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Because he was conspicuous on his white horse and close to the battle-front on the morning of Wednesday, 17 September 1862 near Sharpsburg, Maryland, perhaps it was inevitable that Major General Joseph Hooker would be killed or wounded in the ferocious combat there.

Major General Joseph Hooker (c. 1862, Library of Congress)

And wounded he was. Although it is fantasy to speculate, there were those who thought the battle of Antietam would have gone differently had Hooker not been knocked from command of the Federal First (I) Army Corps by a bullet through the foot at about nine o’clock that morning.

Sharpsburg, September 20, 1862.

MY DEAR HOOKER: I have been very sick the last few days, and just able to go where my presence was absolutely necessary, so I could not come to see you and thank you for what you did the other day, and express my intense regret and sympathy for your unfortunate wound. Had you not been wounded when you were, I believe the result of the battle would have been the entire destruction of the rebel army, for I know that, with you at its head, your corps would have kept on until it gained the main road. As a slight expression of what I think you merit. I have requested that the brigadier-general commission rendered vacant by Mansfield’s death may be given to you. I will this evening write a private note to the President on the subject, and I am glad to assure you that, so far as I can learn, it is the universal feeling of the army that are the most deserving in it.

With the sincere hope that your health may soon be restored, so that you may again be with us in the field, I am, my dear general, your sincere friend,

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major-General.

Looking into the nature of the General’s injury led me in a somewhat different direction, however – toward learning about the medical care he received, and more about the life and career of his doctor, Assistant Surgeon Benjamin Douglas Howard, USA …

Frank Schell accompanied the Army of the Potomac on the Maryland Campaign of 1862, and was on the field for the battle on 17 September. He was a civilian there from New York – a sketch artist for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

Fortunately for those who study the battle, a number of his original battlefield sketches have survived. I’ve recently discovered a set sold at auction in 2007, and a group preserved in a collection at Boston College, in particular. I’ve grabbed some selected gems among them to use here.

Even better, in 1904 Schell published his recollection of the events that were going on around him as he was drawing these same pictures. So in sharing his pictures and his superb eye, I can also leave the writing to Frank – to narrate his own drawings and give us a sense of his Battle of Antietam.

Hooker’s Corps crosses the Antietam (16 September 1862, pub. Leslie’s 11 Oct 1862)

As I awoke soon after daylight on the morning of September 17, 1862, the air was already vibrating with mighty sounds of battle … With spirits aflame, I speeded at my best from Keedysville for the headquarters of the commanding general … I joined the group about the commanding general, who was anxiously scanning through his field glass the situation to the right, across the Antietam. Looking more to the left, the thick west wood, with its dark, broad front so clearly emphasized by the little white Dunker church, was clearly in view along its entire extent upon the Hagerstown turnpike.

General McClellan suddenly lowered his glass, and, with a few animated words and expressive gestures, called Porter’s attention to something that caused an immediate ferment of buzzing excitement throughout the group and a close scrutinizing of the bit of woodland, for the time being, the focus of such absorbing interest …

Halt at Clarksburg, Sept 12th 1862, McClellan’s Staff (DH Strother, 1862)

David Hunter Strother (1816 – 1888) – writer, artist and Federal officer – was on General George McClellan’s staff on the Maryland Campaign of 1862. His creative skills resulted is some fascinating artifacts of that period, which I’m enjoying in my study of Antietam and its participants.

Born in Martinsburg, (now West) Virginia, he had trained as an artist in New York and Europe, and was working as a writer and illustrator in books and magazines in his 20’s. His father “Colonel” John – an Army Lieutenant 1813 to 1815 – ran the Strother House hotel in Berkeley Springs.

By the 1850’s D.H. was famous as “Porte Crayon” – his nom de plume. He was on assignment for Harpers Weekly at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and covered John Brown’s trial and execution …

There are half a dozen unfinished posts waiting in the queue for this (very occasional) blog, but I am prompted to actually publish one at last by some fascinating email correspondence from Marianne Tierney, whose great-great-grandfather John Westbrook you see here. Marianne and her cousin Art Van Allsburg have collected and have shared some family treasures concerning their ancestor and Antietam.

