Checking In . . .

 Found my blog gone, took the steps to restore it. I'd like to think I can come back and blog one of these fine days. Likely I won't, but I"m not ready for it to go away yet . . .

Happy 246th Birthday, US Army

Today is the U.S. Army's 246th birthday. The Army is in fact older than the country it defends: what is now the United States Army was founded by the Continental Congress's decision to raise ten companies of riflemen to join colonial militia units besieging General Thomas Gage's British Army around Boston.

Some units of the U.S. Army and the National Guard are even older, tracing their ancestry to pre-Revolutionary militia units. Among the oldest are the 181st and 182nd Infantry Regiments, both tracing their ancestry to militia units raised in Boston in 1636.

There are formations which followed other flags, yet were still in the service of their country. The 116th Infantry Regiment of the Virginia National Guard also predates the Revolution, tracing its ancestry to the colonial-era Virginia militia. Under another name, the 116th marched with Stonewall Jackson, carrying the banners of the Confederate States at First and Second Manassas, Winchester, Sharpsburg and Gettysburg, encountering old comrades on the other side at those same places. Years later that very same unit was among the first ashore at Omaha Beach, on 6 June 1944, suffering 800 casualties that day at places named Les Moulins and Vierville-sur-Mer.

The heroic traditions of the past are still with us, and the soldiers mounting guard around the world today are the worthy heirs of their brothers of Fallujah, Helmand Province, the Ia Drang Valley, Khe Sanh, the Pusan Perimeter, Lorraine, Sicily, the Philippines and the rest.

Happy Birthday U.S. Army, and greetings to all its soldiers, present and past. Wherever and whenever you carried the flag for us, thank you. We owe you more than it is possible to calculate, or to repay.

200th Anniversary of the Death of Napoleon

 Today is the bicentennal annivesary of the death of Napoleon.

“At 5:50 p.m. the retreat gun was heard, and the sun disappeared in a flash of light. It was also the moment when the great man who dominated the world with his genius was about to wrap himself in his immortal glory. Dr. Antommarchi’s anxiety intensified; the hand that had led victory, and the pulse of which he was counting, became ice-cold. Dr. Arnott, eyes on his watch, counted the intervals from one sigh to the next, fifteen seconds, then thirty, then a minute went by. We stood still in anticipation, but in vain.

“The Emperor was no more!

* * *

“‘Death Certificate of the Emperor:

“Failing the presence of the imperial family’s official registrars designated by the senatus consulta to that effect, I Count Bertrand, grand marshal of the Emperor Napoleon, as civil officer of his household, have written the present document in order to verify that on this day, May 5, 1821, at 5:45 p.m., the Emperor Napoleon died in his quarters at Longwood, Island of St. Helena, following a long and painful illness, in the rites of the Roman, Apostolic and Catholic faith, in the presence of we the undersigned and of all the members of His Majesty’s household serving at Longwood.

“Longwood, island of St. Helena, May 5, 1821.

“Signed: Count Bertrand, Count de Montholon’”

(Quoted from "In Napoleon's Shadow: The Memoirs of Louis-Joseph Marchand, Valet and Friend of the Emperor 1811-1821 (Greenhill Books, 1998)).

The Emperor asked to be buried “on the banks of the Seine in Paris,” but the British governor of St. Helena, Sir Hudson Lowe, disclosed that he had orders to prevent the removal of the Emperor’s body. Consequently, the body was interred on St. Helena, in a place later known as the Valley of the Tomb, but which the Emperor had called during life “Geranium Valley.”

The burial, like everything else about Napoleon’s exile, was contentious. The British did not recognize the Emperor’s title during his lifetime and they declined to permit it to be inscribed on his headstone. As a compromise, Count de Montholon suggested “Napoleon.” Lowe insisted that “Bonaparte” be added (he referred to the Emperor as “General Bonaparte”). Montholon and Bertrand declined, and the tombstone remained blank.

