This is the third of a seven-part series reviewing the recent annual Civil War Symposium produced by the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall in Carnegie, Pennsylvania.
In the early morning hours of April 12th, 1861, Captain George Jones received an order from General Pierre G.T. Beauregard to open his battery on Fort Sumter. Depending who tells the story, Captain Jones either gave the order or actually pulled the lanyard for the shot that opened the Civil War.
John Hoptak began his interest in the Civil War by studying his hometown heroes. The day before the firing began in South Carolina, hundreds of miles to the north a 
militia officer with the National Light Infantry in Pottsville would send a telegram to Secretary of War Simon Cameron. Lewis Martin knew that hostilities appeared imminent, and he offered his company to the service of the Union. Cameron would later certify the National Light Infantry as the first volunteer unit in the North.
Following his service in Charleston, James would become the lieutenant colonel of the Third South Carolina Battalion. Martin would join the First Defenders during their service in Washington before being commissioned as the major of the 96th Pennsylvania Infantry. 520 days later, both men would find themselves a long way from home on the slopes of South Mountain in Maryland.
Hoptak began his presentation by noting similarities between Robert E. Lee’s first and second invasions of the north:
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- In both 1862 and 1863, Lee’s armies would be widely separated as they embarked on independent missions.
- Lee would be surprised by the unexpected appearance of the Army of the Potomac, and he would need to move quickly to concentrate his troops to avoid being defeated in detail.
- The Confederates would be drawn into a battle they did not anticipate and which was not on their preferred ground.
- The armies would be locked in desperate combat, and both sides would suffer enormous casualties.
- On the day following the last serious combat, the foes would rest while staring warily at each other across a no man’s land.
- Lee would finally order a retreat away from the battlefield, but he would draw more Union blood before escaping to safety.
- The Union commanders…George McClellan at Antietam and George Meade at Gettysburg…would find themselves the subject of Abraham Lincoln’s anger and frustration (and opposed by a still-dangerous Lee).
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While it has long-been accepted that Gettysburg was a Union victory, and, to some, the first for the Army of the Potomac, the battle along the Antietam Creek has always been subject of debate as to who won. That debate has overshadowed the first Union victory and first defeat of Lee three days before on the slopes of South Mountain, a victory that George Meade proclaimed in a letter to his wife as “glorious.”
By the 13th of September Lee was becoming aware that his invasion plans were in jeopardy. Harper’s Ferry had not yet been reduced, and George McClellan was moving much more rapidly than anticipated when Lee first crossed the Potomac River into Maryland. By necessity, the southerners were forced to shift from offense to defense, and Lee would decide to hold the summit of South Mountain.
Aware that Lee’s army was divided, the normally cautious McClellan formulated a bold plan to quickly move across the mountains into Pleasant Valley and defeat Lee in detail. The key to his plan was in the hands of Sixth Corps commander William Franklin who was to force Crampton’s Gap and get in the rear of Confederate troops besieging Harper’s Ferry from Maryland Heights. This would relieve the garrison and dispose of a couple of southern divisions. Other Union troops would put the pressure on Fox’s and Turner’s Gaps to the north to help Franklin’s effort.
The work began well for the Yankees, but there was no follow-up to initial successes because supporting troops were too far behind. Although McClellan had urged speed, Franklin was hesitating. Certain he was outnumbered, he would report to McClellan that he could not take Crampton’s Gap that afternoon. Henry Slocum’s bayonet charge proved that wrong, but Franklin would not move any farther as night brought an end to the battle.
Lee realized he had suffered a defeat, and worked feverishly though the night to extricate his army from what he perceived to be a mortal danger. By 4 AM on the 15th, he would have all his men off South Mountain and on their way first to Keedysville and then behind the Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg. Only word from Stonewall Jackson that Harper’s Ferry was about to fall and the lack of aggression from William Franklin brought him any sense of relief. The armies would then continue to maneuver toward their next struggle two days later on Wednesday, September 17th.
By the time the sun had slipped beyond the hills on the 14th and the last shots had sputtered out, more than 5,000 soldiers in blue and gray were dead, wounded or missing on South Mountain. Among them was Major Lewis Martin who received his mortal wound just before 6 PM as the last bayonet charge finally broke the Confederate line at Crampton’s Gap. A mile or so to the north, Lieutenant Colonel George James, the man who directed the first shot against Fort Sumter 15 months before, also lay dead. Two men who literally orchestrated first acts of the Civil War would meet their fates at the same time and place far from home, hearth and loved ones each in a cause they thought right.
May 19th: Antietam: The Soldiers’ Experience
