In defense of McClellan at Antietam: A contrarian view

[Willard]

I meant to post this last week as I read the below article by Gene Thorp in the Washington Post. Mr. Thorp's article appeared in the WP's 150th CW Anniversary sections that have been coming out to coincide with the anniversaries of major battles and events of the Civil War. If you are interested in the entire series, you can look here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/civil-war

I found Thorp's article very interesting, especially the last third in which he claims that Lee's forces at Antietam have historically been under-estimated and that Lee actually had more men at Antietam than previously believed.

This link for the article is below, along with the article.

Additionally, is a graphic and charts presented along with the article.
Perhaps we need to re-think the OOB for the Rebs at Antietam???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... hic/?tab=3


In defense of McClellan at Antietam: A contrarian view
By Gene Thorp, Published: September 7

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle ... story.html

On Sept. 17, 1862, Gen. George B. McClellan stopped Gen. Robert E. Lee’s first Confederate invasion of the North at the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day of warfare in American history. This narrow victory changed the course of the war.

Yet history has not been kind to McClellan. Politicians from the 1860s onward and countless historians have claimed he could have easily destroyed Lee’s army during the campaign and ended the war in 1862, sparing the country another two and a half years of bloody conflict.

Their criticism stems from the belief that McClellan moved too slowly and cautiously to attack Lee. They assert that when a copy of Lee’s plans fell into McClellan’s hands, the Union general wasted precious hours before advancing. They declare that McClellan’s forces outnumbered his foe’s by more than two to one and by that metric alone, he should have decimated Lee’s army. They are wrong.

Contrary to what most of the literature will tell you, McClellan was not a hesitant fool. He did his best under challenging conditions.

Scarcely two weeks before the Battle of Antietam, he was a general without a command. He had once held sway over all the Federal armies, but during the previous six months every unit under his control had been transferred to other generals.

Most had been sent to reinforce Gen. John Pope as he fought Lee on the plains of Manassas. Pope, however, was thoroughly defeated, and his demoralized troops streamed back to the capital with the Confederates close behind.

In a moment of desperation, Lincoln returned the shattered remnants of Pope’s army to McClellan, hoping its former commander could reinstill the high morale the troops had possessed a year earlier.

Read the full Washington Post Civil War 150 series.

When McClellan took charge of the Union forces on Sept. 1, he inherited four separate armies, thousands of untrained recruits and numerous other small commands that needed to be made ready in a hurry. To further complicate matters, three of his senior commanders had been ordered relieved of duty, charged with insubordination against Pope.

Acting quickly

Unbeknownst to the Federals, Lee had struck north into Maryland. The cavalry was the arm of the service most likely to discover Lee’s change of direction, but when McClellan took over, there was virtually none available to him.

On paper, McClellan commanded some 28 cavalry regiments. But the disastrous Manassas campaign had worn out the horses of almost half the Union regiments, while most of the remainder were stranded at Hampton Roads by gale-force winds. For the first week of the campaign, McClellan could only count on perhaps 1,500 cavalry from two regiments and a few scattered squadrons from his old army to challenge some 5,000 Confederate cavalry soldiers screening Lee’s army.

Despite these handicaps, in the week it took for Lee’s army to march to Frederick, McClellan’s army traveled an equal distance to redeploy on the north side of Washington. This was accomplished as he reshuffled commands, had his officers under charges reinstated and prepared to fill out his army with untrained recruits.

These new men, organized into 1,000-man regiments, would account for about a fifth of McClellan’s force at Antietam. Northern recruiting booths had only reopened in July, and the first of these regiments were not assembled in their home states until mid-August. Before officers learned how to issue orders or their men learned to follow them, they were sent by train to Washington and immediately marched to the front. They would learn how to fire a musket as they marched to battle.

In the second week of the campaign, Lee’s army suddenly left Frederick and marched west.

