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The U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles
Guide to the Battle of Antietam
"America's bloodiest day"--the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862--left more dead American soldiers in its wake than any other 24-hour period in history. Antietam and the related battles of the Maryland Campaign that led up to the lethal confrontation did not result in decisive defeats for either side. But they did serve as a brutal warning to an out-gunned, out-commanded, and out-organized Union army.
Eyewitness accounts by battle participants make these guides an invaluable resource for travelers and nontravelers who want a greater understanding of five of the most devastating yet influential years in our nation's history. Explicit directions to points of interest and maps--illustrating the action and showing the detail of troop position, roads, rivers, elevations, and tree lines as they were 130 years ago--help bring the battles to life. In the field, these guides can be used to recreate each battle's setting and proportions, giving the reader a sense of the tension and fear each soldier must have felt as he faced his enemy.
Eyewitness accounts by battle participants make these guides an invaluable resource for travelers and nontravelers who want a greater understanding of five of the most devastating yet influential years in our nation's history. Explicit directions to points of interest and maps--illustrating the action and showing the detail of troop position, roads, rivers, elevations, and tree lines as they were 130 years ago--help bring the battles to life. In the field, these guides can be used to recreate each battle's setting and proportions, giving the reader a sense of the tension and fear each soldier must have felt as he faced his enemy.
332 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1987
About the author
Jay Luvaas
32 books1 followerA U.S. Navy veteran, Jay Luvaas graduated from Allegheny College, and received a Ph.D. in history from Duke University. He served as the Director of the Flowers Collection of Southern Americana at Duke University Library, and as a long-time professor of history at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He was the first civilian to be appointed as Visiting Professor of Military History at the United States Military Academy. He also taught at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA, where he served as Professor of Military History from 1982 to 1995. Following his retirement, he was honored in 1997 as a Distinguished Fellow of the Army War College. He twice received the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the Department of the Army for his many contributions to the educational mission of the U.S. Army.
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January 22, 2025
The U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is only 38 miles from the Gettysburg National Military Park. Therefore, I suppose, it wasn’t too much of a stretch for USAWC faculty members Dr. Jay Luvaas and Col. Harold W. Nelson to travel from Carlisle to Gettysburg as they put together their U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Gettysburg (1986). That collaboration must have been a productive and successful one; for not long after, Luvaas and Nelson published The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam (1987).
As a Marylander and a student of American Civil War history, I have a particular interest in Antietam, and I found this study of The Maryland Campaign of 1862 (the book’s subtitle) to be a helpful look at the campaign that ended in a battle that remains the single bloodiest day in all of U.S. history.
The book is organized in terms of three major events that led to Antietam. The first is the Battle of South Mountain (September 14, 1862), in which Union forces under overall command of General George B. McClellan pushed Confederates back off of three positions along South Mountain in western Maryland, while the Confederates utilized delaying tactics in order to allow Robert E. Lee’s divided rebel army to unite at Sharpsburg. The second was the Confederate attack against the Union garrison at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), and its eventual fall to Confederate forces (September 12-15, 1862). The third, of course, is the Battle of Antietam itself.
Readers who want to take The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam along with them on a visit to South Mountain, Harper’s Ferry, and Antietam may find this book particularly helpful. The book abounds in practical tips for the visitor to these battle sites of the Maryland Campaign. With regard to an artillery position at South Mountain, for example, Luvaas and Nelson make a point of noting that Dahlgren Road, on the eastern slope of the mountain, “is an all-weather road, but it is inferior to Fox Gap Road. You may encounter some erosion at the shoulders and some sharp bumps from water washing across the road, so drive carefully and avoid the extreme edges of the road immediately after rains” (p. 51). Anyone who has driven in this part of Maryland during periods of bad weather will appreciate the specificity of the authors’ advice.
The chronological order of the book’s sections encourages the reader who is visiting Antietam to experience different Maryland Campaign sites in an order similar to what soldiers of the Union and Confederate armies experienced during those terrible days of Summer 1862. In introducing the “Harpers Ferry to Antietam” section of the book, for instance, Luvaas and Nelson suggest that “Since the next phase of this battlefield tour is in the vicinity of Sharpsburg, and the Confederate soldiers who took these positions were on the way there after this battle, you should now follow their principal route to the Antietam Battlefield” (p. 109).
