buy the house and then after the dad died although he'd been living here for 30 years they were squabbling over and whatnot and sometime on one of alexander gardner's trips he was actually able to get a picture of this house you can see some battle damage actually on it those are the millers on the porch as well which is kind of cool and the park has done a great job restoring this structure back to its wartime appearance they completed that work just in time for antietam 150 back in 2012. now annelise is zooming in pretty far here but i've got a zoom of my own so you can look at some of the people interesting about these girls here one of them you know has close cut cropped hair that was not the style back then i'm not sure if there was a lice or another issue or something going on but that's not something you just did it wasn't a punk statement or anything like that more importantly although it's dark you might be able to see what she's doing look at that she's smiling okay she's not only smiling she's smiling within two weeks of the battle you know their bodies all over the place their place was torn apart although the family wasn't here during the actual fighting um and somehow she's smiling maybe she's smiling because something funny just happened or maybe she's a 14 year old girl and you know that's what she's doing to cope at the time we'll never know but you can read into these photos and learn a whole lot now let's walk and talk a little bit i'm going to bring on chris white in just a second you're with the american battlefield trust share this with your friends and make sure you click subscribe before we get into the actual fighting stuff i wanted to make sure we talk about there's a lot going on in the fall of 1862 some people say the turning point of the civil war and it's pretty good case to be made because there are movements in mississippi going on in september and october there's an invasion a confederate invasion in kentucky going on in 1862 and of course there's this maryland campaign chris white deputy director of education here at the trust thanks gary and as gary pointed out you know they usually don't know where they're gonna fight battles but uh if you ever worked in a national park service visitor center a lot of people say why did they fight all the battles in national parks because they were on the same map so it's one of our ranger jokes that we have as we go along and at least i'm gonna have you just kind of look off here to uh your right and so we're gonna be pointing off now towards the antietam creek uh to orient you first before we talk about the big picture bring you down to where we're standing i just want to orient you to where we are we're facing towards uh what are the east woods the woods around antietam are very nicely uh named for us so you know which direction you're pointed towards we have the eastwoods behind me then to the north we'll have the north woods which will be going off towards the miller farm the poffenberger farm over off to my right is the historic hagerstown pike uh and that is where the west woods would be just over top of this knoll off to our right hand side so we have the north the east the west woods pretty easy to figure out where you are on the battlefield and then to the south of us will be the dunker church which we'll talk about and that'll be a target prime target for the union first corps on the morning of september 17 1862 but to get here we have to do we're going to walk and talk here annalise we are going to push off so i don't put you in a bunch of high grass um we're going to be looking at the war in 1862 so everything seems to be coming up aces in early 1862 for president abraham lincoln a lot of people are going to say what do you mean we have confederates are going up in kentucky they're pushing into mississippi now they pushed up out of virginia and into maryland but earlier in 1862 if we back it up things were going very well we had these battles at fort henry and donaldson new orleans the largest city in the confederacy will fall uh to david farragut in his fleet then we're gonna have the victory at shiloh we'll have corinth fall to union forces island number 10 is a victory out west and then we had george mcclellan in his slothful army moving its way up the peninsula towards richmond and making it within about seven miles of richmond so everything seemed to be coming up aces for president abraham lincoln in 1862 but the wheels will eventually start to come off some of it is internal politics when a guy named henry halleck out west doesn't like another guy named ulysses s grant and starts talking as we would say today smack on on grant and grant comes in and out of command and alec he does okay he's eventually brought here to the east to serve as our chief of staff to abraham lincoln essentially and lincoln will figure out a little bit later in the war that he's nothing more than a first-rate clerk uh but then george mcclellan he is going to down around uh richmond see the fall of a guy named joseph johnston joe johnston's in command of the confederate army around richmond as he's in the command of confederate army there at a place called fair oaks or seven pines he's wounded three times george mcclellan has a new commander he's gonna fight against a guy named roberty lee and mcclellan if you read his papers it's like yeah this is great i'd rather fight against robert e lee he doesn't have the fortitude that a guy like johnston has talked about a big mistake on mcclellan's part or an underestimation and what will then happen is here in the east robert e lee will start to battle around what are called the seven days push mcclellan away from richmond eventually move up into central and northern virginia fight the battles at cedar mountain then we'll go to second manassas and eventually cross the potomac river and don't forget chantilly cross the potomac river and come into maryland now out west we'll have a campaign uh out in mississippi we'll have earl van dorn watch your wives gentlemen earl vandoorne is the etherio of the confederacy then we're gonna have a campaign will be known as the heartland offensive which will carry braxton bragg's army the army of the mississippi at this time our army of mississippi at this time down through the deep south through mobile swing all the way up into kentucky where they're going to try to bring the bluegrass state into the confederacy and try to bring in supplies men and material that will culminate in the battles at places called mumfordville the battle of richmond hi phil how you doing and then we'll have the battle at perryville in october of 1862. here in the east we'll have the confederates