In 1840, Napoleon remained popular in France, and the government of King Louis Philippe formally asked the British for the return of the Emperor’s remains. The request was granted, and the French sent a frigate, with a prince of the royal house, to convey the body home. Some of the Emperor’s companions in exile: including Bertrand and Marchand (quoted above) accompanied the expedition.

Upon exhumation, in the presence of the former exiles, the casket was opened, the body confirmed to be the Emperor’s, and very well-preserved. The casket was again sealed, and the body transported to Paris, for a state funeral on 15 December 1840. The Emperor was reinterred at Les Invalides in Paris.

Later, during the reign of Napoleon III, the French bought both Longwood House, and the Valley of the Tomb, which remain French property down to the present day. The painting is “Napoleon on his Deathbed, one hour before being shrouded” (Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse, 1843, oil on canvas) In the Musée des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau. The author of the material quoted above, the Emperor’s valet, Marchand, is the figure standing second from left.

"The Last Jedi" Notes for a review.

I was going through some old notes and documents I'd set aside, and found some scribbled impressions of The Last Jedi. Suffice it to say that I wasn't too impressed with the film. Going to park them here, mostly to keep the blog (semi) alive.

1). Can’t anybody play this game?
The movie opens with the zany Republicans gettting hammered in a space battle. These people seem rather inept, leaving no fighter cover for their own fleet and sacrificing their bombers for no return.

Hurray! Finally, Admiral “It’s a trap!” Akbar finally gets killed off. He should have been fired three movies back.

Leia beaming from one ship to another like Star Trek? The force is strong in this one. Why do they even need spaceships? Leia as admiral? What precisely are her qualifications?

Laura Dern as admiral: waiting around for something to turn up. She’s not trying to nail down how the bad guys are tracking her fleet; nooooo, she just lets it get wiped out ship by ship. I know! Lets put all the personnel on transports, dump them on a planet conveniently in system where there’s this conveniently abandoned rebel base. (Does EVERY film have an “abandoned rebel base” – is there a real estate firm specializing in this??) Anyway, we’re going to dump them on this planet the First Order types are counted on to be too dumb to check out, cloaking devises or no, and sacrifice our last big warship. Good move!

Hair-brained scheme to break into the Imperial ship and find the tracker. Haven’t they got techs to clean their own house?

Then we have Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Fanatic admirer of Finn (John Boyega), a hero from an earlier film. Finn has more sense than anybody in the whole film. Things are going to pot all around him, and Finn’s gonna light out and find his friend Rey. But there we’ve got the fanatic Rose Tico, like a young Hitler Youth, zapping deserters like it’s Berlin ’45, which if there was any justice in the universe, for these people, it would be. The same people are deserting, because these people are clueless.

And they want Luke to come bail them out again?  Doesn’t this guy EVER catch a break? Going on 40 years now, this guy has been bailing the Republic/Resistance out of one disaster or another. How many death stars he gotta kill? Talk about a poster boy for PTSD. No wonder he wants self-imposed exile in paradise, specially since the screen-writers won’t ever let him have a love interest.

He’s also right about the Jedi. They’re nothing but trouble. They either go bad, or they’re so busy worrying about place settings and mumbo jumbo, as well as running their scam as the  Republic’s politburo that they are too stupid to spot the Sith Lord right in front of their faces. On the subject of Sith Lords, there’s all this nattering about the “balance in the Force.” Doesn’t that mean you’ve gotta have Siths as well as Jedi Knights? Naahh, these people are trouble.

The girl Jedi Rey is alternately too earnest or just irritating. She brings trouble to Skywalker, wrecks perfectly nice rocks and terrorizes the nice care-takers on Luke’s rock. Chewbacca smells up the place and eats birds. Then, R2D2, unfortunately given a bit part in favor of the bouncy ball robot, plays those old 45’s. Just get lost people, and leave Luke the hell alone.

2). The Republic/Resistance Sucks

What’s so great about this Republic or whatever that the rebels/resistance want to bring back? I mean, 40 years since they blew up the death star, 30 since they blew up the second death star and they still can’t manage to get anything constructive set up? Just more wars.

