Fallen American
Found in the hallowed ground at bloody Antietam 146 years later, by a hiker who spotted human remains by a groundhog hole. Archaeologists uncovered a young New York soldier, apparently a forgotten battlefield burial. News, history, maps and eyewitness accounts kick off with ABC2:
Archeologists are now working to find out as much as they can about that soldier, and give him a proper burial.
The Battle of Antietam on September 17th, 1862 remains the bloodiest day in American history. On that one day, more than 23,000 men were killed, wounded or captured. The bodies of hundreds of soldiers were buried on the field. Years later, the Army moved many of the Union dead to the Antietam National Cemetery. Confederates were moved to cemeteries in Hagerstown or Frederick.
But some bodies were missed. And this past October, a man walking through the battlefield came upon what he thought were human remains, and he was right. Part of what he found was a human tooth. ‘Actually it was an impacted wisdom tooth was what it was,’ said John Howard, superintendent of the Antietam National Battlefield.
The National Park Service called in a team of archeologists to search the site, and they found more artifacts including the soldier’s belt buckle, and several buttons from his jacket. ‘Each one was spaced exactly the same distance apart so you know that when they laid him to rest his coat was buttoned and it laid directly down his chest,’ Howard said.
The buttons also revealed the man was a Union soldier from New York State. Scientists at the Smithsonian studied the tooth, and determined that he was between 18 and 21 years old, but it’s unlikely that they’ll ever know exactly who he was. ‘For example if there was only one New York Soldier left unknown, well then it would work but there are more than that,’ Howard said. ‘There’s probably close to 60 or 70 that we know of just from very fast research.’
Regardless, the remains are being treated with the utmost respect. ‘He was somebody’s brother, perhaps somebody’s father, definitely somebody’s son. And that’s the way we treat these remains,’ Howard said.
The fallen soldier was found in the Cornfield, a kill zone for hundreds of Union and Confederate soldiers. AP:
The remarkable find 146 years after the soldier perished is a reminder that the battlefield at Antietam is “ground that was basically changed forever by what happened on it,” Superintendent John W. Howard said Thursday.
…
The soldier could have served in any of 24 New York regiments that fought in the field where fierce small-arms and artillery fire obliterated cornstalks and men alike.
“We’ve always worked with the number that there’s somewhere between 140 and 200 missing in action here, and some of them, because of the volume of fire, they just ceased to exist as an entity — they were just totally destroyed,” Howard said.
Here’s the National Park Service’s quick take on the battle:
On September 16, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan confronted Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg, Maryland. At dawn September 17, Hooker’s corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee’s left flank that began the single bloodiest day in American military history. Attacks and counterattacks swept across Miller’s cornfield and fighting swirled around the Dunker Church. Union assaults against the Sunken Road eventually pierced the Confederate center, but the Federal advantage was not followed up. Late in the day, Burnside’s corps finally got into action, crossing the stone bridge over Antietam Creek and rolling up the Confederate right. At a crucial moment, A.P. Hill’s division arrived from Harpers Ferry and counterattacked, driving back Burnside and saving the day. Although outnumbered two-to-one, Lee committed his entire force, while McClellan sent in less than three-quarters of his army, enabling Lee to fight the Federals to a standstill. During the night, both armies consolidated their lines. In spite of crippling casualties, Lee continued to skirmish with McClellan throughout the 18th, while removing his wounded south of the river. McClellan did not renew the assaults. After dark, Lee ordered the battered Army of Northern Virginia to withdraw across the Potomac into the Shenandoah Valley.
The bloodiest day in American military history, with more than 3,700 dead and more than 17,000 wounded. Considered indecisive, McClellan’s caution prevented the potential destruction of Lee’s greatly outnumbered forces. A disappointment to Lincoln, the battle nonetheless thwarted Lee’s invasion of Maryland. It gave Lincoln a hollow victory on which to issue the Emancipation Proclamation from a position of strength and gave Britain and France pause as they mulled recognizing the Confederate States. Because battles can be significant political events, and in the case of this domestic battle, an event with significant foreign policy ramifications as well. Via Wikipedia, which has a detailed account. Here’s the Cornfield:
As the first Union men emerged from the North Woods and into the Cornfield, an artillery duel erupted. Confederate fire was from the horse artillery batteries under Jeb Stuart to the west and four batteries under Col. Stephen D. Lee on the high ground across the pike from the Dunker Church to the south. Union return fire was from nine batteries on the ridge behind the North Woods and four batteries of 20-pounder Parrott rifles, 2 miles (3 km) east of Antietam Creek. The conflagration caused heavy casualties on both sides and was described by Col. Lee as “artillery Hell.”
Seeing the glint of Confederate bayonets concealed in the Cornfield, Hooker halted his infantry and brought up four batteries of artillery, which fired shell and canister over the heads of the Federal infantry, covering the field. The artillery and rifle fire from both sides acted like a scythe, cutting down cornstalks and men alike.
