Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  If Hill, however lonely, was to prevent the turning of his flank and the loss of his position, he had to forgo continuing to guard the route from Harper’s Ferry to Boonsborough. The brigades of Ripley and Rodes must be ordered to join him as soon as they could climb South Mountain. He had waited too long already in sending for them. Anderson was on his way, but probably not before 3 o’clock could Ripley and Rodes reach the crest. As for reinforcements, Longstreet had thirteen miles to cover from Hagerstown to Boonsborough, and Hill could do no more than guess the time of his arrival. His plight appeared well-nigh hopeless. Four Federal corps, he estimated, were spread to the eastward. He had, at the moment, only Colquitt, the cavalry contingent under Tom Rosser, a few guns, and the broken regiments of Garland. If the Union commanders realized how weak he was, they could destroy him.

  The scattered little force waited for an overwhelming blow that did not come. On Hill’s right, from the vigor of his artillery fire and from what could be seen through the underbrush, the Federals thought graycoats in heavy numbers had taken up a strong position. They decided to await the arrival of more men. On Hill’s left, the Federals had not yet woven their way through the ravines and ridges that covered the approaches. An incredible, a well-nigh miraculous delay there was. For the two hours from noon onward, when Hill most nearly was helpless, he had the mercy of a general lull. Critics might have said he was luckier than he deserved to be.29

  Before 2 o’clock stalwart G. B. Anderson had climbed to the pass and filed to the right. Rodes and his fine Alabamians then were pressing toward the crest. By Hill’s order, Rodes turned to the left and made for an eminence which it was manifest the enemy was preparing to seize. Ripley followed G. B. Anderson to the right but had difficulty in reaching his position. Although his force still was feeble, Hill now had greater defensive strength than he had commanded at any time during the day. His prospect was less desperate. Word had come that Longstreet’s troops were nearing Boonsborough. Hill’s answer was a request that Old Pete hurry.

  With Drayton in advance, D. R. Jones’s division of Longstreet’s command climbed up the ridge from Boonsborough. Behind him for miles spread the other brigades. Road weary they were after their all-day struggle with heat and thirst and dust. Regiments were depleted to battalions, to companies even. In the 8th Virginia of Pickett’s brigade not more than thirty-four men were ready for action. In the 56th Virginia there were eighty muskets.30

  Under Hill’s orders, Drayton’s brigade and G. T. (“Tige”) Anderson’s which followed it, were sent southward toward Fox’s Gap. Hill brought Tige Anderson, Ripley, and Drayton together and explained that he wished them to attack in line with G. B. Anderson. As the senior, Ripley assumed command of the four brigades, but before the deployment was complete he unwisely ordered an advance. It collided almost at once with an advancing Federal force, which quickly penetrated a gap between Tige Anderson and Drayton. Drayton’s men were driven. Ripley’s brigade in some fashion was squeezed out of the line or misdirected and for a time could do nothing. G. B. Anderson, as always, fought vigorously but accomplished little against the odds he faced. The whole effort, incompetently directed, soon was in baffling confusion. Then, toward evening, intelligent and determined leadership in the person of John B. Hood drove back the enemy and restored the field.31

  Hill had ridden back to Turner’s Gap and became absorbed in the battle to the left of the highway. Robert Rodes had plunged boldly into action there. He occupied high ground, but had to extend his line until its firepower was weak. Repeatedly he repulsed the enemy, and when at length he had to fall back, it was stubbornly, slowly, and with a bold front. John B. Gordon’s 6th Alabama was held together by the singular moral leadership of its colonel. Another young officer, Colonel Cullen A. Battle of the 3rd Alabama, caught many an eye by a magnificent display of valor.32

  Harvey Hill saw all this and rejoiced in it. Precisely that type of battle was his forte—hard combat where a man might fight with all his strength and cunning and not be responsible for strategy. In close, doubtful action he was superb. No man seemed able to get more firepower from a given number of troops. If Hill were charged with the direction of a campaign or with exclusive conduct of a large field…well, he justified all that was said about him after the farcical bombardment of McClellan’s camp and the unchallenged departure from the James of the Federal army he was supposed to watch.

  Positions on the crest and ridges of South Mountain, September 14, 1862: (1) Rodes’s advanced position; (2) Colquitt; (3) Hood in the late afternoon; (4) Garland’s morning position.