As McClellan’s army advanced on Sept. 13, Union soldiers stumbled upon a four-day-old copy of Lee’s orders in an abandoned rebel camp. Known as Special Order No. 191, this paper revealed that Lee had dangerously split his army into five parts. Three columns had converged on Harpers Ferry to capture the Federal garrison there, a fourth column was in Hagerstown, and a fifth column was acting as a rear guard near Boonesboro, Md. Historians have debated fiercely over when the Lost Order was delivered to McClellan.

In his landmark 1983 book, “Landscape Turned Red,” Stephen Sears asserts that McClellan verified before noon that the papers were legitimate, then exhibited his usual excessive caution and failed to move his army for 18 hours. To back up this theory, Sears cites a telegram that McClellan sent to Abraham Lincoln at “12 M” — which Sears says stands for meridian or noon — in which McClellan confidently informs the president that he has the plans of the enemy and that “no time shall be lost” in attacking Lee.

After the book’s publication, though, the original telegram receipt was discovered by researcher Maurice D’Aoust in the Lincoln papers at the Library of Congress. It shows that the telegram was sent at midnight (the word was written out) — a full 12 hours later than Sears thought. D’Aoust points this out in the October 2012 issue of Civil War Times in an article entitled “ ‘Little Mac’ Did Not Dawdle.”

The sequence of events most likely went like this: The Lost Orders were found “about noon,” as confirmed by the unit commander, and reached McClellan shortly before 3 p.m., which is when he ordered his cavalry chief to verify that the paper was legitimate, and not some ruse planted by the rebels. Even before the orders could be verified, McClellan had the vanguard of the army, Burnside’s 9th Corps, on the move at 3:30 p.m. These men filled the road west to Lee’s rear guard at South Mountain well into the night. Near sundown, at 6:20 p.m., he began to issue orders for the rest of his army to move, with most units instructed to be marching at sunrise. (They were roused from sleep at 3 a.m.) In the midst of this activity, at midnight, the general telegraphed the president to tell him what was going on.

No dilly-dallying there.

By 9 a.m. on Sept. 14, the first troops had climbed South Mountain and met the Confederate rear-guard in battle. By nightfall, McClellan’s army carried the heights and forced a defeated Lee to find a new defensive position along Antietam Creek. McClellan pursued the next morning and within 48 hours initiated the Battle of Antietam, which forced Lee back across the Potomac River.

Underestimating the damage?

In his after-action report, McClellan claimed that his men buried 2,700 Confederates on the Antietam battlefield and captured 6,000 more. He could only guess at the number of wounded, but he estimated it was 18,742 men, using the ratio of killed to wounded for his own troops.

This stands in stark contrast to Confederate reports, which claimed losses of 1,674 dead, 2,292 missing and 9,451 wounded — a total of 13,417. Even discounting the wounded, the discrepancy between the two reports is almost 5,000 casualties.

Which is right? The burial grounds would indicate that McClellan’s number is closer to the truth. More than 3,300 dead rebels specifically associated with the Antietam campaign can be found buried in the Confederate cemeteries in Hagerstown, Frederick, Shepherdstown and Winchester. This number is larger than McClellan’s because it includes bodies buried by the Confederates themselves as well as those who died shortly after the battle.

As for the captured Confederates, McClellan’s medical director, Jonathan Letterman, reported 2,500 wounded under his care following the fight. At least another 2,500 unwounded prisoners of war were transferred from the battlefield to Forts Delaware and McHenry, bringing the number of captured rebels to more than 5,000 — much closer to McClellan’s figure than Lee’s. This would make what is already America’s bloodiest day even more horrific than previously thought, and it would mean McClellan did more damage than he is credited with.

Underestimated strength

Perhaps the most important misconception is the number of troops Lee brought with him during his invasion. Most historians cite McClellan as having had 87,000 men and Lee around 40,000. These numbers are often used for the entire three-week campaign, with the Confederates sometimes credited with as many as 55,000 men, 15,000 of whom straggled off before the battle. But there are no complete returns for Lee’s army until Oct. 10, 1862. Every historian’s count is merely a best-guess estimate.