I particularly appreciated the authors’ periodic instructions to the reader to “Dismount” for an on-foot visit to different portions of the various battlefield sites. It makes one feel, for a moment, as if one is an officer on horseback, on a 19th-century staff ride, rather than a 21st-century tourist in an automobile. And “Dismount” sounds so much more poetic and dramatic than “Get out of your car.”
Much of The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam consists of excerpts from official reports, from officers of both sides, as collected in what Civil War enthusiasts know simply as the Official Records. For the uninitiated, please be advised that, between 1880 and 1901, the U.S. War Department compiled all that could be recovered of the official records of both Civil War armies; all that was found was then printed by the Government Printing Office at Washington, under the title The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. The 128 volumes of the Official Records, or O.R., remain the single most valuable set of primary-source documents for students of Civil War history.
Luvaas and Nelson quote long passages from the O.R.; a number of those passages will already be quite familiar to students of the conflict, and I feel no need to repeat them here. What is helpful in this book, however, is the way Luvaas and Nelson provide commentary that illuminate the various reports. For instance, they present two reports from a Confederate colonel and captain of Brigadier General Samuel Garland’s brigade, whose units retreated in disorder from fighting in the East Woods, early in the morning phase of the Battle of Antietam; and Luvaas and Nelson frame those reports by stating that “From the following reports it would seem that the men of the brigade were still unsettled from their recent experience at South Mountain, where they were outflanked in the woods and lost their commander” (p. 155). General Garland had been killed at South Mountain on September 14; three days later at Antietam, he was clearly still missed.
The Union side in this phase of the Antietam battle suffered comparably: Luvaas and Nelson introduce a report from a captain in Brigadier General James B. Ricketts’ Brigade, by stating that “None of Ricketts’ brigade commanders published official reports of the battle. Brigadier General Abram Duryea, commanding the lead brigade, lost a third of his men in 30 minutes, which may explain why only one of his subordinates – a captain – filed a report” (p. 157).
The authors’ commentary reminds the reader how very bloody Antietam was. Whole units of enlisted soldiers were killed or wounded in places like the Miller cornfield. Meanwhile, a great many enlisted soldiers at Antietam found themselves having to fight the battle as best they could without the guidance of officers on whom they had come to depend: eight generals were killed in combat during the campaign, four on each side, and losses were comparable among colonels, majors, captains, and lieutenants as well.
One of the most notable features of the modern Antietam National Battlefield is a 60-foot-tall Observation Tower. Made from local Maryland limestone, and constructed by the U.S. War Department in 1896 to educate military officers and other visitors, the tower provides a commanding view of the entire Antietam battle site. I agree with Luvaas and Nelson that “If you have time, a walk to the top of the tower would give you an excellent view of the surrounding terrain, and especially of the ridges east of the Antietam where the Union artillery found a commanding position” (p. 203).
The Observation Tower was placed just east of a sunken farm road that saw some of the worst fighting of the battle's middle phase, and that has been known since September 17, 1862, simply as "Bloody Lane." And a visitor to this part of the Antietam battlefield, using this book as a guide, may appreciate how Luvaas and Nelson emphasized easily-overlooked details of tactical significance.
I have already mentioned how many commissioned officers were killed in action during the Maryland Campaign. In that connection, I will also mention something that is often one of the first things that first-time visitors to Antietam notice: an upturned cannon barrel has been placed on the battlefield wherever a general officer from either side was killed or mortally wounded. Six generals died at Antietam, and are thus memorialized – three for the Union, and three for the Confederacy.
The area around the sunken farm road and the Observation Tower is a good place at which to notice two of those upturned cannons, and to learn more about what two general officers were doing on that part of the battlefield when each of them received a fatal wound. Luvaas and Nelson explain that “If you walk up the ‘Bloody Lane,’ you will see at once how well concealed were the men of G.B. Anderson’s brigade until [Brigadier General Nathan] Kimball broke through the place vacated by the 5th and 6th Alabama regiments, and [Major General Israel B.] Richardson’s division beyond the tower. The upturned cannon barrel is where Brig. Gen. G.B. Anderson was mortally wounded. What he was doing here is obvious – it was the only place along his battle line where he could see anything” (p. 203).
