The Newcomer Farm and one of the Best Panoramic Views of the Battlefield: Unknown Antietam 159

hey gary edelman here at antietam that's dennis fry it's antietam 159 we're so happy that you're joining us we hope you'll share this with your friends we're in a part of the battlefield where some of you might have stopped but i doubt you've walked up this hill and to some of the other places that we're going we got a lot to talk about here we got the newcomer family we got the middle bridge we've got the heights beyond those bridges so dennis take it away sir well exactly this is the middle of the battlefield we are in the union center really at this point and that's defined by the road that you see here this is the boonesboro sharksburg road bloonsboro behind me sharksburg towards you and of course it was the historic turnpike it was one of the main roads that came in to sharksburg the middle bridge of the three bridges that we had here at sharksburg the upper bridge would be this direction middle bridge is here across the antenna creek and if you look carefully beside the barn in the distance you can see what looks like the abutments of a bridge the beginning of a bridge that's where the antietam creek is that's how close we are and then you have the old 18th century orndorf house that at the time of the civil war was owned and operated by the newcomer family and so this is also famous as gary will tell you because alexander gardner takes numerous photographs from that high hill that you see there in the distance on the other side of the antietam creek looking down on the middle bridge looking down on the barn in the house you're familiar with those pictures i'm sure and if you're not gary will show them to you i'm very sure but one reason we stopped here is there's a monument here and this is the easternmost monument on the battlefield it's to the third indiana cavalry and it's right here along the turnpike in fact you can see it here and you get a better view of it actually from the road looking up at it we're up on some high ground above it looking down on the third indiana cavalry monument there are only two cavalry monuments here on the field one we have visited the 12th pennsylvania cavalry that is different because it actually includes the statue of a cavalry men this is just more along the lines of a marker very similar to the other indiana monuments that we've seen so third indiana cavalry what are they doing here what's the cavalry doing here well according to mcclellan's plan of battle most of his infantry was going to be fighting at his right and his left and the cavalry was going to protect and hold his center along with the union fifth core and so that's why they're here now they would come across the creek and they would protect tidball's battery here we're going to actually go to tidball's battery position so you've got some firepower here in this area to help protect the artillery that's going to be firing towards lee and the right center and right of these positions but this monument we wanted to bring you here because unknown antietam i bet that many of you stopped here at the newcomer house in fact the newcomer house is a visitor center for the heart of the civil war heritage area here in maryland it involves washington county frederick county and carroll county and i'm very privileged to be one of the original founders of the heart of the civil war heritage area so stop in and see these folks when they're open they can tell you about all the good things to see here in maryland in those three counties south of gettysburg all the way here to antietam but we're here right now because this monument is the easternmost on the battlefield placed here by the state of indiana in 1910 near one of the last monuments placed here uh by original veterans that's good and dennis don't go far because i'm going to go off script here not that we have a script and throw out a couple of statements and then you're going to react to them if you're willing okay and this makes me nervous by the way but one it's my impression very nervous does gary look nervous to you i mean is this even possible you know it's even possible dennis that some people on youtube think it's within my power to just calm down could this guy stop moving that is not within his power i i've known him a long time no just stop asking it's impossible he defines the word impossible in moving and that's true i'm like this when i watch a movie when i eat dinner people around me don't like that too much fly so one it's my impression and we'll take these after i do all three you can take them in order uh it's my impression that you know the sunken road saw a heavy use before the civil war in part because people were cutting through to get toward orndorf's mill two that the middle bridge saw more casualties than the burnside british bridge itself three mcclellan didn't have forty thousand thirty thousand twenty five thousand soldiers in advance and never attacked the center he did move across and didn't have that many go ahead well first of all on the sunken road yes it's a very active lane that's used here by the local population and it was a shortcut between the hagerstown sharksburg turnpike and the boonsboro sharksburg pike you didn't have to go through town you didn't have to go through sharksburg and you didn't have to climb that immense hill there which is today where the national cemetery is that would be very difficult the other thing that you were able to do you avoided the toll booths have you ever tried to do something like that you avoided the toll booths on both turnpikes now secondly um the the well actually i'm going to go to the third thing we don't have 40 000 reserves over here no no no that is a myth that's