Lee filed his first return five days after the battle, noting the count is “very imperfect” and does not include cavalry or artillery. It states that on Sept. 22, he had at least 36,418 infantry. Adding a conservative number of 5,000 for the missing cavalry and artillery units would bring his total to about 41,000 troops at the end of the campaign.

Eighteen days later, on Oct. 10, Lee filed his first complete report, which showed 64,273 present for duty. This number is significant because Lee had not received a single new regiment to replace his losses; nor did he receive many, if any, recruits because the February draft law had already pulled every eligible man into the army by early summer.

If we add Lee’s reported campaign losses of 13,417 (which, as already noted, are too low), it would show that Lee started the campaign with at least 75,000 men.

Most historians will explain this away by citing the Confederate claim that almost half of Lee’s army — 30,000 soldiers — straggled behind. Where is the corroborating evidence? The Official Records show that some 5,000 rebels moved to Winchester at the start of the campaign, then on to Lee’s army after Antietam, but what about the rest? How could any rebel straggle in Maryland — as many Confederates claimed — and not be captured by the Union army, which immediately occupied every post the retreating Confederates vacated? If the straggling took place in Virginia at the start of the campaign, who fed these 25,000-plus soldiers? Who led them? How did they all get back into Lee’s army so quickly through countryside most had never been in?

The simple answer is that that Confederates had suffered a major loss and needed some way to explain it. While straggling undoubtedly occurred in the last few days before Antietam, 30,000 men were not missing for most of the campaign.

Plenty of eyewitness accounts support the 75,000 figure for Lee’s army. Perhaps the most detailed comes from Dr. Lewis Steiner of the Sanitary Commission, who happened to be in Frederick on Sept. 10-11 as most of the Confederate army marched out of town. Steiner tried to count every rebel that passed him and concluded by the end of the two days that he had seen some 69,000 Confederates. However, he did not witness any cavalry or a division south of town that was also part of Lee’s army. When the most conservative estimates for these troops are added to Steiner’s numbers, they bring the total to well over 75,000.

So much for McClellan’s outsized numerical advantage. The army he drove back was not much smaller than his own. He did it without proper cavalry support, with his superiors hoping to oust him and with a significant portion of his army untrained. And as it turns out, he inflicted more damage on Lee’s army than anyone suspected.


Related article, In defense of McClellan: A contrarian view - the Peninsula campaign

[Willard]

Lee commanded a larger army

On Oct. 10, 1862, three weeks after Antietam, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee filed the first full report of the troops under his command. It showed he had 64,273 soldiers present for duty and 76,684 absent, most of the latter being sick and wounded in hospitals stretching from Richmond to Winchester.

Since Antietam, Lee had not been reinforced by a single regiment and what survives of Confederate records strongly implies he had received very few new recruits.

The flow of 18-to-35-year-old conscripts from the draft law had slowed to a trickle since July and the second draft that had been passed by the Confederate Congress two weeks earlier had yet to bring in the thousands of new 36-to-45- year-old conscripts that would swell Lee's ranks again before the December battle of Fredericksburg. Because of these circumstances, we know that the men in Lee's report, in addition to the casualties he received at the engagements of Antietam, South Mountain and Harpers Ferry total up to at least the minimum number of men he would have launched his invasion of Maryland with.

The following chart shows the number of troops in each of Lee's nine divisions, the number of casualties each division lost from Sept. 4 to Sept. 20, and the total men each division must have had at the beginning of the Antietam campaign.

Army of Northern Virginia, Oct. 10, 1862


*Confederate casualties for the Antietam campaign were at least 3,500 higher then shown. It is unclear which divisions suffered these additional casulties. See Confederate casualties for more detail on how these casualties were calculated.

If more than 75,000 men were with Lee during the Antietam campaign, sightings of the different parts of Lee's army should generally match the estimated number of troops from the chart above. In the map below, two-dozen accounts, taken from newspapers, civilians, intelligence reports and the sworn statements of officers, are located on the march routes. The correlation is surprisingly close.

