Sgt Charles Broomhall at Antietam
14 April 2024
Almost exactly 20 years ago Carolyn Ivanoff shared with me (and AotW) her research about and transcription of the wartime diary of Charles D. M. Broomhall, Sergeant in the 124th Pennsylvania Infantry, describing his experience on the Maryland Campaign.
On my visit to the battlefield last Friday morning I saw this wayside for the first time. Maybe I just never stopped at that spot before.
[touch to expand]
I was stunned to see the heading quote from Sergeant Broomhall, from Carolyn’s work in the diary. That “fluttering” reference comes from a few lines earlier in his narrative:
At the commencement of the battle at day dawn [on 17 September 1862], our boys had been listening to the stray shots on the edge of the 1st named woods called the East Woods, the rebels had come through the corn and deployed pickets on the edge of the East Woods. Our pickets were deployed in the edge of this woods, consequently, at daylight the two picket lines found themselves face to face and that caused the suddenness of the onset. Our brigade was about 1/4 of a mile to the right and rear, and our regiment was brought up to near the clear sod field first spoken of while shot and shell went fluttering over our heads like partridges for sound.
Thanks again, Carolyn!
New map and a minor re-org
13 February 2023
It had been nearly 20 years since I last added a battle map segment to Antietam on the Web, and now I’ve put up two new ones in two days. I felt the call to do the first one as I began a deep dive into the men of the 7th Maine Infantry [previous blog post], and the second follows from some excellent field walks and discussions at the Antietam Institute Fall Conference last October.
That second new map covers a series of disjointed but remarkably effective Confederate counter-attacks near the center of their position at Sharpsburg about noon on 17 September 1862. Most ended quickly in apparently bloody failure, but taken together they were a strategic success: critical to keeping the Federals from advancing much beyond the Bloody Lane that afternoon.
[Battle Map #10 on AotW]
While I was at it, I re-ordered the 15 map sections in approximately chronological rather than simply north-to-south order, and replaced the old top-level “menu” map with this one:
[from the main Battle Map page on AotW]
I hope this sequence encourages viewers to think a little differently about the combat events of 17 September 1862.
So what neglected action or part of the field should I do next?
The charge of the 7th Maine at Antietam
10 February 2023
One of the saddest stories of Antietam is that of the vain heroism of the men of the 7th Maine Infantry on the Piper Farm at about 5 pm on 17 September 1862. Their ill-considered charge there destroyed the regiment as a fighting force and obtained little result.
[Battle Map #15 on AotW]
Their commander, Major Thomas Worcester Hyde of Bath, Maine, described it in his after-action report 2 days after the battle and refined his narrative in his later memoir Following the Greek Cross, or, Memories of the Sixth Army Corps (1894), which I’m excerpting here to accompany a new battle map on AotW.
Colonel Irvin [William H Irwin] of the 49th Pennsylvania commanded our brigade at Antietam. He was a soldier of the Mexican War, and had been wounded at Resaca de la Palma. He was a gallant man, but drank too much, of which I was then unaware.
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