Geography Lesson

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Hill 876 & Showman Farm (top left) Elk Ridge (lower right)

The signal station image that I discussed in my last post was made famous by Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner. The image is titled Signal Tower. Elk Mountain, Overlooking Battlefield of Antietam, Maryland.  The problem is that this particular station is NOT on Elk Mountain or more commonly known Elk Ridge. 

I unintentionally perpetuated this mistake in my last post about our visit to this signal station site. 

What is known as Elk Ridge begins its rise from the ground just south of Dogstreet Road.  The ridge runs generally south south west for a distance of 9.4 miles to the Potomac River. At its southern terminus overlooking the Potomac at Harpers Ferry it is known as Maryland Heights.  At its highest elevation, Elk Ridge towers at some points over 1,500 feet above sea level.

Most people don’t realize that there is another ridge to the west and assume that the Elk Ridge is a solid mass of rock that rises up just west of Keedysville.  That was the error that Gardner made when he titled the signal station image. 

This other ridge also rises south of Dogstreet Road but is about one mile west of Elk Ridge.  It is bisected about three miles to the south by Sharman’s Run, a tributary of the Antietam.  The northern half of the ridge is Red Hill.  It is about three miles in length. Porterstown Road crosses the hill at its midsection.  At its highest elevation Red Hill is about 900 feet above sea level. 

"Showmans Knoll" site of the signal station

The southern half of this ridge is really a series of hills identified on the topographical map only by their elevation. Burnside Bridge Road and Sharman Run form the northern boundary of this ridge.  Mills Road is the western boundary.  Just south of Sharmans Run on Mills Road is the Showman Farm.  Sharman in fact is a corruption of Showman.  This was the site of McClellan’s headquarters for several weeks after the battle and one of the locations that Lincoln visited.  The signal station is behind the house on one of the hills of that unnamed ridge. 

After I incorrectly referred to the signal station as being located on Elk Ridge, I had several e-mail conversations with Tom Clemens and Dennis Frye about the precise location of the signal station.  Dennis who has done a great deal of research and hiking in this area identifies Hill 876 as the location. While not an official designation, Dennis refers to the site as Showman’s Knoll. The next time you view the Gardner image of the signal station, consider again the importance of being precise when it comes to identifying geographical features and locations.

The Artifact

Today we had a rare opportunity to visit a location important to Maryland Campaign history. This is a location relatively unknown to all but the truest Maryland Campaign enthusiasts.  It is a location not to difficult to find but one that would reveal some very important lessons to us on this day. 

The Artifact

On a cold brilliantly clear February afternoon Harpers Ferry Chief Historian and well known author Dennis Frye and Tom Clemens editor of Ezra Carmen’s Maryland Campaign of 1862, took a number of Antietam Battlefield Guides and NPS volunteers to the historic Showman Farm and then to the Elk Ridge Signal Station. The Showman Farm on Mills Road outside of Sharpsburg was McClellan’s headquarters for several weeks after the Battle of Antietam.  The farmhouse is south of the Burnside Bridge and fairly close to the Antietam Iron Works and the confluence of Antietam Creek and the Potomac River. We learned some very exciting things about the farm and its proximity to the location where Alexander Gardner captured the iconic images of Lincoln and McClellan.  I will not go into any further details about this part of the hike and allow Dennis Frye to fully explain his discovery concerning the true location of the iconic photographs.

That revelation was exciting enough.  However the coolest moment of the entire hike occurred an hour later.  After a rigorous ascent to the top of Elk Ridge we stood at the actual site of the signal station with the valleys spread below us in all directions.

Googled

This was private property with a SHAF negotiated historical easement.  We were not on National Park Service. At that location, Jim Buchanan (author of the Antietam blog Walkingthe West Woods) discovered something. As he listened to Dennis’s discussion, Jim happened to look down at the base of the tree he was standing next to.  Thinly covered with a layer of soil, he observed what at first appeared to be a very squared off piece of rock to manmade to be natural.  A closer look and a careful brushing off of the soil revealed an axe blade. 

You gotta love technology. (Well no you don’t have to). Jim googled civil war axe blades on his smart phone. There on remote Elk Ridge in a matter of seconds he had the exact image of the item he just found.  We believe Army of the Potomac pioneers constructed the signal station or the camp around the station and left the axe. 

Dennis Frye and Jim Buchanan

The series of photos here were taken at the exact moment of the discovery.