[Willard]

Estimating the size of Lee's Army during the Antietam campaign
When the Confederate army marched, citizens and Union soldiers in their path took note of how many troops passed by.

[Willard]

Links for info on calculating rebel losses:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... hic/?tab=3

Confederates suffered greater losses
After the Antietam campaign, Confederates reported 3,966 men either killed or missing. There is no captured column in their reports, which has led historians to assume that prisoners of war were counted among the missing.

Confederate casualty reports total


Note: Casualties above calculated by totaling the following reports from the Official Records of the War of the Rebelllion (O.R.), Vol. 27, pages, 843, 861, 862, 888, 925, 974, 975, 983 and 1026.

McClellan's report after the campaign contrasts sharply with Confederate reports. Although Gen. George B. McClellan could only estimate the number of rebels wounded, his men held the battlefield so his officers could count the number of Confederate dead they buried, the captured Confederate wounded in their hospitals and the captured Confederate prisoners of war added to their prisons.

Confederate casualties as reported by McClellan



Source: O.R., Vol. 27, page 67

Excluding McClellan's wounded estimate, he reported 8,700 killed and captured, some 4,700 more casualties than the Confederates acknowledge. This difference may seem shockingly high, especially because McClellan has a reputation for overestimating enemy forces on the field of battle, but the evidence available strongly supports his report.

Confederates killed

One way to obtain a reasonable estimate of actual Confederate dead can be made by examining the four main cemeteries where these Confederates are now buried.

Confederate burials



All dead listed above are from the Antietam campaign only. Information on the original grave sites of those buried on the battlefield can be found on the Western Maryland Regional Library website. Confederates included from Stonewall Cemetery died between late September 1862 and Nov. 30, 1862.

Most of the rebels killed outright during the campaign were buried near where they fell and years later reinterred at Washington Confederate Cemetery in Hagerstown. Other captured Confederates who perished in Union hospitals in Frederick are buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery. Mortally wounded Confederates who were unable to travel far were carried to hospitals just across the Potomac River from the battlefield at Shepherdstown. When they died, they were buried at Elmwood Cemetery. Hundreds more wounded made the long journey to hospitals in Winchester, where within two months they succumbed to their injuries. They are buried in the city at Stonewall Cemetery. It is also believed that hundreds of Confederates were never removed from the battlefields and still lie there in unmarked graves.

The number of dead from Antietam at the Washington Confederate cemetery in Hagerstown alone exccedes rebel accounts by almost 1,000.

Confederates captured

The number of rebels McClellan captured can be verified by reviewing the numbers of wounded Confederates in Union hospitals and by examining the flow of prisoners of war from the front to temporary holding facilities, and finally to where they were exchanged.

McClellan's medical director, Jonathan Letterman, reported after the campaign that he had 2,500 wounded Confederates under his care. Undoubtably, some of these men died in Union hospitals and likely account for those buried in Frederick as well as a few of those buried in Hagerstown.

At the same time, unwounded Confederates captured from the campaign were sent to Fort Delaware, near Wilmington, and Fort McHenry in Baltimore. On Sept. 15, General John E. Wool, who commanded forces in Maryland not under McClellan's control, was ordered to send all captured rebels from the pending battles to Fort Delaware. The first wave of prisoners, 1,400 in all, came from the battle of South Mountain. They were sent from Frederick to Baltimore on Sept. 17 as the battle of Antietam raged 20 miles away. More followed after Antietam and the number of Confederate prisoners in Fort Delaware swelled from 60 on Sept. 9, to some 3,000 by Sept. 29.

Both sides were anxious to quickly exchange prisoners and on Oct. 8., 2,274 of the Fort Delaware prisoners were returned to Confederate lines. An additional 224 Confederates from Fort McHenry were exchanged on Oct. 18. It is unclear what became of the remaining 700 prisoners at Fort Delaware. They may have been exchanged at a later date or were perhaps over-counted in the Sept. 29. report. Since documentation on these men at the present time can not be found, they have been excluded from the total captured. Even so, the two types of Confederate prisoners total 5,000 men, more than twice the amount reported by the rebels.