moving across the potomac and this beleaguered army of robert e lee has been dwindled down from 92 500 men around the battles at richmond down to anywhere between 35 000 and 40 000 men when he enters here into maryland so this is gonna be a grinding campaign that will bring lee here we'll have a lot of confederate offenses and the two greatest goals the confederacy at this point will be to try to get maryland in into the confederacy on the side of the union or potentially bring in a lot of men and materiel from maryland and do the same thing out in kentucky so we have dual campaigns kind of working in tandem but not really um towards this ultimate goal of confederate victory now here on the union side of things things have gone well things started not going so well and now we're going to be reacting to the confederates like i said there'll be these battles out at munfordville and perryville and that will be the the battle for don carlos buell and his army just try to stop stop those confederates here in the eastern theater we'll create a brand new army called the army of virginia to help supplement the army of the potomac the two pr the primary army here in the eastern theater well the army of virginia doesn't do all that well they lose the battle at cedar mountain then they lose the battle at second manassas with the help of some of the army of the potomac guys and now abraham lincoln will turn to his primary commander once more here in the eastern theater george mcclellan and try to let mcclellan right the ship mcclellan will gather this army reorganize which we'll talk about move out of washington dc and try to meet robert e lee's forces that are out in the pleasant valley out near a place called harpers ferry and then along a ridge line called or mountain ridge line called south mountain good thanks so much chris you're with the american battlefield trust and we know we have some connectivity issues we always do when we come out into the field doing this and we do have a windscreen on the mic just thought we'd say that while i'm at it you know while we're talking about the battles in the campaign sometimes it's good to get into not only a larger strategic issue but sometimes it's something as simple as the weather how hot was it because that might not seem like a big deal to you while you're reading but anybody who's been outside you've been to a concert you're exerting yourself all day weather has a lot to do with it so to talk a little bit about that stuff brian cheeseburger civil war defenses of washington and national archives thanks gary good morning everybody great to see you um well it's really good to be out here and it's a really uh it's getting to be a really comfortable day um i've heard it said before that if you're going to visit a civil war battlefield it's always best to visit when around the time that the battle took place you can come here to antietam national battlefield any time of the year but there's something to be said about being out here at the same time the battle took place because all that's really left is that sensory experience that you get to get the idea of what the weather was like how much difference does the weather make well i i like what a friend told me once he said that regardless of what kind of person you are the weather will dictate how many people come to your funeral so that's something to keep in mind anyway um so the weather as we know and this is a book i got recently this is dennis fry's book antietam revealed great book a lot of points in here a lot of different things just thousands of little factoids and everything um and it mentions that the temperature daybreak on the 17th was a comfortable 65 degrees the high temperature reached 75 degrees by mid-afternoon relative humidity measured in a nearly intolerable 71 percent and the winds were calm barely moving at two miles per hour from the west clouds were high and scattered and you know what that's about the weather that we have right now i just checked my phone it's about 71 degrees there's a little breeze it's pretty cloudy but it is a nice day and it's humid so this is really matching that weather that those soldiers experienced i also noticed as we were walking up here i could hear the locusts i don't know how much locusts they heard over all the cannon firing and gunfiring and yelling and screaming and everything but if they did well i guess the locus were here the other thing is what chris talked about with uh the recruiting that the confederates hoped what took place would take place with this invasion of maryland uh and i never really thought about this until yesterday when i was doing some research for this for today uh keep in mind that when the war started in april 1861 the confederacy they asked for volunteers i think 100 000 volunteers for a year to serve for a year nobody thought the war would last too long but it turns out that it's lasting a long time and we know the last four years they don't know that of course at this time of antietam but in april 1862 a year after the war started the confederacy did something first time in american history they called for a national draft that meant that of course you know that you have to serve if you are called upon to serve so some men responded to that by actually volunteering because they did not want to be forced into they did not want to be coerced sounds almost like slavery i guess but uh they decided then that i'll go ahead and and volunteer but still some men were drafted apparently not enough because by this summer after the campaigns after the peninsula campaign seven days second manassas campaign and everything finally uh they make this move north into maryland and they are hoping that this will be recruitment for maryland uh men from maryland to join the confederacy they feel as you know fellow slave holders that they have a kinship with marylanders probably the person most excited about this move is this man this is bradley tyler johnson and he was a confederate general um actually he's a colonel here but anyway he um was from maryland he was born in frederick and he uh was lived in baltimore and he was a lawyer and politician before the war so when the war started even though uh maryland stayed loyal to the union he decided to join the confederacy so when he did um he uh wanted to join a maryland unit he did not want to join a virginia regiment as some maryland marylanders had done there was only so much recruiting in maryland actually really for either side um but anyway he organized first maryland a company of that and by may 1862 they actually were uh their enlistment was up as i mentioned that the the year had gone by and these