We were absolutely thrilled.  High on a ridge that few people have seen, much less know about, this common axe blade lay for 150 years. It was not special at all when a Federal soldier, likely an Antietam veteran, some how dropped it.   But on a beautiful winter day it became very special to a passionate group of Maryland Campaign enthusiasts.  No longer mundane it was a link to the past - a discovery that none of us privileged to be there at that moment will ever forget.

Atop Elk Ridge

All day, Dennis had challenged us to look past the main scene of an image.  He avowed that in the margins and the fuzzy hard to distinguish areas were things worth discovering.  He was right.   We did just that - on a hilltop so close and really so far away from the battlefield.  It was a terrific moment.

1834

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Military Installations 1834

Twenty-eight years before the Battle of Antietam, eleven young lieutenants who would one day meet on that battlefield were beginning their military careers.

The most senior of them was 30-year-old First Lieutenant Joseph K. F. Mansfield (USMA 1822) of the Corps of Engineers.  Connecticut born Mansfield, an 1822 graduate of West Point was in 1834, the Superintending Engineer on the construction of Fort Pulaski a masonry fort that protected the approaches to Savannah Georgia.  He began the work in 1830 and would spend the next sixteen years more or less, on the construction though sometimes assigned to other projects.

Fellow engineers Robert E. Lee from Virginia (USMA 1829) and Rufus King from New York (USMA 1833) worked on the construction of Fort Monroe Virginia. 2LT Lee had been in the army for five years. Later in the year, he would depart for an assignment in Washington as the Assistant to the Chief Engineer.  King was a brevet Second Lieutenant, having graduated from the Academy that same year.  There were no engineer officer vacancies so he remained a brevet second lieutenant. King would also soon leave Virginia dispatched to survey the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan. 

Guarding the Atlantic coastal fortifications that the engineers designed and built were the officers and men of the artillery.  The four artillery regiments had geographical responsibilities for the coastal defenses and every few years rotated and switched assignments.  During this period, the Second Artillery was responsible for the forts guarding the southern coastline.  Two young officers from the Second Artillery Regiment were Rhode Islander First Lieutenant George S. Greene (USMA 1823), and Second Lieutenant Andrew Humphreys (USMA 1831) from Pennsylvania.  Greene an eleven-year veteran was in the middle of an assignment at Fort Sullivan Maine.  Just opposite New Brunswick Canada, this remote fort adjacent to Eastport Maine was the most northern outpost on America’s network of Atlantic coastline defenses.  Fort Sullivan kept an eye on the British who as recently as 1818 occupied the area.  I am not sure why a Second Artillery company was at the northern tip of the United States when this was First Artillery territory but Greene spent four years at this place.  1,500 miles to the south was Saint Augustine Florida.  Guarding that town was the Castillo San Marcos recently renamed Fort Marion in honor of the Swamp Fox Francis Marion. Andrew Humphreys who had a talent for drawing was stationed there.  In August of 1834 he would embark on topographical duty, making surveys in West Florida.  His drawings would form the basis of some of the maps used by military commanders when the Second Seminole War erupted a year later on. 

Before the establishment of the Topographical Engineer branch in 1838, other army officers assumed the duties of exploration, map-making, scientific observation, and surveying.  Mansfield, Lee and King performed these duties during their careers as engineers.  Line officers also performed these duties.  One such officer was Andrew Humphrey, who as we have seen was conducting surveys in Florida.  Another line officer was South Carolina born 2LT Thomas Drayton (USMA 1827) of the Sixth Infantry.  Drayton performed topographical duties for most of his regular army career from 1832-1836. At the same time, his younger brother Percival served as a midshipman aboard the frigate U.S.S. Hudson in the south Atlantic. The men’s father William had left South Carolina following the Nullification Crisis of 1832 and moved to Philadelphia.  Percival like his father William was a Unionist.  Thomas was not.

While the artillery regiments garrisoned the coastal forts, the infantry protected the western frontier in 1834. The only mounted troops then serving were the brand new United States Regiment of Dragoons that was approved by Congress a year earlier.  One of its original officers was Captain Edwin V. Sumner late of the 2^nd Infantry Regiment.  It therefore fell to the seven infantry regiments in the establishment at the time to guard a string of outposts stretching from Wisconsin to Louisiana.