(This passage also shows how Luvaas and Nelson follow traditional usage by putting the names of Confederate officers in italics - something that can be helpful to Civil War "newbies" who might otherwise have some trouble telling the Rebels from the Yanks.)
Next to the Observation Tower, not far from the upturned cannon barrel placed to memorialize where Confederate General Anderson was mortally wounded, there is another upturned cannon barrel – this one for Union General Richardson, who was himself “mortally wounded in the fight for the Sunken Road” (p. 208). The close juxtaposition of these monuments for general officers from opposing sides provide an additional reminder of what a terribly sanguinary day Antietam was.
I particularly appreciated the passages of synthesis that Luvaas and Nelson provided toward the book’s conclusion. As faculty at the U.S. Army War College, they approach the strategic and tactical dimensions of war-making in a more direct manner than do professors at civilian universities. The students whom they work with, after all, are themselves military officers who may someday face the fearful and heavy responsibility of leading enlisted soldiers in combat, as did the Union and Confederate officers at Antietam. War, in short, is a practical reality, and not an academic matter, at USAWC.
For all of those reasons, I particularly appreciated what Luvaas and Nelson wrote in a passage titled “Reflections”:
We are reminded that battles are fought by young soldiers…who staunchly stand by their guns while confessing fears. The modern soldier inevitably finds himself wondering how officers could induce their men to stand in the ranks or advance in formation against such withering firepower. The answer lies not in official documents but in the human soul – and in their own experience of man. (p. 249)
Tactically, the authors suggest, the soldiers and officers of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac “learned…to dig for cover. Antietam was the last battle fought between these two armies where at least one side did not resort to breastworks or entrenchments to save lives. The bloodiest single day in American military history forced this change in tactics” (p. 249).
The Union victory at Antietam, while it was not tactically decisive, was enough of a victory for U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation that freed enslaved people in all areas of the United States still in rebellion against Union authority. Thus, Luvaas and Nelson write, “The battle [of Antietam] represents a turning point in strategy as well”, as “Soldiers today are taught that war is an instrument of policy. When the policy changes, inevitably strategy must be revised if the nation is to wage war successfully” (p. 249).
Strategy was indeed revised in the wake of Antietam – and virtually all students of the Antietam campaign would agree that this strategic dimension of the campaign made it one of the most important of the American Civil War. Before Antietam, it seemed eminently possible that Great Britain and/or France would recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation, seek to mediate between the Union and the Confederacy, or even offer aid to the Confederates. After the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, by contrast, any sort of British or French intervention on behalf of the Confederacy became a virtual impossibility.
The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam: The Maryland Campaign of 1862 does not include as much of the political and social backdrop of the campaign as other histories might. The central focus is on helping the battlefield visitor understand better the tactical dimensions of the campaign and its three main battles. Yet the book does well what it sets out to do, and I would certainly recommend that the reader with an interest in Antietam take a copy along on their next visit to the Antietam National Battlefield. I know that I plan to do so.
As a Marylander and a student of American Civil War history, I have a particular interest in Antietam, and I found this study of The Maryland Campaign of 1862 (the book’s subtitle) to be a helpful look at the campaign that ended in a battle that remains the single bloodiest day in all of U.S. history.
The book is organized in terms of three major events that led to Antietam. The first is the Battle of South Mountain (September 14, 1862), in which Union forces under overall command of General George B. McClellan pushed Confederates back off of three positions along South Mountain in western Maryland, while the Confederates utilized delaying tactics in order to allow Robert E. Lee’s divided rebel army to unite at Sharpsburg. The second was the Confederate attack against the Union garrison at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), and its eventual fall to Confederate forces (September 12-15, 1862). The third, of course, is the Battle of Antietam itself.
Readers who want to take The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam along with them on a visit to South Mountain, Harper’s Ferry, and Antietam may find this book particularly helpful. The book abounds in practical tips for the visitor to these battle sites of the Maryland Campaign. With regard to an artillery position at South Mountain, for example, Luvaas and Nelson make a point of noting that Dahlgren Road, on the eastern slope of the mountain, “is an all-weather road, but it is inferior to Fox Gap Road. You may encounter some erosion at the shoulders and some sharp bumps from water washing across the road, so drive carefully and avoid the extreme edges of the road immediately after rains” (p. 51). Anyone who has driven in this part of Maryland during periods of bad weather will appreciate the specificity of the authors’ advice.