one of the great myths of antietam much of the fifth corps was not here the sixth corps wasn't here when the battle started and so this whole idea that mcclellan has all these people in reserve and he doesn't use them he doesn't employ them is a falsehood now most of you know i don't think much of george letwell you've been following my career i've bashed my club i enjoy bashing mcclellan but i'm not going to perpetuate a falsehood mcclellan doesn't have that many reserves and in fact he does commit most of those reserves across the creek yes he brings them across the creek the sixth corps is all brought across and will fight around the sunken road and the dunker church i said the word fight they will fight that afternoon of the 17th the sixth course so they'll be deployed elements of the fifth quarter will be deployed here they will come across and test these right center so they're very active here and finally gary's point about the middle bridge and more casualties than the burnside bridge absolutely right there are nearly 600 casualties here there's about 400 casualties of burnside taking the bridge but they don't happen right here along the creek the federals advance up the slope that we're standing on to the high ground facing lee where they become exposed to these gunners firing from the area of the today's national cemetery he's got infantry he has infantry on the high ground where the national cemetery is overlooking sharksburg and so as they get closer and closer to sharksburg heading this direction they come under artillery fire and infantry fire and they will be engaged especially men in the fifth corps and some of the cavalry itself so all totaled in the action that we call the middle bridge action not happening here but on the high ground beyond almost 600 us casualties that answer yes that answered it great and and i didn't look too foolish in anything i said so that makes me happy which is unusual because it usually looks foolish i do that very well ask my wife in any case uh this is unknown antietam and to an extent myth busting antietam so we hope you're enjoying uh join us at more places share this with your friends and uh get inspired at battlefields.org hey welcome back everybody as we continue our uh coverage of unknown antietam on the 159th anniversary i'm gary edelman you're with the american battlefield trust we've got analysts behind the camera over there and we're checking out as many parts of the antietam battlefield maybe the more obscure ones and i'll encourage you to go back to our antietam 158 157 156 and 155 coverage to maybe see other things that you want to see but for now we're at another place that most people probably couldn't have stood until a few years ago and probably most people still haven't stood we are above the middle bridge on the west side of the middle bridge between the union and confederate lines i'm going to show you more in a second but this is one of the many cannons that the park service has you know drug in dragged into place with the help of the save historic antietam foundation to open up parts of the battlefield and putting guns where they actually were during the battle we're at tidball's battery but let me take a walk around here because over my shoulder you might be able to see that we're behind the sunken road you can see the tower over there that is the bloody lane tower erected about 30 years after the battle of antietam as we come over this way you might be able to see something that's also behind the bloody lane the barn of the piper farm of course the fight for bloody lane is in piper's uh cornfield and around his orchard and whatnot so there's something else and then behind me splayed out all the way is cemetery hill you've got a civilian sort of cemetery on the right side of the distant road and you've got the national cemetery crowning the heights over there and let's unpack a little bit of this with our good friend dennis fry save historic antietam foundation dennis thanks gary in continuing the tour that was not known as cemetery hill during the war there was no national cemetery and there was no private cemetery that we have today there was a lutheran church there and a small cemetery around it but none of the locals referred to it as cemetery hill so we just want to make sure that you understand that's a more modern nomenclature that came along with the national cemetery in the aftermath of the battle but one thing more that i want to point out if you look off in the distance you might be able to see you may be able to see the washington monument not real but it looks like it you see that you see the obelisk way way off in the distance that is the high water mark the high water mark of the united states infantry assaults here at antietam that's how close they came to taking the top of that ridge that monument is a new york monument it represents the hawkins zouaves 9th new york regiment and that's how close they came gary and i were talking a moment ago another quarter of a mile another 400 yards or as gary like to say another 400 steps to victory 400 steps to victory and burnside may have cracked lee's right cracked it so badly that lee would have had no choice but to withdraw in chaos from sharksburg so that's how far the union line got what we like about this site you need to come here you need to come here it's not easy to get to in terms of you can't drive right to it and you can't park right at it you have to walk it's not a long walk it's about three tenths of a mile it is a walk that goes uphill but the good news about that is it's downhill going back and you park at the nicodemus house near the middle bridge to gain access to this point but look at this look at this this diorama that you see i