Near modern Green Bay Wisconsin stood Fort Howard. The post was built during the War of 1812 to protect the regional trade and travel routes between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.  Stationed here was Brevet 2LT Randolph Marcy (USMA 1832) of the Fifth Infantry.  The future explorer from Massachusetts graduated from West Point in 1832 but would remain as a brevet second lieutenant until 1835 when an opening in the Fifth Infantry finally became available. He had seen service in the Black Hawk War but he had not been in actual combat. It is not known whether Marcy’s wife Priscilla or their four-year-old daughter Ellen and his other children accompanied him to this remote outpost.  In 1834 a military road was just then being constructed across the state linking Fort Howard in the east with Fort Winnebago in Portage and Fort Crawford to the west.  Fort Crawford was then the headquarters of the First Infantry Regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Taylor. The fort was on the Iowa border at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers near Prairie du Chien. It was an important facility during recent the Black Hawk War. Thomas Stockton (USMA 1827) from New York, newly promoted to 1LT in the 1^st Infantry was stationed there.  Having spent some time in 1832 in Washington working in the Quartermaster-General’s office, Stockton was now the Assistant Quartermaster at Ft Crawford.  Stockton spent much of his attention arranging the logistic support for the road building operation.

Perhaps the most important military installation on the western frontier in the 1830s was Fort Gibson.   Located in what is today eastern Oklahoma, Gibson lay on the Grand River just above its confluence with the Arkansas.  Fort Gibson was a staging area for moving the displaced eastern tribes from their century old homes in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia into the new Indian Territory carved out of land west of the Mississippi River.  The native Osage tribes did not necessarily take kindly to the moving of the eastern tribes into their homeland.  Gibson It was also a jumping off point for a number of expeditions that pushed even further west during this period.  In 1834 Fort Gibson was the headquarters of the Seventh Infantry Regiment.  The adjutant of the regiment was 1LT Dixon Miles (USMA 1824).  This Baltimore native had been with the regiment for the past ten years.  So slow were promotions that he was a second lieutenant for nine of those ten years.  That he was selected as the adjutant for his regiment marked him as an officer with a bright future. 

Baton Rouge was the headquarters of the Fourth Infantry Regiment.  Two years earlier, the regiment dispatched two companies to Illinois to participate in the Black Hawk War.  Accompanying them was 2LT Robert C. Buchanan (USMA 1830).  Buchanan commanded of the gunboats on the Wisconsin River during the Battle of Bad Axe River, on Aug. 2, 1832. He was now back in Louisiana following the conclusion of that war serving in Baton Rouge. Rumors at the time were that the 4^th Infantry was destined for Florida where the restless Seminoles appeared to be preparing for war.

Across the far-flung republic, the graduates of West Point destined to fight one day at Antietam now performed their duties as company-grade Army officers.  One other officer was also on duty.  He was James Barnes (USMA 1829), a classmate of Robert E. Lee.  Barnes a Second Lieutenant in the 4^th Artillery was in the first year of a three-year assignment back at West Point as an Assistant Instructor of Infantry Tactics.  Among his students were Second Classmen (juniors in today’s parlance) George Morell, George Meade, and Marsena Patrick. Morell ranked number three and was a cadet sergeant.  Meade was further back at a still respectable 17 out of 60.  Near the bottom of the academic ranking at 55 was Marsena Patrick like Morell a cadet sergeant.  Surprisingly of the three, Meade had racked up the most demerits in his third year with 82 to his name while Patrick had none in 1834.  Morell had 26 against him.

Further back was the plebe class. In it were seven more future leaders in the Maryland Campaign.  They ranged from 16 to 19 years of age and included E. Parker Scammon, Robert Chilton, Israel Vogdes, William French, Joseph Hooker, Jubal Early and the venerable 19 year old John Sedgwick. Old Jube, Lee’s “bad old man” was off to a bad start racking up 142 demerits.  Surprisingly, on the other end of the conduct was Joe Hooker with a miniscule nine demerits.

The decade of the 1830s was in many ways the calm before the storm.  Andrew Jackson was in his second term as President.  The nation had survived the Nullification Crisis by forceful action on his part. The Black Hawk War fought earlier in the decade was over. For now it was quiet.  Eleven lieutenants and ten cadets, the vanguard of over 200 West Pointers who would serve at Antietam were beginning their careers in the United States Army. 

West Point General Officers at Antietam

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I am occasionally asked why the Confederate generals seem to be so much better than the Union ones, at least in late 1862.  From the very first days of the war, the southern cause is served by the likes of Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, and JEB Stuart. By the summer of 1862 add Robert E. Lee, and the Hills.  The great Union leaders seem to need some time to emerge. 

I have become very interested in the West Point graduates who fought at Antietam.  While preparing a presentation for a Round Table talk, I arrayed the officers on a chart based on their branch of service in the old Army. Then I noticed something interesting.  There are essentially six branches.  Three are the technical branches and include the Corps of Engineers, Topographical Engineers, and Ordnance.  Three are combat arms and include infantry, artillery, and cavalry.  For this analysis, I will consolidate the technical branches together.

