Sharpsburg 9/17/1862

4,460 Views | 41 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by YokelRidesAgain
Sapper Redux
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BigJim49 AustinNowDallas said:

If the South had taken DC after Mannasas, what would have happened ?


Much more improbable than what Lee faced at Sharpsburg. But nothing. They weren't in a position to hold that territory for long and more units were still arriving over the coming days and weeks.
Rabid Cougar
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Dr. Watson said:

I've always wondered the long term consequences if Lee had been crushed at Antietam. Let's say McClellan advanced his whole force at dawn and trapped Lee against the Potomac, leading to a surrender. Lincoln would issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, but would the war continue past January 1? Is the Confederacy divided with states like Virginia agreeing to return to the Union and states like SC and Alabama continuing to resist?
He was pretty much crushed at Sharpsburg for real. There was not much standing between Harpers Ferry and Richmond as his army was in no shape for another fight. It was McClelland's ineptitude the blame for keeping Lee's Army in the war at that point. If it had been Grant in command at that point, even if he had done exactly what McClelland did during the fight, I feel that the cause would have been lost. He would have done exactly as he did in the Overland campaign and bled Lee even further. The Richmond/Petersburg fortification line had not even been thought of in 1862.
Stive
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If Mac wins at Sharpsburg, does he run/win the 1864 election?
aggiedad55
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Great Grandfather- 22nd Alabama, Henry's Company K
Lost so many men in several engagements the 22nd merged with another.
Great Grandfather was captured south of Atlanta in 1864, spent the rest of the war at Camp Douglas in Chicago where they used live prisoners for bayonette practice in response to conditons at Andersonville.
My Great Grandfather refused to take the oath of allegience to the United States when the war was over so he did not get a train ticket back to Alabama. He walked home weighing less than 90 lbs when he made it back.
One tough man.
Sapper Redux
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aggiedad55 said:

Great Grandfather- 22nd Alabama, Henry's Company K
Lost so many men in several engagements the 22nd merged with another.
Great Grandfather was captured south of Atlanta in 1864, spent the rest of the war at Camp Douglas in Chicago where they used live prisoners for bayonette practice in response to conditons at Andersonville.
My Great Grandfather refused to take the oath of allegience to the United States when the war was over so he did not get a train ticket back to Alabama. He walked home weighing less than 90 lbs when he made it back.
One tough man.


Source for this?
Rabid Cougar
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Dr. Watson said:

aggiedad55 said:

Great Grandfather- 22nd Alabama, Henry's Company K
Lost so many men in several engagements the 22nd merged with another.
Great Grandfather was captured south of Atlanta in 1864, spent the rest of the war at Camp Douglas in Chicago where they used live prisoners for bayonette practice in response to conditons at Andersonville.
My Great Grandfather refused to take the oath of allegience to the United States when the war was over so he did not get a train ticket back to Alabama. He walked home weighing less than 90 lbs when he made it back.
One tough man.


Source for this?
Not exactly used for practice. Lots of POW's were killed for crossing the "Dead Line" found lining the interior of most prison camp walls or palisades. It was either by bayonet or by being shot. Conditions were so despicable that most of the time it was a poor soul just giving up and committing what is now known as suicide by prison guard. Camp Douglas in Chicago had a much higher mortality rate (mainly from starvation and disease) than Andersonville, but we know who writes history.
Sapper Redux
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Douglas was terrible, but the mortality rate was 17% versus around 30% at Andersonville.
YokelRidesAgain
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BigJim49 AustinNowDallas said:

If the South had taken DC after Mannasas, what would have happened ?
Probably about the same thing that happened when the British took DC in 1814.

Long shot or not, I'll agree that an early incursion into Northern territory was about the only chance the South had to win the war on purely military terms (as opposed to political terms, like a dove winning the 1864 election), but it's just a historical counterfactual to assume that any such campaign would have been attempted in 1861. The South just wanted to be left alone (to keep enslaving people); it wasn't intended as a war of conquest.
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