Confederate Dead in the Sunken Road - Antietam Battlefield - Sept 19, 1862

3D red/cyan anaglyph created from glass plate stereograph at Library of Congress - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: www.loc.gov/pictures/

 

LOC Title: Antietam, Md. Confederate dead in a ditch on the right wing used as a rifle pit

 

Date: Sept. 19, 1862

 

Photographer: Alexander Gardner (1821-1882)

 

Link to glass plate: www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2018666241/

 

Notes: A stereoscopic view of a section of the "Sunken Road" or "Bloody Lane" as it came to be called, due to the large number of casualties that occurred here at this sunken farm road. In the background (see other crop) a burial party of Union soldiers is at work clearing the lane of dead confederates, two days after the battle. Bloody lane continues east for another quarter of a mile past the bend to the right, where it goes out of sight, at the right edge of Alexander Gardner's famous photo.

 

A website belonging to a photographer named Dave Valvo, presents a pretty solid analysis of exactly where Alexander Gardner was located when he took this photo on Sept. 19, 1862. His research indicates that Gardner's camera was likely positioned just east of the right flank of the Alabama 12th Regiment. Battle lines of the Alabama 3rd, 5th, and 6th regiments were down the road from the camera position, and I assume it's some of those soldiers we see lying here.

 

Link to Valvo's presentation - analysis, maps, modern photos, etc: www.davevalvo.com/Landscapes/National-Parks/Antietam-Batt...

 

For additional background information, below are a couple eyewitness accounts pertaining to this part of the battlefield.

 

The first excerpt covers some of the action that occurred here on Sept, 17, 1862. Based on the maps that Valvo shares on his website, and additional maps at the American Battlefield Trust, the First Delaware and Fifth Maryland Union Regiments would have been engaged with the Confederates in the area depicted within this stereograph. Medal of Honor recipient, Second Lieutenant Charles B. Tanner, of the First Delaware describes some of the action here and his involvement.

 

The second account is the aftermath - the appearance of the battlefield in this general area, the condition of the dead Confederate soldiers, and a description of how the Union burial parties went about their work.

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Deeds of Valor, How American Heroes Won the Medal of Honor, Volume I, published 1905.

 

"To Save the Stars and Stripes."

 

"The First Delaware Infantry," Second Lieutenant Charles B. Tanner writes, "formed the right of Brigadier-General Weber's Brigade. On the morning of 17th of September, 1862, we forded Antietam Creek and marched in column for a mile and facing to the left, advanced in line of battle...

 

Presently the enemy's batteries opened a severe fire of spherical case, shell and solid shot. We advanced steadily through woods and cornfields, driving all before us, and met the Confederates in two lines of battle, posted in a sunken road or ravine, with rudely constructed breastworks of rails, sod, etc., and still a third line of troops in a cornfield forty yards in the rear, where the ground was gradually rising and permitted them to fire at us over the heads of those below. Our right was also exposed to the sudden and terrible fire from the troops who had broken the center division of our formation.

 

"The cornfield, where we had taken up our position terminated about 100 yards distant from the sunken road leaving nothing but short grass pastureland between us.

 

"On coming out of the corn, we were unexpectedly confronted by heavy masses of Confederate infantry, with their muskets resting on the temporary breastworks. We all realized that the slaughter would be great, but not a man flinched, and cheerfully we went to our baptism of fire.

 

"Our colonel dashed in front with the ringing order: 'Charge!' and charge we did into that leaden hail. Within less than five minutes 286 men out of 685, and eight of ten company commanders, lay wounded or dead on that bloody slope. The colonel's horse had been struck by four bullets; the lieutenant-colonel was wounded and his horse killed, and our dearly loved colors were lying within twenty yards of the frowning lines of muskets, surrounded by the lifeless bodies of nine heroes who tried to plant them in that road of death.

 

Those of us who were yet living got back to the edge of the cornfield, and opened such a fire, that, though the enemy charged five times to gain possession of the flag, they were driven back each time with terrible slaughter.

 

"We had become desperately enraged, thinking, not of life, but how to regain the broad strips of bunting under which we had marched, bivouacked, suffered, and seen our comrades killed. To lose what we had sworn to defend with our blood, would have been, in our minds, a disgrace, and every man of the First Delaware was ready to perish, rather than allow the colors to fall into the hands of the enemy. Two hundred rifles guarded the Stars and Stripes, and, if they were not to be recovered by us, the foe should not have them, while a single member of the regiment remained alive.

 

"Charge after charge was made, and the gallant Fifth Maryland, forming on our left, aided in the defense. The fire from our lines directed to the center of that dense mass of Confederates, was appalling. Over thirteen hundred noble dead were covered with earth in that sunken road by the burying party on the following day.

 

"When the Maryland boys joined us, Captain Rickets, of Company C, our regiment, called for volunteers to save the colors, and more than thirty brave fellows responded. It seems as if they had but just started, when at least twenty, including the gallant leader, were killed and those who would have rushed forward, were forced back by the withering fire.

 

"Maddened, and more desperate than ever, I called for the men to make another effort, and before we marched fifty yards only a scattering few remained able to get back to the friendly corn in which we sought refuge from the tempest of death.

 

"Then Major Thomas A. Smyth (afterward Major-General, and killed on the day General Lee surrendered) said he would concentrate twenty-five picked men, whose fire should be directed over the colors.

 

"Do it,' I cried, 'and I will get there!'

 

"There were hundreds of brave men yet alive on that awful field, and, at my call for assistance, twenty sprang toward me.

 

"While covering that short distance, it seemed as if a million bees were singing in the air. The shouts and yells from either side sounded like menaces and threats. But I reached the goal, had caught up the staff which was already splintered by shot, and the colors pierced by many a hole, and stained here and there with the lifeblood of our comrades, when a bullet shattered my arm. Luckily my legs were still serviceable, and, seizing the precious bunting with my left hand, I made the best eighty-yard time on record, receiving two more wounds.

 

The colors were landed safely among the men of our regiment just as a large body of Confederate infantry poured in on our flank, compelling us to face in a different direction. We had the flags, however, and the remainder of the First Delaware held them against all comers."

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"War from the Inside or Personal Experiences, Impressions, and Reminiscences of One of the “Boys” in the War of the Rebellion," by Col. Frederick L. Hitchcock, published 1904.

 

“….On the second day it became known that Lee had hauled off, and there was no immediate prospect of further fighting. Our companies were permitted to gather up their dead, and burying parties were organized. We were allowed to go over the field freely. It was a gruesome sight. Our own dead had been cared for, but the rebel dead remained as they had fallen. In the hot sun the bodies had swollen and turned black. Nearly all lay with faces up and eyes wide open, presenting a spectacle to make one shudder. …distended nostrils and thickened lips….limbs and bodies were so enlarged that their clothing seemed ready to burst. Some ghouls had been among them, whether from their own lines or from ours, could not be known, but every man’s pockets had been ripped out and the contents taken.

 

In company with Captain Archbald I went over the position occupied by our regiment and brigade, the famous “sunken road,” – that is, the lane or road extending from near the “Roulette house” towards Sharpsburg. For some distance it had been cut through the opposite side of the knoll upon which we fought, and had the appearance of a sunken road. It was literally filled with rebel dead, which in some places lay three and four bodies deep. We afterwards saw pictures of this road in the illustrated papers, which partially portrayed the horrible scene. …This terrible work was mostly that of our regiment, and bore testimony to the effectiveness of the fire of our men.

 

The position was an alluring one: the road was cut into the hill about waist high, and seemed to offer secure protection to a line of infantry, and so no doubt this line was posted to hold the knoll and this Sharpsburg road. It proved, however, to be a death-trap, for once our line got into position on the top of this crescent shaped ridge we could reach them by a direct fire on the centre and a double flanking fire at the right and left of the line, and only about one hundred yards away. With nothing but an open field behind them there was absolutely no escape, nothing but death or surrender, and as they evidently chose the former, for we saw no white flag displayed. We could now understand the remark of their lieutenant-colonel, whom our boys brought in….”You have killed all my poor boys. They lie there in the road.” I learned later that the few survivors of this regiment were sent South to guard rebel prisoners.

 

The lines of battle of both armies were not only marked by the presence of the dead, but by a vast variety of army equipage, such as blankets, canteens, haversacks, guns, gun-slings, bayonets, ramrods, some whole, others broken, --verily, a besom of destruction had done its work faithfully here. Dead horses were everywhere, and the stench from them and the human dead was horrible. “Uncle” Billy Sherman has said, “War is hell!” yet this definition, with all that imagination can picture, fails to reveal all its bloody horrors.

 

The positions of some of the dead were very striking. One poor fellow lay face down on a partially fallen stone wall, with one arm and one foot extended, as if in the act of crawling over. His position attracted our attention, and we found his body literally riddled with bullets—there must have been hundreds—and most of them shot into him after he was dead, for they showed no marks of blood. Probably the poor fellow had been wounded in trying to reach shelter behind that wall, was spotted in the act by our men, and killed right there, and became thereafter a target for every new man that saw him. Another man lay, still clasping his musket, which he was evidently in the act of loading when a bullet pierced his heart, literally flooding his gun with his life’s blood, a ghastly testimonial to his heroic sacrifice.

 

We witnessed the burying details gathering up and burying the dead. The work was rough and heartless, but only comporting with the character of war. The natural reverence for the dead was wholly absent. The poor bodies, all of them heroes in their death, even though in a mistaken cause, were “planted’ with as little feeling as though they had been so many logs. A trench was dug, where the digging was easiest, about seven feet wide and long enough to accommodate all the bodies gathered within a certain radius; these were then placed side by side, cross-wise of the trench, and buried without anything to keep the earth from them. In the case of the Union dead the trenches were usually two or three feet deep, and the bodies were wrapped in blankets before being covered, but with rebels, no blankets were used, and the trenches were sometimes so shallow as to leave the toes exposed after a shower.

 

No ceremony whatever attended this gruesome service, but it was generally accompanied by ribald jokes, at the expense of the poor “Johnny” they were “planting.” This was not the fruit of debased natures or degenerate hearts on the part of our boys, who well knew it might be their turn next, under the fortunes of war, to be buried in like manner, but it was recklessness and thoughtlessness, born of the hardening influences of war.”

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Red/Cyan (not red/blue) glasses of the proper density must be used to view 3D effect without ghosting. Anaglyph prepared using red cyan glasses from The Center For Civil War Photography / American Battlefield Trust. CCWP Link: www.civilwarphotography.org/

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