What do they want to restore anyway? The Republic where the Jedi Politburo were “guardians of peace” so guardian-like that they can’t spot a Sith Lord right in front of their faces? The Republic of the useless Senate and the Trade Federation. Woo, woo, what a great country.

Well, at least Ryn doesn’t have acne problems like Palpatine or Snoke, and he’s interesting for an imperial leader. Of course, there’s the whole kill Han the parent thing. But can you blame the guy for being pissed that when he woke up in the middle of the night, to find that his gaga, battle-fatigued Jedi Master was standing over him ready to kill him? Yeah, I’d burn the temple and go a little nuts too.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (a/k/a abandoned rebel base) Finn actually has a plan. He’s gonna dive his rattle-trap scooter thing into the First Order/Imperials big “Death Star Tech” siege gun. That’s as good a plan as any, but along comes Hitler Youth Rose Tico to crash his ship out of the air “because we win with love not hate” or some such thing. Yeah, and the death star cannon survives to crack the abandoned rebel base like an egg.

No wonder no allies come. These guys are dummies. Wipe them out for God’s sake

But no such luck. Miracle escape at last on the Falcon. Notice Leia and the “spark” group of the resistance abandon the Poor Bloody Infantry at the end to escape in the Falcon? Woohoo, they miraculously get through the First Order Fleet! Free now to recruit another 100,000 suckers for the next installment of rebels vs. imperials.

Seriously, who is dumb enough to join up with these losers? The sheriff on whatever planet they wind up on ought to put them in the lockup. 

Memorial Day, 2014

When you go home,
Tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow,
We gave our today.

Inscription, British War Memorial, Kohima, India. (attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds, Times Literary Supplement [London], 4 July 1918).

For a moment, pause in your enjoyment of a day off of work, spent with your families, and remember our soldiers, sailors and aviators, serving, struggling and carrying the flag for... us, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, in Afghanistan and throughout the world. Particularly keep their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Remember also the wounded; those hurting both in body and in mind, who daily cope with the reminders they must bear, of their service to our not always sufficiently grateful country, Never forget those who are missing, or are even today captive; along with those who made the ultimate sacrifice who indeed gave all their tomorrows, for all our todays.

God be with them, with you dear reader, and with our country, today and every day

A Fifth of May. . .

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, first American in Space, in his capsule "Freedom 7 " during a test shortly prior to his flight on Mercury-Redstone 3, 5 May 1961 (NASA photo).

All kinds of interesting historical events, today. On this day in 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space when Mercury-Redstone 3 blasted-off from Cape Canaveral's Pad 5 and took Astronaut Shepard and his capsule Freedom 7 into space. Freedom 7 did not orbit, only going up, and then right back down (a "suborbital" flight), and he was only up for 16 minutes.

After moon landings and space shuttles, it doesn't sound like much now, but if you have ever seen a real Mercury capsule (eleven and a half feet wide, just over six feet in diameter), you would understand how absolutely brave a stunt it really was to climb into this thing (actually, you pretty much wore it, you didn't get in it) and sit quietly on the pad while the smart boys fired up a rocket as likely to crash or explode as to fly.

Rear-Admiral Shepard, who later played golf on the Moon commanding Apollo 14, died in 1998. I will never forget, when I was about 16, having the honor to shake the man's hand and talk with him briefly.

On this day in 1883, the first Earl Wavell, or to give him his full titles, Archibald Percival Wavell, Field Marshal, Earl Wavell, Viscount Wavell, Viscount Keren of Eritrea and Winchester, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, CMG, MC, PC -- was born in Colchester, England. Colchester, the oldest Roman town in Britain, seems an appropriate place of nativity for such a distinguished soldier, of a family of soldiers. The future Lord Wavell was not long in Britain, however: he spent most of his youth in India. Wavell's father, like his son and grandson, was a career soldier in the British Army, the father retiring with the rank of Major General.

After a glittering British Army career in the First World War and between the wars, Wavell was given command of all British forces in the Middle East early in World War II. Wavell was given an almost impossibly huge task (containing the Vichy French, beating the Italians and later Rommel, and keeping the Arabs quiet) -- with far too few forces.