  After Longstreet had come up, Hill, the doubting independent commander, became once again the sharply critical subordinate: “I had now become familiar with the ground, and knew all the vital points, and had [Longstreet’s] troops reported to me, the result might have been different.” In a narrow sense that strange statement may have been correct. Reinforcements thrown hastily to the right had to be recalled to the left before the Federal advance on that flank could be halted. Even so, the stiffened resistance Longstreet offered on the left and the assured conduct of Hood on the right put an end to the action if they did not redeem the field. Hill was not satisfied. Had his and Longstreet’s forces never been separated, he asserted, “the Yankees would have been disastrously repulsed….” Not a word was there of self-criticism for failure to get the whole of his own division on the mountain until after midday.33

  4

  THE TEST OF LAFAYETTE MCLAWS

  While Harvey Hill was fighting at Turner’s Gap that fourteenth of September, he heard from the south the sound of another engagement where McClellan was trying to force a gap in South Mountain. There was being tested the Georgian in command of the column sent to capture Maryland Heights and to force the surrender of Harper’s Ferry.

  Lafayette McLaws, forty-one years of age and a major general since May, had been denied any conspicuous part in the army’s battles. At Williamsburg he had acted with decision in manning Fort Magruder, but he had not fought at Seven Pines. Magruder, rather than he, had directed most operations of his command at Savage Station and Malvern Hill. His division had not rejoined Lee in time for Second Manassas. Now McLaws had been given Dick Anderson’s six brigades in addition to his own four, but, according to plan, he was to have opportunity without excessive responsibility. He was not to be so far from Lee or his immediate superior, Longstreet, that he would be called upon to make any important strategical decisions. After arrival at Harper’s Ferry, if there was a change in the general plan, responsibility would not rest on McLaws but on Jackson. On the other hand, the most difficult tactical operation in the effort to capture Harper’s Ferry devolved on McLaws.

  The ground imposed dual obligations on McLaws: He must command Maryland Heights if he was to keep the garrison of Harper’s Ferry from escaping westward into Maryland, and, at the same time, he must guard well his rear. If he neglected this second duty, McClellan might fall upon him, overwhelm him, and divide the Confederate forces north of the Potomac from those south of the river. The importance of McLaws’s mission explained the assignment to him of so large a force as ten brigades.

  McLaws began his movement early on September 10. From Frederick to the foot of Maryland Heights was not more than twenty miles. His first day’s march ended east of Brownsville Gap, and most of the eleventh was consumed in crossing the mountain to Pleasant Valley, between South Mountain and the upper end of Maryland Heights. The plan had been to close on Harpers Ferry on Friday, the twelfth, but nightfall on the eleventh found McLaws encamped at Brownsville, six miles from his objective.34

  Six difficult miles they promised to be. The only way of capturing the Heights seemed to be to climb them well to the north of the Potomac and then proceed southward along the crest. Access to the ridge could be had by way of Solomon’s Gap, four miles north of the Federal batteries that overlooked Harper’s Ferry. McLaws’s information was that these gun positions were reached by a road along the backbone of the ri
dge. On this basis, McLaws made his plan.

  He would send to Solomon’s Gap the fine South Carolina brigade of Joseph B. Kershaw, supported by Barksdale’s Mississippians, another excellent command. His remaining eight brigades McLaws would dispose to meet any column that might seek to beat its way into Pleasant Valley from South Mountain or to escape from Harper’s Ferry. Under McLaws’s own leading, the van of the larger Confederate force by nightfall on the twelfth reached the Potomac three miles downstream from Harper’s Ferry. Kershaw, for his part, climbed to the northern end of Maryland Heights and from there advanced along a mountainside so steep that the men sometimes had to pull themselves up by gripping the bushes. A mile from the southern edge of the Heights Kershaw encountered heavy abatis and perforce halted for the night.35

  An early start by Kershaw on the morning of Saturday, September 13, carried the 7th South Carolina past the abatis to another and heavier obstacle of logs and stones. Then Barksdale’s Mississippians, clinging to the rim of the heights by sheer tenacity, contrived to outflank this crude fort. Panic swept the bluecoats. They abandoned the position, plunged down the hillside, and sought to make their way to Harper’s Ferry. By 4:30 the last Federal soldier was driven from Maryland Heights. McLaws occupied the little settlement of Sandy Hook, nestled under the east edge of Maryland Heights on the main line of retreat northward from Harper’s Ferry. He had outstripped both Walker and Jackson, and it appeared that the honor of forcing the surrender of the Ferry would be his.36

