This is the second of a seven-part series reviewing the recent annual Civil War Symposium produced by the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall in Carnegie, Pennsylvania.
On March 24th we reviewed a presentation from the Central Virginia Battlefield Trust spring seminar by retired NPS Harper’s Ferry Historian Dennis Frye. It takes a special talent to present the same seminar a month l
ater that adds new and interesting details to the story, and no one living today is better qualified to do that than Frye!
Earlier in this seminar there had been brief mention of “original sources” when studying or writing history. Academics and writers have long-been cautioned by their mentors to “go to the original sources,” but it turns out some of those may not be quite so original, after all. Examples include George Meade’s letters to his wife which were put into book form by his son; however, the oft-cited book turns out to have been edited to some extent by George, Jr., so it is not exactly “original.” Interestingly, the Official Records themselves, perhaps the most frequently referenced original source, required the compilers to copy the actual dispatches and orders and are subject to some variations.
Returning to Frye, he emphasized the only “fact” that cannot be questioned about the Battle of Antietam is the date (September 17th). Everything else is a matter of perception and interpretation by those who were there and who came after. That has resulted for a long time in viewing the events in the late summer of 1862 as the “Maryland Campaign” when, in fact, Robert E. Lee had no intention of doing anything more in the Old Line State than marching through it to reach Pennsylvania.
The success of Lee’s “First Pennsylvania Campaign” would be the best chance during the Civil War for the Confederacy to win its independence. That it would prove an abject failure would all-but doom the would-be southern nation, and Frye pins that failure squarely on Harper’s Ferry.
Many Civil War students recognize Lee as a talented general, but he is often underestimated as a student of politics. Indeed, his great hero on whom he modeled himself was none other than George Washington (who, according to Frye, was a better politician than a general!). Lee knew he could not simply defeat the North on the battlefield; indeed, Lincoln had already called up an additional 300,000 men and planned to draft 300,000 more. Simple arithmetic showed the Confederacy on the losing side of the ledger.
But, every day a Confederate soldier trod the soil of the Keystone State would result in additional votes for Democrats in the upcoming congressional elections, and flipping the House of Representatives from Republican control would end the war simply because a united war-opposing Democratic party would cut off its funding.
Lee read the northern newspapers, and he knew Lincoln was being portrayed as the most failed president in United States history. He also knew the northern Congress and press had grown more fanatical in their war aims. And, every soldier in the Army of Northern Virginia was also keenly aware of that existential threat to their homes, their families and themselves.
Yet it defied all military logic that Harper’s Ferry was not evacuated by its 14,000 man garrison when Lee crossed the Potomac and positioned himself between them and Washington. He would wait four days…a lifetime in a military campaign…for the Yankees to do the logical thing so he could continue his march toward Pennsylvania with his supply line secure. Finally, he would draft Special Orders 191 and send two-thirds of his army to take care of the problem: Harper’s Ferry.
Frye has conducted an untold number of “staff rides” with serving army generals from one- through four-stars. Invariably they have all stood on Bolivar Heights looking across the Shenandoah River toward Loudon Heights and the Potomac River toward Maryland Heights, and they have all shaken their heads in disapproval of Lee’s time schedule. Indeed, Special Orders 191 called for Harper’s Ferry to be in Confederate hands by September 12th yet there was no southern soldier anywhere near the town on that day.
It would take until the 15th for the Yankees to surrender their largest number of troops until eclipsed nearly 80 years later during World War II on Bataan. Conventional wisdom has long-viewed the surrender as a disaster, but it had cost Lee a full week on his march toward Pennsylvania. A week!
Following the defeat of southern forces at South Mountain on September 14th, Lee wrote “the day has gone against us” as he called off the invasion and directed his troops backed toward Virginia. While this is often considered a reflection of the battle and the military situation, Frye insists Lee’s deeper meaning is the day had gone against the future of the Confederacy itself.
Without the stubbornness of Harper’s Ferry, there is no battle of Antietam on the 17th. Sharpsburg becomes little more than another small American town tramped through by armies of blue and gray enroute to a rendezvous in some other small American town that should have been in Pennsylvania.
The failure of the campaign is more than just the invasion and the military machinations. The failure of this campaign is the failure of the Confederacy and its bid for independence.
Frye concluded his presentation with the word “ruminate” which he learned in college many years ago. “Ruminate” on Harper’s Ferry and its impact on the outcome of the American Civil War and see if you don’t agree it was Lee’s…and the South’s…Achilles.
May 12th: “This Has Been a Glorious Victory…”: The Battle of South Mountain: An Overview