Wavell's problems were compounded by excessive political interference, particularly by Winston Churchill. In early 1941 Wavell's forces were winning in Libya and mopping-up the Italian East Africa colony. However, in February 1941, Wavell was ordered by London (that is, Churchill) to halt his advance from Egypt into Italian Libya (Wavell was beating the Italians), and send his best forces off to Greece to fight Germans and Italians. Wavell protested, and the British intervention in Greece proved, as Wavell had predicted, a complete disaster.

The intervention in Greece, with the diversion of effort it occasioned, and the loss of much of the intervention force and its heavy equipment in Greece and Crete, gave the Italians and Germans a breathing space in Libya, and an German general named Rommel his opening. Wavell's efforts to stop Rommel were unsuccessful, although he was able to keep Iraq in the British orbit by successfully suppressing pro-German nationalist rebels (the Anglo-Iraq War), as well as ending Vichy French control of Syria (Operation Exporter).

Wavell was eventually shunted off to Asia, being made the British commander-in-chief there, just in time for Japanese entry into World War II. Again, Wavell was asked to do much too much with far too little, and he made as good a job of it as could be expected, finishing his career as a Field Marshal, and Viceroy of India, and the king creating him Earl Wavell in 1947. Upon Wavell's death on 24 May 1950, all his titles passed, of course, to his only son, another Archibald, another soldier. Major Lord Wavell was killed in action in 1953 in Kenya (fighting the Mau-Mau), and with the son's death, the titles became extinct.

Today is also the anniversary of the death in 1821 of French Emperor Napoléon I, while in British captivity on St. Helena in the South Atlantic. "To live defeated is to die every day" the Emperor said, during this bitter period of his life; and, passing his days at rat-infested Longwood house, Napoleon had ample time to ponder the subject. But Napoleon never gave up or accepted defeat lying down: as a captive exile he fought and won his last (political) battle for control of the popular imagination. Aided by the petty humiliations of his stupid and unimaginative British jailer, the Emperor constructed a political and historical narrative of his life (which was even a little bit true) describing a great man brought low by pygmies. The "Napoleonic legend" helped his nephew become Emperor Napoléon III.

Speaking of Emperor Napoléon III, on this day in 1862, his forces in Mexico (there to collect debts and carve out a Mexican Empire) suffered a check at the Battle of Puebla, on the road to Mexico city, in 1862. General-de-Division Charles Ferdinand Latrille, Comte de Lorencez, with his tough little army of line infantry; Chasseurs a Pied; Zouaves; mounted Chasseurs d'Afrique; sailors with rifles; and the Troupes de Marine -- the French Marines -- tried to overrun General Ignacio Zaragoza's dug-in Mexican Army regulars and local militia straight off the march, but soon learned that fighting even raw or half-trained troops in buildings and behind the walls and trenches of both regular and extemporized fortifications was quite different from catching them in the open, where French fire discipline and training would have told to best advantage.

Count de Lorencez possibly deserves a marginally better press than he gets. True, he rushed into a fight after only slapdash reconnaissance and after ignoring advice from friendly Mexicans. But he had reasons for haste: he was trying to collapse resistance to the French and the Mexican faction they supported with a quick blow to the Mexican forces around Puebla. Most importantly, Count de Lorencez knew he had with him some really splendid troops, which had routed a similar Mexican force with ease on 28 April at Aculzingo. However, the quality of his own force led him to discount that of his Mexican opponents: many of whom (even the militia) were veterans of Mexico's most recent civil conflict and were fighting on their home ground.

In any case, the Mexicans repulsed the French attack, and de Lorencez fell back out of range. The French waited in their own positions for two days, hoping to draw a Mexican attack on their own positions: and when it did not come, they fell back on Orizaba to await reinforcements, allowing the Mexicans to claim the victory.