The chronological order of the book’s sections encourages the reader who is visiting Antietam to experience different Maryland Campaign sites in an order similar to what soldiers of the Union and Confederate armies experienced during those terrible days of Summer 1862. In introducing the “Harpers Ferry to Antietam” section of the book, for instance, Luvaas and Nelson suggest that “Since the next phase of this battlefield tour is in the vicinity of Sharpsburg, and the Confederate soldiers who took these positions were on the way there after this battle, you should now follow their principal route to the Antietam Battlefield” (p. 109).
I particularly appreciated the authors’ periodic instructions to the reader to “Dismount” for an on-foot visit to different portions of the various battlefield sites. It makes one feel, for a moment, as if one is an officer on horseback, on a 19th-century staff ride, rather than a 21st-century tourist in an automobile. And “Dismount” sounds so much more poetic and dramatic than “Get out of your car.”
Much of The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam consists of excerpts from official reports, from officers of both sides, as collected in what Civil War enthusiasts know simply as the Official Records. For the uninitiated, please be advised that, between 1880 and 1901, the U.S. War Department compiled all that could be recovered of the official records of both Civil War armies; all that was found was then printed by the Government Printing Office at Washington, under the title The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. The 128 volumes of the Official Records, or O.R., remain the single most valuable set of primary-source documents for students of Civil War history.
Luvaas and Nelson quote long passages from the O.R.; a number of those passages will already be quite familiar to students of the conflict, and I feel no need to repeat them here. What is helpful in this book, however, is the way Luvaas and Nelson provide commentary that illuminate the various reports. For instance, they present two reports from a Confederate colonel and captain of Brigadier General Samuel Garland’s brigade, whose units retreated in disorder from fighting in the East Woods, early in the morning phase of the Battle of Antietam; and Luvaas and Nelson frame those reports by stating that “From the following reports it would seem that the men of the brigade were still unsettled from their recent experience at South Mountain, where they were outflanked in the woods and lost their commander” (p. 155). General Garland had been killed at South Mountain on September 14; three days later at Antietam, he was clearly still missed.
The Union side in this phase of the Antietam battle suffered comparably: Luvaas and Nelson introduce a report from a captain in Brigadier General James B. Ricketts’ Brigade, by stating that “None of Ricketts’ brigade commanders published official reports of the battle. Brigadier General Abram Duryea, commanding the lead brigade, lost a third of his men in 30 minutes, which may explain why only one of his subordinates – a captain – filed a report” (p. 157).
The authors’ commentary reminds the reader how very bloody Antietam was. Whole units of enlisted soldiers were killed or wounded in places like the Miller cornfield. Meanwhile, a great many enlisted soldiers at Antietam found themselves having to fight the battle as best they could without the guidance of officers on whom they had come to depend: eight generals were killed in combat during the campaign, four on each side, and losses were comparable among colonels, majors, captains, and lieutenants as well.
One of the most notable features of the modern Antietam National Battlefield is a 60-foot-tall Observation Tower. Made from local Maryland limestone, and constructed by the U.S. War Department in 1896 to educate military officers and other visitors, the tower provides a commanding view of the entire Antietam battle site. I agree with Luvaas and Nelson that “If you have time, a walk to the top of the tower would give you an excellent view of the surrounding terrain, and especially of the ridges east of the Antietam where the Union artillery found a commanding position” (p. 203).
The Observation Tower was placed just east of a sunken farm road that saw some of the worst fighting of the battle's middle phase, and that has been known since September 17, 1862, simply as "Bloody Lane." And a visitor to this part of the Antietam battlefield, using this book as a guide, may appreciate how Luvaas and Nelson emphasized easily-overlooked details of tactical significance.
I have already mentioned how many commissioned officers were killed in action during the Maryland Campaign. In that connection, I will also mention something that is often one of the first things that first-time visitors to Antietam notice: an upturned cannon barrel has been placed on the battlefield wherever a general officer from either side was killed or mortally wounded. Six generals died at Antietam, and are thus memorialized – three for the Union, and three for the Confederacy.