The Technical Branches

Branch	USA Generals	CSA Generals	USA Other	CSA Other	Total Officers
Corps of Engineers	5	1	12	1	19
Topographical Engineers	5	0	6	0	11
Ordnance	2	0	4	0	6
Total	12	1	22	1	36

This obviously shows that a lot of the West Point Union general officers came from the ranks of the technical branches.  These are officers who saw little combat service in the old Army except in Mexico, and by the nature of their jobs tended to be more technically oriented and less likely to be leaders of men.  There are exceptions of course.  From these ranks come Robert E. Lee, George Meade, and Jesse Reno.  George McClellan is also an engineer.  Lee it must be remembered essentially transferred to the 2nd Cavalry in 1855 and had several years of front line experience with the mounted forces.  Also worth noting are the large number of West Pointers (22 in all) who were not generals.  These are the men who rounded out McClellan’s excellent staff and contributed in many ways throughout the war to the success of the Army of the Potomac in the areas of logistics and engineering.  The sole Confederate officer is E. Porter Alexander, who at this time served as Lee’s brilliant ordnance officer.  But the teaching point here is 12 Union generals and only one Confederate general are general officers at Antietam.

We now turn to the artillery.

Branch	USA Generals	CSA Generals	USA Other	CSA Other	Total Officers
Artillery	19	7	53	2	81

The artillery accounts for the biggest number of West Point general officers who fought at Antietam.  Hooker, Sedgwick, French, Burnside, Stonewall Jackson, Daniel H. Hill and A.P. Hill come from these ranks.  We see here a larger plurality of Confederates at the general officer level. While there were four artillery regiments in the old army, just one battery per regiment actually had guns.  Most artillerymen in the old army if they weren’t manning coastal forts like Ft Hamilton NY, Ft Monroe VA, Ft Sumter SC or Ft Pickens FL fought in the west largely as red-leg infantry. The older gunners like Hooker, Sedgwick and French also saw service in the bloody Seminole Wars of Florida.  Virtually all saw duty in Mexico.  There are also a large number of junior officers in the Union Army.  These men often filled out the regular artillery batteries.  For example, of the 14 West Point graduates of the class of 1862 at Antietam who graduated just two months before the battle, 11 went directly into the artillery batteries.

There are 52 West Point graduates who came from the infantry.  For the first time, the number of generals is very close.  Of 13 generals, seven fight for the Union, and six for the Confederacy.  Israel Richardson and Winfield Scott Hancock are the best representatives for the Federal side.  James Longstreet, Lafayette McLaws, and Richard Garnett are some of the excellent southern generals.

Branch	USA Generals	CSA Generals	USA Other	CSA Other	Total Officers
Infantry	7	6	35	4	52

All these men from the day of their graduation spent their lives on remote outposts in the west.  They had men to lead and combat objectives to accomplish.  And a large number of their ranks become Confederate generals.  For the large number of Union officers not generals, many fought in Syke’s 2^nd Division, Fifth Corps, or were aides to General McClellan.  But looking at the relative numbers of general officers starting with the technical branches and moving through the artillery, there is a trend.  The more tactical the branch, the more Confederate generals.

Finally there is the cavalry. 

Branch	USA Generals	CSA Generals	USA Other	CSA Other	Total Officers
Cavalry	5	8	25	3	41

For the first time, we see Confederate generals outnumbering Union generals.  From this group come the likes of JEB Stuart, Fitzhugh Lee, John Hood, Richard and George B. Anderson, and Dorsey Pender.  Union generals here are Alfred Pleasonton, and Sam Sturgis.  John Buford served on McClellan’s staff and did not lead troopers at Antietam. 

The Confederates are blessed at the onset of the war by a large number of officers who were troop-leading soldiers in the old Army.  While not experienced in leading large formations before the war, they had honed their leadership skills and at least had some concept for moving soldiers around the battlefield.  Infantryman and cavalry troopers with combat experience know the importance of taking risks and being daring.

SUMMARY West Point Generals at Antietam

Branch	Union Generals (West Point Graduates)	Confederate Generals (West Point Graduates)
Technical	12 (12 of 43 – 28%)	1    (1 of 22 – 5%)
Artillery	19 (19 of 43 – 44%)	7    (7 of 22 – 32%)
Infantry	7    (7 of 43 – 16%)	6    (6 of 22 – 27%)
Cavalry	5    (5 of 54 – 12%)	8    (8 of 22 – 36%)
Total	43	22

Artillerymen are in the middle.  Large numbers come from these ranks.  Their branch is a combination of battlefield daring and mathematical calculation.  Some generals clearly fall into the first category.  Stonewall Jackson and the Hills come to mind for the Confederates.  Joe Hooker, John Sedgwick (who also commanded cavalry in the pre-war), and John Gibbon represent the artillery well on the Union side.  Others fall into the other extreme. 