Count de Lorencez would not be the first general confronted, without realizing it, with a politico-military situation that was quite beyond him. Possibly my Francophile side is showing. In any case, the anniversary of the Puebla engagement is celebrated in parts of Mexico, and among Mexicans in the United States as Cinco de Mayo.

Today in 1864 saw the beginning of the Battle of the Wilderness, first battle of the Overland Campaign, and of US General Ulysses S. Grant (accompanying Meade's Army of the Potomac) against CS General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant thought to move quickly through the Virginia Wilderness, south of the Rapidan, towards more open country to the southeast, where the US firepower advantage could be used to more affect. General Lee, needing to nullify Grant's advantage in artillery, had other plans -- and two thirds of his 60,000 men struck the whole 100,000 man Yankee Army in flank today, in heavy woods along the Orange Plank Road and the Orange Turnpike.

Over the next two days, the armies fought to stalemate; each time one side or the other appeared poised to make a breakthrough, reinforcements arrived and re-established the equilibrium. Grant suffered more casualties than Lee. . .but unlike previous Yankee generals, he did not give up but stayed on the field. If the battle was a tactical Confederate victory, strategically it was a draw (or worse). Spotsylvania awaited. . .
 

Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam) 17 September 1862

I've blogged on this subject before, and this post appeared, slightly differently, a couple of years ago. But the Battle of Sharpsburg is both on my mind, and part of my current reading, so the post seems as timely to me now, as then.

Headquarters, Alexandria & Leesburg Road

Near Dranesville

September 3, 1862

Mr. President:
The present seems to be the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland. The two grand armies of the United States that have been operating in Virginia, though now united, are much weakened and demoralized. Their new levies of which I understand sixty thousand men have already been posted in Washington, are not yet organized, and will take some time to prepare for the field…

The army is not properly equipped for an invasion of an enemy’s territory. It lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothes and in thousands of instances are destitute of shoes. Still, we cannot afford to be idle, and though weaker than our opponents in men and in military equipments, must endeavor to harass, if we cannot destroy them. I am aware the movement is attended with much risk. . .

If the Quartermaster Department can furnish any shoes, it would be the greatest relief. We have entered upon September, and the nights are becoming cool. . .

R.E. Lee

Genl

General Robert E. Lee to President Jefferson Davis, 3 September 1862 (from Dowdey, Manarin, The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee, Da Capo 1961, p. 294).

Headquarters, Near Fredricktown, Maryland

          September 8, 1862

Mr. President:

The present posture of affairs, in my opinion, places it in the power of the Government of the Confederate States to propose with propriety to that of the United States the recognition of our independence. . .

R.E. Lee                                                                                                                 

         Genl Comdg.

Lee to Davis, (Papers, at p. 301).

Today is the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Sharpsburg, known in the north as Antietam, the bloodiest day of battle on the North American continent. No American armies ever assembled contended for such high stakes as their brothers who fought and died this day near the Maryland town of Sharpsburg, hard by Antietam Creek, on this day, so many years ago.

Overshadowed in the popular imagination by Gettysburg, Sharpsburg, a tactical draw, but strategically, a defeat for the South, deprived the fledgling Confederate States of its best possibility of military victory. After Sharpsburg, foreign diplomatic recognition and help for the South’s struggle for independence was exceedingly unlikely.

Southern morale was sky-high in the summer of 1862, at least in the east. After a series of disasters following First Manassas, in the winter of 1861-62, the Confederacy found itself some generals. Robert E. Lee saved the Confederacy’s capital at Richmond, Virginia from a much larger US force under the talented, but slow, George B. McClellan. Meanwhile, in the Shenandoah valley, the tiny Valley Army, under Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, beat the Yankees again and again, and briefly threatened Washington, or so the hard-pressed Lincoln administration thought.

Following McClellan’s reverses near Richmond, Confederate armies passed to the offensive all across the south. Lee moved from the Richmond area back towards Washington. From 28-30 August 1862, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia won its greatest victory at Second Manassas. Meanwhile, in the west, Braxton Bragg’s hard-luck Army of Tennessee moved into Kentucky, threatening to make the Bluegrass State’s nominal status as a Confederate state a reality.