  Vigorously, on the morning of the fourteenth, McLaws pushed for the completion of his part of the enterprise. He cut a road to the crest of Maryland Heights and at 2 o’clock he opened on Harper’s Ferry with four guns. Then calamity threatened suddenly. Back on the twelfth, in garrisoning the exposed points in the terrain assigned him, McLaws had sent Paul Semmes, with his own and Mahone’s brigade, to watch Brownsville Gap, by which the column had crossed South Mountain. Semmes, taking his duties in serious spirit, discovered that less than two miles north of Brownsville Gap was another important pass, Crampton’s Gap. Accordingly, on the morning of the fourteenth, he dispatched a battery and three of Mahone’s regiments, under Colonel William A. Parham, to Crampton’s. Jeb Stuart, coming south from Turner’s Gap and seeing the danger of an attack at Crampton’s, left Munford’s Laurel Brigade with Parham, and sent a warning to McLaws. Immediately McLaws directed Howell Cobb as a reinforcement.

  To McLaws these arrangements seemed adequate, and he climbed Maryland Heights to direct the bombardment of Harper’s Ferry. Stuart joined him there, reporting that no more than a brigade of Federals appeared to be moving against Crampton’s Gap. That reassured McLaws; with three brigades at or close to the pass in addition to Stuart’s cavalry, he need have no concern. Later in the afternoon, when he heard firing from the direction of Crampton’s Gap, it did not alarm him at first. At length, as the firing became heavy and sustained, he decided to ride in that direction. Stuart bore him company. Before they had proceeded far, Major T. S. McIntosh came galloping down the road and brought them appalling news: The Federals had broken through Crampton’s Gap; Cobb was in mad retreat; the enemy was pressing hard.37

  It was true. At the gap Munford’s cavalry and Mahone’s regiments, under Colonel Parham, had been hammered by bluecoats who seemed to come up the mountain like a rain cloud. Cobb’s brigade came up to cover Parham, but before the line could be rectified, its center gave way. The regiments thereupon broke wildly and ran down the western side of the mountain. The best Cobb and Semmes could do was to employ a battery to delay the pursuers and serve as a rallying point.

  When Stuart and McLaws arrived, Cobb greeted them in vast distress. Said he: “That I should live to experience such a disaster! What can be done? What can save us?” Soon it was manifest that the enemy had halted temporarily, but the situation of the three brigades remained as dangerous as it could be, short of out-and-out slaughter. Might not the Federals overwhelm the remainder of McLaws’s force, recover Maryland Heights, and relieve Harper’s Ferry? Would not Lee and Jackson be divided and then destroyed?

  In his report McLaws said only: “Fortunately, night came on and allowed a new arrangement of the troops to be made to meet the changed aspect of affairs.” A line of battle, under Dick Anderson, was formed across the valley below Crampton’s Gap, comprised of the brigades of Wilcox, Kershaw, and Barksdale, with the remnants of those of Cobb, Semmes, and Mahone. The enemy did not press hard in the twilight. The Federal commanders seemed to think their day’s work was done when the pass was cleared. Night overtook them ere they overtook McLaws’s hastily drawn line.38

  Even so, midnight on South Mountain was doubly black for the Confederate invaders. D. H. Hill believed the army should withdraw from Turner’s Gap before dawn, and so advised General Lee. The outcome of the fight at the two gaps led Lee to doubt for a few hours whether he could attempt to remain longer in Maryland. He wrote McLaws to abandon the position in front of Harper’s Ferry and to recross the Potomac. Lee explained, in his dispatch to McLaws, that the forces with him would retire via Sharpsburg into Virginia. Everything indicated a hurried and divided retreat. It might have been necessary, with excessive, perhaps ruinous losses, had there not spurred through the night a courier from Jackson with a message that changed the army’s plan.39

  CHAPTER 17

  Desperate Hours on the Antietam

  1

  THE WAGON HUNTER’S GREAT DAY

  When Old Jack reached the vicinity of Harper’s Ferry at 11:00 A.M. on September 13, the day before the struggle for the gaps in South Mountain, his first move was routine. He placed his troops so that he could meet any maneuver on the part of the Federal garrison, which had been reinforced, he learned, by the regiments that fled from Martinsburg. He then studied Loudoun Heights across the Shenandoah and Maryland Heights beyond the Potomac. Walker and McLaws had been ordered by Lee to take those positions by the twelfth. Jackson himself was a day late. Had the cooperating generals completed their shorter marches, or had they, too, found the logistics of Lee’s plan too exacting?