Meade’s 1st Brigade of Pennsylvanians, under Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour, began advancing through the East Woods and exchanged fire with Colonel James Walker’s brigade of Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina troops. As Walker’s men forced Seymour’s back, aided by Lee’s artillery fire, Ricketts’s division entered the Cornfield, also to be torn up by artillery. Brig. Gen. Abram Duryée’s brigade marched directly into volleys from Colonel Marcellus Douglass’s Georgia brigade. Enduring heavy fire from a range of 250 yards (230 m) and gaining no advantage because of a lack of reinforcements, Duryée ordered a withdrawal.
The reinforcements that Duryée had expected—brigades under Brig. Gen. George L. Hartsuff and Col. William A. Christian—had difficulties reaching the scene. Hartsuff was wounded by a shell, and Christian dismounted and fled to the rear in terror. When the men were rallied and advanced into the Cornfield, they met the same artillery and infantry fire as their predecessors. As the superior Union numbers began to tell, the Louisiana “Tiger” Brigade under Harry Hays entered the fray and forced the Union men back to the East Woods. The casualties received by the 12th Massachusetts Infantry, 67%, were the highest of any unit that day. The Tigers were beaten back eventually when the Federals brought up a battery of 3-inch ordnance rifles and rolled them directly into the Cornfield, point-blank fire that slaughtered the Tigers, who lost 323 of their 500 men.
Antietam, overall map:
Cornfield assault:
Day of battle below, photo by Alexander Gardner, who also took the shot of Confederate dead at top, just down the road from the Cornfield.
Cornfield eyewitness account of Major Rufus R. Dawes, 6th Wisconsin Volunteers:
“At the front [South] edge of the corn-field was a low Virginia rail fence. Before the corn were open fields, beyond which was a strip of woods surrounding a little church, the Dunkard church. As we appeared at the edge of the corn, a long line of men in butternut and gray rose up from the ground. Simultaneously, the hostile battle lines opened a tremendous fire upon each other. Men . . . were knocked out of the ranks by dozens. But we jumped over the fence, and pushed on, loading, firing, and shouting as we advanced. There was . . . great hysterical excitement, eagerness to go forward, and a reckless disregard of life, of everything but victory. . . .
“The Fourteenth Brooklyn Regiment, red legged Zouaves, came into our line. . . . Men and officers of New York and Wisconsin are fused into a common mass, in the frantic struggle to shoot fast. Every body tears cartridges, loads, passes guns, or shoots. Men are falling in their places or running back into the corn. The soldier who is shooting is furious in his energy. The soldier who is shot looks around for help with an imploring agony of death on his face. . . . The men are loading and firing with demoniacal fury and shouting and laughing hysterically, and the whole field before us is covered with rebels fleeing for life, into the woods.”
“In the time I am writing, every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few moments before.”
David Thompson, 9th New York Volunteers:
So the morning wore away and the fighting on the right ceased entirely. That was fresh anxiety — the scales were turning perhaps, but which way? About noon the battle began afresh. This must have been Franklin’s men of the Sixth Corps, for the firing was nearer, and they came up behind the center. Suddenly a stir beginning far upon the right, and running like a wave along the line, brought the regiment to its feet. A silence fell on every one at once, for each felt that the momentous ‘now’ had come. Just as we started I saw, with a little shock, a line-officer take out his watch to note the hour, as though the affair beyond the creek were a business appointment which he was going to keep.
When we reached the brow of the hill the fringe of trees along the creek screened the fighting entire, and we were deployed as skirmishers under their cover. We sat there two hours. All that time the rest of corps had been moving over the stone bridge and going into position on the other side of the creek. Then were ordered over a ford which had been found below the bridge, where the water was waist deep. One man was shot in mid-stream.
At the foot of the slope on the opposite side the line was formed and we moved up through the thin woods. Reaching the level we lay down behind a battery which seemed to have been disabled. There, if anywhere, I should have remembered that I was soaking wet from my waist down. So great was the excitement, however, that I have never been able to recall it. Here some of the men, going to the rear for water, discovered in the ashes of some hay-ricks which had been fired by our shells the charred remains of several Confederates. After long waiting it became noised along the line that we were to take a battery that was at work several yards ahead on the top of a hill. This narrowed the field and brought us to consider the work before us more attentively.
Right across our front, two hundred feet or so away, ran a country road bordered on each side by a snake fence. Beyond this road stretched a plowed field several hundred feet in length, sloping up to the battery which was hidden in a corn field. A stone fence, breast-high, inclosed the field on the left, and behind it lay a regiment of Confederates, who would be directly on our flank if we should attempt the slope. The prospect was far from encouraging, but the order came to get ready for the attempt.