Defeat at the very gates of Washington, and Bragg's invasion of Kentucky shocked and embarrassed the Lincoln administration. The federal government’s policy of forcing the Southern states at gunpoint back into the Union they wanted to leave teetered on the brink of ruin. In Britain, William Gladstone, chancellor of the exchequer, told a Newcastle audience that southerners had “made a nation.” In Paris, the Confederacy’s strongest foreign friend, Emperor Napoléon III, told his foreign ministry to open quiet talks with England on joint diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy. For once, both diplomatic and military momentum seemed to be moving in favor of the South.

Under these circumstances, Lee’s decision to move north was a no-brainer, particularly given the General’s knowledge, which jumps out of his papers and correspondence, of the South’s dismal long term military prospects. Lee fully recognized the superiority of his enemies in “numbers, resources, and all the means and appliances for carrying on the war” and warned his President that “we have no right to look for exemptions from the military consequences of a vigorous use of these advantages.” Moving north and beating the enemy on his own soil raised the odds of foreign support, boosted Southern morale, while damaging the enemy's; relieving the Southern home front from the pressure of invading enemy armies, and giving Northern civilians a small taste of what their armies dished-out all over the South.

Still, the campaign was, as Lee and his President knew, a giant gamble. During the first days of September, as the tough Confederate infantry moved down the roads of northern Virginia, across the Potomac and into US territory, problems were readily apparent. Southern industry was simply not up to properly equipping the army. Lee’s force was in part shoeless, clad in rags with only coincidental resemblance to uniforms, largely armed and equipped with enemy weapons and supplies scavenged from the victorious battlefields of that summer. (Lee’s correspondence during this period shows a preoccupation with guarding the site of the Manassas victory, and hauling away the huge quantities of abandoned Yankee supplies and arms).

Also, the army was organizationally cumbersome: no formal Corps structure yet existed; its over-large divisions informally divided into two wings too large for the wing commanders, Longstreet and Jackson, to really handle. Still, in the annals of American war, finer troops never bore arms, and in Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Jeb Stuart, the Hills, Hood, Early, and legions of others, the Confederates had a splendid band of commanders.

The amazing run of victories that summer produced another problem: continuously marching and fighting since March, the army was completely exhausted, and in need of a spell in camp to rest, re-equip and absorb replacements. Replacements, that is, such as there were. Unlike its bigger, richer foe, the Confederate States was already scraping the bottom of its manpower barrel, which further explains Lee’s determination to try to end the war quickly. But General Lee was pushing his force to its physical limit. The long marches (think of barefoot or ill-shod troops and horses on the macadam and gravel roads found north of the Potomac); combined with utter exhaustion and poor supplies produced rampant straggling. Lee’s army, already seriously under-strength, numbered no more that 55,000, and he could not assemble more than 45,000 for the Battle of Sharpsburg.

The campaign began well enough. With the main northern armies camped around Washington, Lee moved into central Maryland, around Frederick. A glance at the maps and Lee's dispatches indicates that his plan seems to have been much the same as he used in the Gettysburg campaign the next year: a move into Pennsylvania, so as to draw the US Army round Washington after him, and then defeat it in detail, as it came up, somewhere between Harrisburg and Gettysburg. . .

However, the Yankees left a huge garrison at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, isolated and vulnerable, and Lee sent Stonewall Jackson to pounce on it. The US garrison there surrendered on 15 September – almost 12,000 troops going into Southern captivity. This was the largest mass surrender of a US Army until 1942.

To close the trap around Harper’s Ferry, Lee had to divide his already outnumbered army. Under pressure from politicians and newspapers, the US Army of the Potomac moved out of Washington, in typical slow McClellan fashion, after Lee. The weak point of the Confederate military machine was administration, and this now came into play. In a field near Frederick, Maryland, (former campground of a CS Infantry Division), Private Barton W. Mitchell, 27th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, found a piece of paper wrapped around some cigars. The paper, a Confederate military dispatch, “Special Orders No. 191,” gave McClellan his opportunity: “I now know all the plans of the rebels,” McClellan complacently telegraphed Washington.