men did not get out of confederate service even after a year that was the other thing is that the confederacy forced them to still stay in uniform once you get into a confederate uniform you really don't get out but anyway he gives a speech to uh his soldiers they're like we want to quit and he's like okay guess what uh and this if you think about that speech in gettysburg in the movie gettysburg where chamberlain gives a speech to those men who don't want to serve they call it a mutiny and the same thing same term was used for this company c of the first maryland infantry that bradley johnson commanded so anyway he tells him tell them that it was you who when brought face to face with the enemy prove yourselves recreates and acknowledge yourselves to be cowards so it's almost in that same spirit if you know that in that in the film uh um gettysburg so what happens is that um when bradley johnson and the confederate army come north um he himself draws up a broadside a recruitment poster saying basically we're here to rescue you marylanders we're here to bring you into the confederacy we're here to recruit you and for all cause and everything but the biggest factor that stands in the way uh and i'll finish here the biggest factor that actually stands in the way of this confederate recruitment is the confederate army army really smells pretty bad they're in bad shape they're uh emaciated or pretty much malnourished uh they really stink and you can read so many accounts of people talking about how i smelled this army long before i ever saw them and it's really really true but anyway um that's my part right here so back to you gary thanks brian come on over here and at least we can take a few steps higher so we can improve our connectivity maybe a little bit maybe just to right here uh you're with the american battlefield trust uh we're on the antietam battlefield for antietam 159 and we're sort of just setting up the battle now we hope you've already caught our videos we posted three yesterday we might have some more in store for tomorrow we'll be live as much as we can as much as connectivity allows uh to bring you obscure antietam make sure you subscribe to our youtube channel while you're at it and share this with your friends i know i'm asking a lot um one thing that brian said i can't stress enough this idea of trying to be at a place where the weather is similar to what it was i mean even when you brew coffee you can smell the civil war you know when you eat something like that they ate during the civil war take a bite of heart attack taste the civil war taste history and i think when you bring your sensory stuff into it i think it's great now something we haven't done yet is say where we've walked to so the miller farm was off to the left there and this is not the corn field behind me as you can see or even over my other shoulder but we're looking toward the north woods in other words we are on the north boundary of the cornfield right here and we're looking toward the union position on september 17th 1862 we're talking 5 a.m or so after some artillery bombardment we covered this in another video from the union uh guns north of the north woods against the confederates on nicodemus heights over there after that goes on the union has two corps ready it's going to lead with hooker hookers the first corps they are experienced there are a lot of veterans in that unit he's got some good division commanders there one of whom will command this army of the potomac um within less than one year and he's going to send them southward the confederates do not have three divisions let alone five when they're dealing with the other corps to deal with this okay the confederates aren't in the cornfield they're on the other side of it and i'll actually show you the cornfield in a moment here maybe we'll convince annalise actually to walk through and into the corn a little bit without damaging anything but they've got some georgians a brigade over there they're going to have some louisianians helping them and then the confederates will scramble reinforcements from everywhere they can to deal with this massive attack of two union corps the first under hooker the 12th under mansfield hooker sort of coming in behind me over here along the hagerstown pike and somewhat on the other side of it that's some of double days troops but first right through here comes ricketts division they're going to be the first ones to really enter the corn probably durian's brigade i think it's pretty well agreed and then later an hour to an hour or two later the 12th corps comes in through these woods over here called the east woods remember these are post-war contrivances westwood's eastwards northward so we can understand the battle a little bit better but the veterans marked them they put little markers this is the northwest corner of the east woods during the battle so that we know exactly where they are so that when more land was acquired they could regrow the woods and that's just what's happening here today pretty cool stuff now let's come on over here a little bit and you can get your first good glimpse of the cornfield there's a path through it the park service has done a great job putting some cannons behind the camera over there opening up paths so you can understand this battle a little bit better and as thick as this corn looks it would have been worse during the civil war not as tall no gmos or anything like that but they did not plant corn and rose there it was much more of a sort of a sowing thing where you're throwing out seeds so it's just a little bit more willy-nilly so it was really tight some of the artillery would have taken down the corn by this point and some of the union some of the confederate fire would have cut some of the corn as if with a knife um so i mean this corn field miller's cornfield whose house we showed you at the beginning was really decimated at this point so um you know but the corn is the least things on the union soldiers mind who come through the corn i think you know the story and the reason we're on the north side is because everybody always comes from the south side this is obscure antietam 159 and they go the confederates are waiting for them georgians level the guns with the new yorkers under duriet durie tumbles back into the corn here comes heart suff here comes the iron brigade newly named

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 9,938

Rating: 4.9753847 out of 5

Keywords: antietam battlefield tour, antietam video tour, The Cornfield Antietam, 159th anniversary of antietam, unknown antietam, unknown civil war

Id: UDVv27VHH2c

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021