The Union side on the other hand will promote a large number of technicians to the senior ranks early in the war.  Some great generals will emerge from this group eventually but they enter the war with little or no troop leading experience.  Their technical professions rewarded careful analysis, management of risk, and orthodox business leading practices that do not necessarily translate to battlefield success.  Robert E. Lee is the notable exception.  One year into the war, the technicians are apparently still learning their trade.  Good careful planners, they must learn to successfully lead men on the battlefield.  Some like Franklin, and Baldy Smith wont survive.  But others, like George Meade certainly will.

I am making some broad generalizations here regarding the different branches.  I am also looking only at West Pointers and not the number of volunteers who will receive general officer commissions.  But it is clear by just looking at the numbers that there may be a partial answer to the question by many visitors about the apparent superiority of Confederate leadership

Four Years

January 17, 2009

I started writing South From the North Woods just over four years ago.  As blogs go, it is by no means a blockbuster but I am proud of the 46,233 visitors and 165 posts.  SFTNW spun off another blog Antietam Voices, and I have collected over 4,100 quotes.

Often the march forward of time is barely discernable as we plod forward each day.  But much has changed in the past four years.  My son has grown up and is now a Marine lance corporal stationed aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard.  My daughter is a college student, volunteer firefighter, and EMT trainee.  The 150th anniversary which was just a dim distant object in 2009 has come and gone. 

Perhaps nothing better illustrates change than this.  Today I flipped back to one of my earliest posts. I was struck by the differences that have occurred to the Joseph Poffenberger barn since I began posting.  Here is a picture taken four years ago for that post and one taken today for this post.

January 19, 2013

So to SFTNW a belated happy fourth birthday.

The most sanguinary part of the whole field

From the Cornfield east of Miller's house looking northeast (1/19/13)

During the short winter days of January, I have been getting ready for the upcoming year at Antietam.  One book I am spending a lot of time with is Volume 2 of Ezra Carmen’s Maryland Campaign.  The outstanding editing by Tom Clemens adds a great deal of clarity to Carmen’s manuscript.  Every footnote is worth reading.

As anyone familiar with Carmen knows, he copies much of his prose from Official Record reports, magazine articles, and letters from participants of the battle.  But there are stretches where you see the landscape and battle from his eyes and in his words. 

Early in volume two, Carmen spends much of chapter 12 (The Field of Antietam) describing the terrain around the northern part of the battlefield.  While some of his syntax is aggravating,, pronoun use can mystify, and the sentences often run on making for a difficult read, (maybe like this one), Carmen nevertheless delivers some very evocative description of the roads, terrain, crops, and structures on the battlefield.  Here is a sample:

“North of the cornfield was a grass field of nearly 40 acres of higher ground than the cornfield and upon which the Union batteries were posted on the 17^th. In that part of this field, bordering the Hagerstown Road, stands the house of D.R. Miller, an apple orchard, north and east of it, a garden in front, and in the southwest corner of the garden, close by the road, a spring of delicious water, covered by a stone house.  Beyond the field where are Miller’s house and orchard, was another field, bounded on the north by the North Woods. South of the cornfield and bounded by the Hagerstown road on the west and by the East Woods and the Smoketown road on the east and south was a field of nearly 80 acres, most of it in luxuriant clover, some of it freshly plowed. In the East Woods and West Woods and the cornfield and grass field between them, is where the terrible struggle between the Union right and the Confederate left took place-the most sanguinary part of the whole field.”[1]

Sometimes there is a tendency to jump over the early chapters of Carmen to get to the meat of the action.  Don’t do that.  It is worth it to read the entire work thoroughly.  For someone like me who has been to this field many times, the careful reading of Chapter 11 painted yet another picture and perspective that I had not seen before.  I read this chapter last week.  Today I was on the field and the imagery of Carmen’s words came back to me as I viewed this ground today.  Pictures are worth a thousand words but sometimes a thousand words, carefully and perceptively read can produce an image that stays with us in an even more powerful way.

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[1] Carmen, Ezra. The Maryland Campaign of September 1862 Volume II: Antietam, edited and annotated by Thomas G. Clemens. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2012, page 11.