Confederate killed and captured estimate compiled by author



Adding together the rebel dead in the cemeteries, the wounded in the Union hospitals and the captured from the two forts, the total Confederate killed and captured comes to more than 8,268.

This number is not perfect. Certainly many of the dead were initially counted as wounded. But even if the 690 rebels buried by their comrades in Sheperdstown and Winchester are excluded, and an additional 100 are removed from the wounded held by the Federals, the number of casualties still exceeds Confederate reports by 3,500 men. That does not include the rebel bodies never recovered or the additional 700 Confederates reported at Fort Delaware for whom exchange documentation has not been discovered.

Total Confederate casualty estimate compiled by author



Using the Confederates' own number for the wounded and discounting an additional 790 mortally wounded who may have been included in that total, Confederate losses are clearly much higher, thus McClellan did far more damage to Gen. Robert E. Lee's army than previously thought and should get credit for that.

Letterman's report is from the Official Records Vol. 27, p. 111, Captured not wounded from O.R. Vol. 117, pgs. 518, 551, 575, 603, , 589, 603, 607, New York Times Oct. 21, 1862, Washington Evening Star Sept. 9, 1862, 18th Conn. Inf. Regimental, pgs. 32 and 45.

[KG_Soldier]

Finally someone agrees with me.



Perhaps Pinkerton wasn't a rebel spy!

[exp101]

The best thing that can be said about McClellan's performance at Antietam is that he didn't lose the battle. Ultimately, that does count for something given that the tide was rolling in the Reb's favor at the time and another debacle could well have brought England and France into the war (which was not as likely at the time of Gettysburg). So, hats off to Little Mac for that.
The tragedy of McClellan's performance was that, had he been something other than his predictably over-cautious self, there were multiple opportunities to win the battle -- on the north, and later in the center (Bloody Lane) and during Burnside's late afternoon where there were real prospects of cutting off Lee's escape route over the Potomac. Success at any of these would quite possible have meant the destruction of the bulk of Lee's army and perhaps shortened the War by 2+ years. But perhaps it was something more than caution on his part. He had a habit of distancing himself from the fighting during battles which some think was caused by acute sensitivity (at least by a C.O.'s standards) to views of dead and dying soldiers. This is speculation by some notable authorities who've considered GBM's own writings when he was faced with the horros of war up close. But whatever the cause, Little Mac was hardly a hands-on leader. This habit or preference may well have cost him the big win at Antietam, and is contrasted to R.E. Lee who was all over the battlefield, making split-second, on-scene decisions, despite much difficulty riding Traveller with an injured wrist.

IMO the AoP was lucky to have Mac to clean up and reorganize after the Manassas messes, but not so much when it came to the day of battle. And most prominent historians agree that he squandered an amazing advantage presented by S.O. 191 -- the likes of which wasn't seen again perhaps until the Brits' success at Bletchley Park or Rochefort's breaking of the Japanese code before Midway. But then, this is all great fodder for discussion.

-WJ Palmer

[RebBugler]

Having designed many of the Antietam scenarios, I agree. In designing scenarios historically, much study prep is needed. Burnside alone should be given credit for undermining McClellan's initial strategy, a simultaneous attack from both the north and south, to gain the ground beyond Antietam Creek. Burnside was positioned and ready early in the morning to storm the thin gray line lining the creek south...less than 600 Rebs to Burnside's Corps of, I believe, 12,000. When he didn't move as ordered, McClellan repeatedly sent orders to do so. Burnside reacted in piecemeal, never committing the bulk of his forces til the afternoon.

When he finally did commit, the Confederates immediately withdrew as the first wave of blue got halfway across the bridge. Contrary to what many think, few Union soldiers died on Rohrbach bridge, they fought from down below the bluffs where they were at a tremendous disadvantage, and accrued almost all of their alarming number of casualties. The expedition south to find a ford was really a useless strategy that wasted time, for the Confederates were under orders to withdraw when the enemy gained the bridge.

