BATTLE OF ANTIETAM, OR SHARPSBURG,
Which was fought two days later, on the 17th. Sharpsburg is ten
miles north of Harpers Ferry, and eight west of Boonesboro, on the
bank of Antietam creek, a sluggish stream emptying into the Potomac
eight miles above Harpers Ferry. Here, on the morning of the 17th,
General Lee lay with a force of 45,000 men. The Federals were commanded
by McClellan in person, and consisted of the entire command of
Burnside, McDowell's corps, now under the command of Hooker; Sumner's
corps, Franklin's corps, Banks' corps, commanded by Williams,
and Sykes' division of Fitz John Porter's corps.
Lee looked anxiously for the arrival of the divisions of McLaws, R.
H. Anderson, A. P. Hill and Walker, but they did not come up until
late in the day. At dawn the work of carnage began, and continued
for twelve hours; 200,000 men struggled for the mastery. Blood flowed
in streams, and the field was strewn far and wide with the dead and
dying; the deathly grapple was yet indecisive, and at sunset when the
worn armies desisted from strife one of the best examples of a drawn
battle which history records was presented. Both armies rested upon
the field that night, and when on the next morning the Confederates
fell back across the Potomac to Shepherdstown, Virginia, McClellan's
army was too much demoralized to follow.
The Federal force actually engaged numbered 87,164, of which 4,320
were cavalry; their loss was 2,010 killed, 9,416 wounded, and 1,043
missing—a total of 12,469. The Confederates had during the day
70,000 men engaged, and left upon the field 3,000 dead, and 2,000 severely
wounded. Of the killed on both sides many rotted in the sun,
and, long after, their bones were bleaching on the mountain sides and in
the valley of the little stream.