John Westbrook (postwar, courtesy M. Tierney)

This photograph is magnificent, but more exciting is a letter written by Marianne’ s grandfather Van Allsburg in 1964 which recalls what he heard from his grandfather Westbrook firsthand. With it, and some other tidbits I’ve dug up, we can follow something of this soldier’s life through and following the catastrophic Battle of Antietam …

Officers of the US Regular Army units present on the Maryland Campaign of 1862 have a staunch advocate in one of our loyal readers. He has been poking me to make up for obvious deficiencies in my understanding of those present, as seen in the Antietam on the Web database.

Officers of the 14th US Inf. camp near Alexandria, Va., March 1862 (A. Gardner)

In addition to providing additional details for some of the officers we do cover on AotW, he’s also challenged me to add a number of men not yet listed. I fear I am not doing this fast enough to suit, but have had a rewarding weekend doing further research on the Regulars at Antietam and these new candidates of interest …

In spite of my recent neglect of the subject of the Battle here on the internets, the rest of the interested World continues to feed the machine. To all of you who’ve sent me things, I’m making some time now to catch up with getting all those gems online on AotW, and thanks very much to all for your patience and persistence!

Major John A. Reynolds, Chief of Artillery, XXth Army Corps (1864, courtesy Scott Hann Collection)

By way of immediate example, above are scans of a carte de visite (CDV) sent by Scott Hann to fill an empty spot on this officer’s bio page. Scott has a massive collection of images and has been most generous in sharing some of the best with us to help put faces with the names of the men at the Battle.

John Reynolds was Captain of Battery L, 1st Regiment New York Artillery (Light) at Antietam. In this post, I’d like to tell you a little bit about the battery’s commander, and feature a first hand – if dramatic and lengthy – description of their experience in Maryland in a contemporary letter written by one of his Lieutenants to a Rochester newspaper.

Cuban born American chief-of-the-great-clan Emilio Louis Fanjul (1924-2008) returned to the boundless deep yesterday afternoon at 3:15pm. Fine son, husband of endless love, father of many daughters, he made the good exit in the heart of his family at Haddonfield, New Jersey after the long dance with Alzheimer’s.

In yellowed photographs he smiles forever.

He lived in joy and honor, and will forever in us.

And to the last generation.

_____________

Philadelphia Inquirer obituary (6/4/08)

The sad story of the officers and men of the 12th Virginia Infantry Regiment of late 1862 is typical for a number of the tattered units of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) who were at Sharpsburg that September.

The Crater (c. 1866, J. Elder)

The Fourth Battalion as it left Petersburg on the 20th of April, 1861, was made up of the flower of the manhood of the Cockade City. After four years of service it had been so decimated by disease, by death, by promotion, and by transfer that it showed scarcely more than a skeleton of the original body. It was the nucleus upon which was formed the famous Twelfth Virginia Regiment, whose banner bore the device of almost every field on which the Army of Northern Virginia grappled with the enemy, from Seven Pines to Appomattox, and whose flag, stained with the smoke of battle and shredded by ball and shell, was never surrendered, but torn into slips and buried in the bosoms, right over the hearts, of the veteran survivors.

While chasing one of my boys, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel W. Owen, 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry, I came on a photograph of him in an unusual setting. It made me think about how few casual or frivolous pictures–snapshots–I’ve can remember seeing among (probably) thousands of American Civil War-era images.

On reflection, this isn’t surprising. Due to the technical demands of wet-plate photography during the War, I’d expect most photographs to have a serious purpose. The long exposures and difficulty in preparing and developing photographs in the field probably made it less likely that photographers would risk wasting film on a moving subject or mundane scene.

Perhaps as a result, most surviving photographs are stiffly posed, and live subjects seem terribly aware of the camera. For fun, today, I’ve found a few with quite a different feel …

Artillery Hell (James Hope, Antietam National Battlefield)

A few days ago I was prompted by a TalkAntietam query to look into the strength of the Federal Artillery at Antietam on 17 September 1862. In particular, that of the long-range guns overlooking the battlefield from the heights east of Antietam Creek.

Those guns were largely responsible for Sharpsburg’s reputation–at least among Confederate artillerymen who survived–as “Artillery Hell”. Their impact on the battle was significant, and they loom large in most battle narratives, but just how many were there?