The “Lost Order,” one of the most consequential pieces of paper in American history, told McClellan exactly where all of Lee’s units were, spelled out their composition, and gave hints as to future operations. Best of all for the North, Lee was completely ignorant of the fact that his enemies now knew his plans.

McClellan told a subordinate: "Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home" and, indeed, Napoléon probably could have won the whole war on the strength of that information. Lee had only 19,000 men immediately available to set against McClellan’s 87,000 because Stonewall Jackson was still finishing with Harper’s Ferry. Fortunately for the Confederates, McClellan, (as usual, beguiled by other false intelligence giving Lee three times his actual strength), moved slowly. However, McClellan was able to force Lee to battle in front of the town of Sharpsburg, along Antietam Creek, on unfavorable ground, his back against the Potomac River, and with his army incompletely concentrated.

McClellan’s dithering delayed the battle for a full day, giving Jackson time to arrive with most of his troops from Harper’s Ferry. Still, when the battle began, at dawn on the morning of 17 September, Lee, who had managed to assemble about 35,000 troops, was outnumbered by over two to one.

Sharpsburg was really several separate battles, because McClellan was unable to get his army to make one, all out, coordinated attack. Had he been able to do so, Lee’s army would most probably have been completely destroyed. Instead, the different corps of the Union army attacked, more or less in sequence, separately, from the north end of the field to the south. McClellan never engaged more than two of his six corps at a time, and some of his units never got into action at all. The Confederates, better commanded, used all of their troops.

The slaughter defies description. 8,000 men were killed or wounded in the initial dawn attack alone. With rivers on both flanks of the battlefield, Sharpsburg was fought out as a series of bloody frontal assaults at places called “the Cornfield,” “Bloody Lane,” “Burnside’s Bridge,” the “West Woods.” Fighting was hand-to-hand at many places. The Cornfield changed hands fifteen times that day.

Several times, the Union troops were on the verge of breaking through the Confederate lines, but each time were repulsed short of their objectives, with horrific casualties on both sides. "Where is your division?" John Bell Hood was asked. "Dead in the Cornfield," his reply. "Lee's army was ruined," the Confederate artilleryman E. Porter Alexander later wrote, "and the end of the Confederacy was in sight." But somehow, the embattled, outnumbered Confederates held on, even counterattacking in places. However, by midday, the Confederates were on the ropes, exhausted, last reserves expended, generals and division staffs taking their places in the firing line. McClellan, fatally, hesitated, refraining from committing his last reserves, which would have shattered Lee's stricken center. To the soldiers, it seemed as if night would never come.

The battle ended in the early evening, about 5:30 p.m., with a last US effort to turn the Confederate right flank at Burnside’s Bridge. For the only time during this long battle, observers noted Lee showing signs of real anxiety, anxiously looking southwest, towards Harpers Ferry, for his last division, A.P. Hill's, en route from that place. Fortunately for the Southerners, Hill's troops arrived in the nick of time. The armies eyed each other warily all during the next day, but fighting did not resume, and the Battle of Sharpsburg ended.

Although the battle was a tactical draw, it was a strategic defeat for the South, because McClellan’s disjointed, uncoordinated attacks had hurt Lee’s army bad enough to force him to withdraw during the night of 18 September. The Southern retreat south of the Potomac completely overshadowed the mass surrender at Harper’s Ferry, and possibly prevented foreign diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy.

Despite this, the stand at Sharpsburg of Robert E. Lee’s greatly outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia was probably the Confederate Army’s finest hour. 2,100 US soldiers, and 1,500 CS soldiers died that day a one-day death toll by hostile action not rivaled in America till 9/11. Adding wounded, missing and prisoners on both sides, casualties totaled nearly 25,000. The Civil War was not decided at Sharpsburg – the fall of Atlanta, two years later, did that. But the last chance of the South to outright win the war, as opposed to surviving an attritional struggle, died at Sharpsburg.