  Jackson scanned the picturesque eminences across the rivers but could see nothing of any Confederate troops. He instructed his signalmen to establish contact with the other commands by flag, but they worked to no purpose. Late in the afternoon the sound of Kershaw’s attack down the backbone of Maryland Heights could be heard, but there was no answer to the signal flags. Despairing of signaling, Jackson turned to couriers to find where the cooperating columns were. Not long after dark a courier returned to report Walker in position on Loudoun Heights. Ere that, McLaws’s approach had been verified, but Jackson was not sure when McLaws could clear Maryland Heights and open fire on Harper’s Ferry.1

  On the morning of the fourteenth, while D. H. Hill was fighting on South Mountain, Jackson proceeded deliberately with his preparations. Under his orders now were six of the nine infantry divisions of the army. This was much the largest force he ever had directed. Ere long his signal station was in touch with Walker, but it still was unable to reach McLaws. Walker reported he had six rifled guns in position on Loudoun Heights. “I do not desire any of the batteries to open until all are ready on both sides of the river…,” Jackson signaled Walker. “I will let you know when to open….” Walker replied that McLaws reported the enemy in rear of him and said “that he can do but little more than he has done.”2

  Meantime, A. P. Hill’s division, Lawton’s, and John R. Jones’s were disposed in rear of Harper’s Ferry, between the Potomac and the Shenandoah. By a mere demonstration on the part of the Stonewall Brigade and one battery of artillery, commanding ground on the Federal right was carried. Dorsey Pender handled with much skill and small loss an advance to a good position opposite the Union left. There ten guns of Lawton’s artillery were posted. By 8:15 P.M. Jackson felt he could make a favorable report to Lee: “Through God’s blessing, the advance, which commenced this evening, has been successful thus far, and I look to Him for complete success tomorrow.
The advance has been directed to be resumed at dawn tomorrow morning.”3 This was the letter that prompted General Lee to cancel orders for a withdrawal across the Potomac and to direct, instead, a new concentration west of the mountains.

  Before dawn on the fifteenth, Jackson had all the troops aroused and put in line of battle. Walker’s artillerists, looking down from Loudoun Heights on a heavy mist that enveloped Harper’s Ferry, could do no more than wait and pray for a sight of their target. The moment the other batteries had sufficient light they opened a pattern of fire Jackson had designed. Soon afterward, Lawton’s guns chimed in; then Walker’s set echoes rolling from Loudoun Heights. Jackson was fulfilling a dream of the officer of artillery: He had his guns precisely where he wanted them, he was firing as he desired, and he perceived ere long that he was silencing the enemy.4

  An hour of steady hammering seemed to exhaust the Federals. Their fire became slack and discouraged and soon virtually stopped. Jackson signaled the infantry assault. Dorsey Pender began at once to move forward the brigades that were to drive home the attack. The Federals then opened again, though their fire was slow and uncertain. Pender halted. Two of Hill’s batteries dashed out, unlimbered, and assailed the Federals furiously. In about five minutes a horseman was observed on the Union works, waving something. Eyes were strained; soon it was unmistakable—white, the signal of surrender! Cheers swept the front.5

  Through the lines came Brigadier General Julius White, designated to arrange terms of surrender. As White drew rein in front of Jackson, the contrast in appearance of the two men made irreverent young staff officers grin. Kyd Douglas remembered that White “was mounted on a handsome black horse, was handsomely uniformed, with an untarnished saber, immaculate gloves and boots…. He must have been somewhat astonished to find in General Jackson the … most faded and dingy looking general he had ever seen anyone surrender to …” White was told that the capitulation must be unconditional. Jackson turned him over to A. P. Hill, instructed in terms that did not lack in generosity. All officers and men were to be paroled; officers might retain their side arms and private baggage.