This delay allowed AP Hill time to enter the fight later in the afternoon, flank Burnside's weary troops, worn out from fighting below the creek bluffs and gaining the heights south of Sharpsburg, thus allowing Lee the ground and time to escape across the Potomac.

[exp101]

Questions still linger about Burnside's performance. While not a shining star, Burnside probably doesn't deserve slam-dunk condemnation at Antietam. For instance:
-The bridge is only a few feet wide. It was probably useless to stack up his entire corps in front of the bridge for a single attack when only a regiment or 2 would fit at a time. The bridge bottleneck forced the "piecemeal" approach, which illustrates the strength of the position;
-The intelligence on the down-stream crossing first thought to be only a few hundred yards south of the bridge (and ultimately farther away at Snavely's Ford) was provided by McClellan's intel team and was erroneous. Whether Burnside should have relied on this is open to question. He may be criticized for trusting McClellan and not conducting his own recon. But he did detach Rodman's division dutifully to follow through on what he'd been told by his leader and (until that day) friend, McClellan;
-The effort to find a place to ford other than the bridge didn't really waste time. Burnside understandably wanted a fall-back in case the assault on the bridge failed. While Rodman was pursuing the ford alternative, Burnside proceded with his attack. The secondary ford approach ultimately was successful and useful (together with the Ohio regiment's crossing a few hundred yards north) in that it quickly widenend the "beachhead" across the bridge. Burnside seems wise in not putting all his eggs in the bridge basket;
-McClellan's initial post-battle report supported Burnside's claim that the southern operation was a demonstration rather than a full-scale attack -- designed to keep Lee from shifting units north -- and is the version supported by testimony from Burnside's staff. Later on, when McClellan was running for President against Lincoln, GBM wrote a revised report basically putting all the blame on his old friend and West Point buddy, Burnside. Political motivation may well have played a role.
-All of this notwithstanding, McClellan could still likely have secured the victory in the south by simply following through on his prior commitment to support Burnside. That is, of course, until Fitz-John Porter's infamous suggestion to the Cautious One reminding him that the V Corps reserve was the Army's last. Consider had McClellan pressed ahead, even with A.P. Hill's attack, there would have been little more than token resistence to slow the AoP from moving beneath Sharpsburg to cut the ANV's avenue of retreat at Shepherdstown.

-WJ Palmer

[RebBugler]

-McClellan's initial post-battle report supported Burnside's claim that the southern operation was a demonstration rather than a full-scale attack -- designed to keep Lee from shifting units north -- and is the version supported by testimony from Burnside's staff.

This is totally contrary to what I have read. I remember reading about McClellan becoming insistently more demanding with his orders for Burnside to move forward. Yes, they were good friends, so McClellan's demeanor with his first orders were mild as Burnside reported back excuses for his delays. But then after several more hours and repeated urgings, McClellan was eventually reduced to threatening demands, which eventually got Burnside moving...but way too late to make the initial plan effective to enable a resounding victory.

But Palmer, you're probably more well read about this than I am, I'm just reporting the limited stuff I've studied, and assumed to be fact. I'm not a history buff, I just basically study for scenario design.

[4thMissInf.Co.F]

Dear RebBugler and Mr. Palmer,

I too had never heard about his initial report concerning Burnside. Very interesting.

As I have read, my understanding is that McClellan had continuously prompted Burnside to cross the bridge during the day, culminating with McClellan sending Colonel Delos B. Sackett,(McClellan's Inspector General) to Burnside "to push forward the troops without a moment's delay." Sackett was to remain with Burnside until the orders were carried out.

Burnside said "McClellan appears to think I am not trying my best to carry this bridge. You are the third or fourth one who has been to me this morning with similar orders."

I do not know what is true, just offering this tidbit as a FWIW.

Respectfully,

James