mean that panorama is incredible nowhere else on the battlefield do you really get such a vast view of so much of the battlefield and the other thing i want you to notice is the topography look how squat the tower looks now you know the tower's not that short but because of the ground around it and how it sinks and rises if the tower really looks kind of small and so here's what we have tidball's battery here they can fire this direction to the north towards the sunken road right into the confederate right flank confederates holding that ground their right can be struck from here they can fire towards lee's right center lee holds all the ground that is in front of you all of it with infantry and artillery there's no gaps up there there's no real chasms up there even though lee doesn't have a whole lot of men he keeps moving his artillery and his men around to pressure points and so he's holding that position and then further off to the left the high ground that's where ap hill is going to come in and strike burnside and stop burnside's final advance later in the afternoon but here's here's what i want to pose to you this ground mcclellan knows about this ground his men know about this crap so there's a whole lot of talk that mcclellan should have wiped out leo on the 17th that mcclellan had every opportunity to end the war to destroy the confederate army here to literally end robert e lee's career and the confederacies existence here at sharpsburg if he had only attacked if he had only attacked if he had only attacked well paying the camera this way i want you to take a look at that do you want to attack that do you want to attack that now let me tell you something you're all familiar with cemetery hill gettysburg that's higher than gettysburg cemetery hill that's higher than cemetery ridge it is steeper than cemetery ridge and cemetery hill you're all familiar with the picket pettigrew charge well let me tell you something if george mcclellan attempts to strike that point which is one of the best defensive positions that general lee will have during his entire career as commander of the army northern virginia right out there you want to attack that well invite yourself to suicide mcclellan knows that so even on the 18th the day following september 17th in the bloody bloody gruesome fighting here both armies fatigue both armies wiped out even if mcclellan does have more men and he does more men have arrived for him to attempt to strike that position which lee has strongly defended not with earthworks but with artillery and infantry you're not going to make it you're not going to make it robert e lee could attempt to attack that position that would make malvern hill look like a mole hill and you know he didn't make it up in albert hill and so again it's hard for me to believe i'm giving george mcclellan credit for anything i don't typically like to say positive things about general mcclellan but this is this is called prudence this is called reality the ground dictates where you can strike and where you can succeed and robert e lee's ground here the high ground that the confederates hold there is no way that the army of the potomac is going to take that position as long as lee holds it not going to happen that's really interesting dennis i think dennis might feel a little bit strongly about this particular point uh you're with the american battlefield trust and we're covering antietam 159 and trying to bring you the unknown and more obscure angles of antietam and dennis said something really interesting to me you know he doesn't like mcclellan much amanda's mcfly and hard to like anyone who knew him you know even at the time you read his letters and oh my god there's a lot about them to not like but that doesn't mean he's incompetent if you don't like him or he did some things he didn't like it didn't mean everything he did was bad and i think this speaks to abraham lincoln and how reluctant he might have been to put i mean a pretty clear enemy of his somebody who's working against him in command but lincoln had to use the tools that he did the tools that he had and so he's going to put mcclellan in and mcclellan did manage you know to win this battle let's keep that in mind people make it seem like burnside never captured his bridge or mcclellan completely failed at antietam not quite now come on over here follow me to one other thing i just want to point out here and that is often the distance you can see high ground that's red hill okay and you can see the most distant tree line but look at the tree line below it if i have it right that is a union artillery position okay that's where they put their heavier guns the 20-pounder rifled guns okay and i just want to point that out because on the battlefield these cannons the confederates could reach these but while the union cannons on the other side of the creek could shoot at the confederates all day not only on cemetery hill but even closer to the sunken road and elsewhere these confederate guns for the most part could not even reach those union cannons positioned high up on a bluff over antietam creek so again i'd like to point out sometimes there is a real technological advantage to being the more industrial army and the union certainly benefited from that here and elsewhere dennis you have anything else looks like he's good so thanks for joining us we've got more to come um both today and probably tomorrow as well so thanks for joining us and thanks as always for uh supporting battlefield preservation and education you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 6,803

Rating: 4.9840636 out of 5

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

Id: nZ7aHVS9HQM

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021