Our knapsacks were left on the ground behind us. At the word a rush was made for the fences. The line was so disordered by the time the second fence was passed that we hurried forward to a shallow undulation a few feet ahead, and lay down among the furrows to re-form, doing so by crawling up into line. A hundred feet or so ahead was a similar undulation to which we ran for a second shelter. The battery, which at first had not seemed to notice us, now, apprised of its danger, opened fire upon us. We were getting ready now for the charge proper, but were still lying on our faces. Lieutenant-Colonel Kimball was ramping up and down the line. The discreet regiment behind the fence was silent. Now and then a bullet from them cut the air over our head, but generally they were reserving their fire for that better show which they knew they would get in a few minutes. The battery, however, whose shots at first went over our heads, had depressed its guns so as to shave the surface of the ground. Its fire was beginning to tell.
I remember looking behind and seeing an officer riding diagonally across the field - - a most inviting target - - instinctively bending his head down over his horse’s neck, as though he were riding through driving rain. While my eye was on him I saw, between me and him a rolled overcoat with its traps on bound into the air and fall among the furrows. One of the enemy’s grape-shot had plowed a groove in the skull of a young fellow and had cut his overcoat from his shoulders. He never stirred from his position, but lay there face downward, a dreadful spectacle. A moment after, I heard a man cursing a comrade for lying on him heavily. He was cursing a dying man.
As the range grew better, the firing became more rapid, the situation desperate and exasperating to the last degree. Human ature was on the race, and there burst forth form it the most vehement, terrible swearing I have ever heard. Certainly the joy of conflict was not ours that day. The suspense was only for a moment, however, for the order to charge came just after. Whether the regiment was thrown into disorder or not, I never knew. I only remember that as we rose, and started all the fire that had been held back so long was loosed. In a second the air was full of the hiss of bullets and the hurtle of grape-shot. The mental strain was so great that I saw at the moment he singular effect mentioned, I think, in the life of Goethe on a similar occasion - - the whole landscape for an instant turned slight red.
More eyewitness accounts here, including this from Charles A. Hale, 5th New Hampshire Infantry, 2nd Corps:
Battle oh horrid battle. What sights I have seen now see around me. I am Wounded! And am afraid shall be again as shells fly past me every few seconds carrying away limbs from trees and scattering limbs around. Am in severe pain. Furies how the shells fly. I do sincerely hope shall not be wounded again. We drove them first till they got sheltered then we had a bad place. Oh I cannot write.
Antietam reads:
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam Stephen W. Sears
Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam James M. McPherson
Antietam, South Mountain, and Harpers Ferry: A Battlefield Guide Ethan S. Rafuse
Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodiest Day William A. Frassanito
Guide to the Battle of Antietam Army War College
Antietam 1862: The Civil War’s Bloodiest Day Norman Stevens
The Gleam Of Bayonets: The Battle Of Antietam And Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign, September, 1862 James V. Murfin
The Maryland Campaign of September 1862: Ezra A. Carman’s Definitive Study of the Union and Confederate Armies at Antietam Joseph Pierro
Unfurl Those Colors: McClellan, Sumner, and the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign Marion V Armstrong
Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle John M. Priest
The Antietam Campaign Gary W. Gallagher
Topics: America, history, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:29 am on Friday, January 9, 2009
5 Responses to “Fallen American”
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January 9th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I transcribed a diary for a civil war soldier, his name was Peter L. Kemery. Ind Volunteers. He was killed outside of Jonesboro GA. on Sept 4, 1864. His last words in the diary were ‘heavy cannonading on the right” That was it. He was 28 years old. In the diary I found a lock of his hair in an unsent letter. Broke my heart.
January 10th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
God Bless them ALL. My Great Grandfather, Jacob Hunnicutt, fought in all of the campaigns of Longstreet’s Corps of Lee’s Army. A North Carolinian, G-Grandad was wounded 5-times, including a spent mini ball to his mouth in the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg. Survived the War and moved to Northern Arkansas afterwards. My mother got to hear him talk of his memories of Sharpsburg(what you Yankees call Antietem), Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga-Lookout Mountain(Yes, Longstreet’s Corps was on leave to Tennessee to help Bragg in the late summer of ‘63), Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg on to the end.
Tough young warriors. He’d be proud as hell of the American Warriors of today.
January 10th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Damn.
January 10th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Yep, Jules. Or, as Great Grandpappy would say,”…Dang.”
Oh, and he was at the great doins’ at 2nd Manassas(..errr..2nd Bull Run in Yank jargon)at the end of August,’62, less than a month before the blood bath at Sharpsburg and the subject of your post.
This West Coaster, now Winter Park Florida dweller, went to the western Great Smokey Mountains country of North Carolina this past October during ‘peak’ Fall colors. That’s the country where G-Grandpappy hailed from. Magical. The hills were afire with it. Monuments in nearly every town to the boys who fought and bled rivers during the War of the Rebellion. ‘Nuff to make those lefty slicks at salon.com gnaw their skinny arms off. :-)
January 12th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
NeoConScum,
Profound gratitude to your beloved Great Grand pappy and all heroes of past and present, so honorably, gallantly served this beloved country. Thank God for their gift, and God Bless them for all eternity.