The area around the sunken farm road and the Observation Tower is a good place at which to notice two of those upturned cannons, and to learn more about what two general officers were doing on that part of the battlefield when each of them received a fatal wound. Luvaas and Nelson explain that “If you walk up the ‘Bloody Lane,’ you will see at once how well concealed were the men of G.B. Anderson’s brigade until [Brigadier General Nathan] Kimball broke through the place vacated by the 5th and 6th Alabama regiments, and [Major General Israel B.] Richardson’s division beyond the tower. The upturned cannon barrel is where Brig. Gen. G.B. Anderson was mortally wounded. What he was doing here is obvious – it was the only place along his battle line where he could see anything” (p. 203).
(This passage also shows how Luvaas and Nelson follow traditional usage by putting the names of Confederate officers in italics - something that can be helpful to Civil War "newbies" who might otherwise have some trouble telling the Rebels from the Yanks.)
Next to the Observation Tower, not far from the upturned cannon barrel placed to memorialize where Confederate General Anderson was mortally wounded, there is another upturned cannon barrel – this one for Union General Richardson, who was himself “mortally wounded in the fight for the Sunken Road” (p. 208). The close juxtaposition of these monuments for general officers from opposing sides provide an additional reminder of what a terribly sanguinary day Antietam was.
I particularly appreciated the passages of synthesis that Luvaas and Nelson provided toward the book’s conclusion. As faculty at the U.S. Army War College, they approach the strategic and tactical dimensions of war-making in a more direct manner than do professors at civilian universities. The students whom they work with, after all, are themselves military officers who may someday face the fearful and heavy responsibility of leading enlisted soldiers in combat, as did the Union and Confederate officers at Antietam. War, in short, is a practical reality, and not an academic matter, at USAWC.
For all of those reasons, I particularly appreciated what Luvaas and Nelson wrote in a passage titled “Reflections”:
We are reminded that battles are fought by young soldiers…who staunchly stand by their guns while confessing fears. The modern soldier inevitably finds himself wondering how officers could induce their men to stand in the ranks or advance in formation against such withering firepower. The answer lies not in official documents but in the human soul – and in their own experience of man. (p. 249)
Tactically, the authors suggest, the soldiers and officers of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac “learned…to dig for cover. Antietam was the last battle fought between these two armies where at least one side did not resort to breastworks or entrenchments to save lives. The bloodiest single day in American military history forced this change in tactics” (p. 249).
The Union victory at Antietam, while it was not tactically decisive, was enough of a victory for U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation that freed enslaved people in all areas of the United States still in rebellion against Union authority. Thus, Luvaas and Nelson write, “The battle [of Antietam] represents a turning point in strategy as well”, as “Soldiers today are taught that war is an instrument of policy. When the policy changes, inevitably strategy must be revised if the nation is to wage war successfully” (p. 249).
Strategy was indeed revised in the wake of Antietam – and virtually all students of the Antietam campaign would agree that this strategic dimension of the campaign made it one of the most important of the American Civil War. Before Antietam, it seemed eminently possible that Great Britain and/or France would recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation, seek to mediate between the Union and the Confederacy, or even offer aid to the Confederates. After the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, by contrast, any sort of British or French intervention on behalf of the Confederacy became a virtual impossibility.
The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam: The Maryland Campaign of 1862 does not include as much of the political and social backdrop of the campaign as other histories might. The central focus is on helping the battlefield visitor understand better the tactical dimensions of the campaign and its three main battles. Yet the book does well what it sets out to do, and I would certainly recommend that the reader with an interest in Antietam take a copy along on their next visit to the Antietam National Battlefield. I know that I plan to do so.
February 22, 2025
Covers not only Antietam but also the battles at South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, and Boetler's Ford. Not too bad as a tour guide but its description of the battle consists almost entirely of quotes from Official Records reports. The book includes a thirty page essay on Civil War field logistics as an appendix; I'm not sure why it was included since only the last few pages are about the Antietam campaign specifically.
November 7, 2013
Only a GREAT book if you are really into DETAIL of the Civil War and its battles.
For me, an Excellent book.
For me, an Excellent book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews