photo #8619567

The Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg was fought on this day in 1862. The single deadliest day of combat in American history, there were four times more American casualties in the battle than there were at D-Day. Many of those casualties occurred in the fighting for a sunken road that has gone down in history as “the Bloody Lane.” A farm lane that had been worn down by erosion and traffic over the years, and that was flanked by a rail fence, the sunken road was in the approximate center of the Confederate lines. A naturally strong defensive position, the road was defended by Alabamians and North Carolinians from the division commanded by General D.H. Hill. The men crouched or lay behind the fence rails and waited for the Federal attack. That attack began about 9:30 a.m., as the fighting which had begun on the western end of the battlefield spread toward the center and Union general William French advanced on the road with his division. Max Weber’s brigade attacked first. In less than 5 minutes more than 450 of the men were killed or wounded, including Weber, who was badly wounded in the right arm and would never see combat again. French’s other two brigades followed, and they too were repulsed. An hour after the attack began, over 1,750 Federals had been struck down and the Confederate line had not budged. But the Confederates were losing men too of course and their hold on the position was growing precarious. As Confederate reinforcements, the last of Lee’s reserves, were being rushed into position, and as a Union division commanded by Major General Israel Richardson was forming to attack, a minie ball struck Confederate colonel John B. Gordon of the 6th Alabama Infantry in the face. It was Gordon’s fifth wound of that morning. Remarkably, he survived (the bullet hole in his cap saved him from drowning in his own blood), eventually rose to the rank of major general, and went on to serve as a U.S. senator and governor of Georgia. Richardson, a native of Vermont and a hero of the Mexican American war, sent his men forward, determined to break the Confederate line. The first of his brigades to attack was the famous Irish brigade of New York City, carrying green battle flags adorned with shamrocks and harps. The Irishmen charged bravely but were repulsed with 60% casualties. Storming across the battlefield and rallying his men, Richardson pressed the attack. And when Union forces began to turn the Confederate flanks, the defense of the sunken road began to collapse. Over 30% of the Confederate defenders had been killed or wounded and so many officers had been hit that command and control had become nearly impossible. Three hours after the attacks began, the Confederates retreated and the Federals swarmed into the road, which was stacked with bodies of fallen defenders. The Confederate survivors worked frantically to patch together a new defensive line, but it had little chance of holding back a renewed Union attack. Had Union General George McClellan sent in fresh troops (of which he had many thousands in reserve) they would almost certainly have pierced the Confederate center, which likely would have led to the destruction of the Confederate army. But it was not to be. As Richardson was trying desperately to get reinforcements and artillery support, he was struck by a shell fragment and mortally wounded. By about 1 p.m. the fighting at the sunken road was over, with over 5,500 men dead or wounded there. In the afternoon the fighting shifted to the eastern portion of the battlefield, where the Federals once again came very close to breaking the Confederate line, only to be turned back at the last minute (a Dose for another day). The Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, the deadliest day of combat in American history, occurred on September 17, 1862, one hundred sixty-three years ago today. The photos are of “Bloody Lane,” then and now.