As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
The ignorant will wonder why the Lame Cherry is wasting space on battles of Ameican History, an the answer is, in what is coming, the odds are in a meltdown, invasion or foreign insurrection, the places in your community are going to become epic battle zones again.
This is why we are visiting Sharpsburg as the Lame Cherry is going to reveal realities and realitie which are not the propaganda pattern of who was what in the Civil War. This all began with my trying to analyze what General George McClellan was as no one has ever figured out what that odd man was who was termed the Little Napoleon, and posed with his hand in his jacket like Napoleon.
Why anyone would desire to be named with that French loser is a mystery to me. Napoleon was an effective war general for the first of his campaigns, because he never violated maneuver. He lost his ass when he violated the basic realities of warfare.
To understand Sharpsburg or Antietam is to understand the glaring holes in history as propaganda. To begin this, General Robert Lee after a victory handed to him at Bull Run II by the McClellan cabal in sabotaging Union Genera, Pope, crossed into Maryland for food and to liberate that state from the Union.
Lee had divided his forces on probing expeditions. Lee also had left a detailed order of battle which the Union found, but McClellan failed to act upon for 18 hours. This then set up the order of battle with the Confederates with the bend of the Potomac in their back, with Longstreet on the right and Jackson on the left and Lee in reserve with 10,000 troops in the rear.
JEB Stuart was on the Confederate extreme left at Nicodemus Height with horse artilery.
For the Union, General Hooker was on the Union right and General Ambrose Burnside was on the left. umner held the center with Porter in reserve.
McClellan had issued a coordinated attack order of Hooker in the north as a diversion of sorts for Burnside in the south. McClellan was so far in the rear he managed nothing, and instead Hooker attacked in the morning and was mowed down, Sumner at noon and was mowed down, with Burnside in afternoon, with some success, but was driven back when Confederate reinforcements by General AP Hill arrived and counter attacked, driving Burnside back, at which point McClellan agreed to a truce with Lee to exchange wounded and deal with their own wounded.
McClellan from private eye, Allan Pinkerton always thought the South had more men than he had. While President Lincoln only expected McClellan to hold against Lee, once the battle was chcecked, everyone wanted McClellan to launch Porter's V Corps with around 25,000 men at the shattered army of Lee. Nothing happened due to the ghost army of the Confederacy which was deemed huge. Lee crossed the Potomac with everything and escaped.
In analysis of this battle, General Lee set up a textbook line of defense on the Potomac. His past experience with McClellan never leaving camp, allowed Lee to divide his forces for foraging and havoc. What Sharpsburg though exposed was General Lee as a rather incompetent battle general. Now when I state that, I will confess that I admire General Lee exceedingly. He was brilliant when he had McClellan in his trenches not moving, and allowed to maneuver. Maneuver was due to Stonewall Jackson and JEB Stuart, who were superb in audacity and striking unexpectedly.
This is where Lee revealed his incompetence. At Sharpsburg, Lee had Jackson holding the Confederate right and he had cavalry officer Stuart firing horse cannon at the Union. Yes Stuart did murderous work on the Union, but he would have rolled up the Union right if his cavalry had been there to strike as anyone can fire off cannon.
The same holds true with Stonewall Jackson, a genius in mobile combat and striking greater forces. He should have been deployed not on the line, which is where AP Hill should have been deployed, but instead Jackson, should have outflanked Burnside and rolled up the line crushinng the Army of the Potomac forever.
The same failings are in McClellan in a greater extent where the key to this battle is Nicodemus Heights. That is where the Union should have concentrated and overrun at pre dawn as once in possession of that, Union cannon would have eaten the Confederate lines in infalidated fire. Ther would not have been 13,000 dead troops there. The Confederate left would have been shattered and Lee would have been forced to deploy his reserves to check Hooker, but then he would have Sumner on his right flank in the middle as Longstreet would have been rolled up.
At this point, Burnside should have crossed Antietam Creek by wading and used only a holding force at the lower bridge. A covering force would have held the now turning Confederate center of DH Hill, and allowed Burnside the real objective of Sharpsburg as a rally point where his IX Corps would have riven or the main objective, Boteler's Ford, on the Potomac.
The entire Army of Northern Virginia, now shattered on the left and falling apart on the right would have been trapped in this oxbow of the Potomac to be destroyed. It would not have mattered what AP Hill was coming up with, as Burnside would hold the ford and stop him. Jackson could attempt to move as he did, but with Porter's 25,000 entering the field an annihilating blow would have taken place.
Simply put, if I had commanded either the Confederate forces against McClellan or the Union forces against Lee, I would have destroyed either one, and the war would have been over in the Confederacy gaining independence or the Union being restored.
Combat which is coming inside the United States of America, requires the basics which I doubt are current in the Pentagon in any form. The objective never changes, mobility, bringing force to bear and striking the flank or hole. Lee and McClellan continuously misuse forces and destroyed their armies.
As for General Grant, historian Shelby Foote was incorrect in Lincoln never found a general to beat General Lee. Grant correctly got Lee out of Richmond, and then by the left flank stayed on him, in Lee's brilliant withdrawal, but Grant was not just flanking Lee, he was maneuvering the Amry of Northern Virginia into the jaws of two other closing Union armies to capture that Army which was being depleted of men and arm, by constant fighting. Grant could not ever get Lee in his state to attack him as Sharpsburg or Gettysburg. This was the strategy by Grant to defeat Lee by capture and he accomplished that.
This concludes this Lame Cherry White Paper on the Lessons of Sharpsburg.
Nuff Said
agtG
