| TRAVELOGUE, PT.7: SATURDAY (Antietam, John Brown's farmhouse, Harper's Ferry, Antietam): Although Shiloh's human loss was greater than that of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War combined, its seemingly inexorable bloodshed was not nearly as catastrophic as the casualty count at Antietam. On this Saturday, it was difficult for me to get a bead on the limpid moans of the dead -- something that was easier to tap into in the ruins of Bryce's Crossroads and the Hornets Nest at Shiloh and sundry points along the Natchez Trace. Antietam is, in fact, a national park and as such its mood is hampered by a proliferation of foot traffic... I took a couple of laps around the park on my bike dodging Cub Scouts, SUVs, joggers with iPods and then said to myself that this blows. Knowing that neither Robert E. Lee's nor McClellan's troops were dropped onto the field of battle out of a helicopter -- i.e., they had to take some of the same sleepy roads that carom between Antietam Creek and the Potomac River -- I endeavored to explore those same lazy paths amongst the woods, thickets and rolling hills of Maryland.... I passed some white trash shanties and waved at the residents. The response was tepid, like the country-folk were still leery of interlopers. Because my blast out of Antietam and into the countryside was so spontaneous, after an hour or two on the bike I began running out of resources. I had no maps, not much water and no food. As I neared a country store, I came across a roadside marker that pointed to John Brown's farmhouse... I was flabbergasted.... Brown, of course, was the fiery abolitionist who organized a multi-racial band of armed terrorists, who stormed a US arsenal at Harpers Ferry -- an event forced the issue of the emancipation of the slaves in the popular conscience. The issue of freeing the slaves always had a co-efficient of states rights and these were the hot button topics that split the country and led to secession.... With that being said, it is important to note that Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist. While campaigning for president, he was not in favor of grandfathering in new states into slavery, but he never ran on a platform of freeing the slaves either. But his position on a republic vis-a-vis states' rights was enough to trigger secession by Southern States, and that meant war... and by Antietam, the North was getting their ass handed to them by a Secessionist Army of inferior numbers and firepower. Lincoln was apoplectic at the results, as he considered his generals to be craven lily-livers... the only General who gave him results was Grant and he was a drunk. Worse still, was that France and England were in dire need of cotton for their looms and mills. Because the South dominated the war, both France and England began to re-evaluate their position in not acknowledging the Confederate States of America as a viable republic and sovereign nation. When I went in the grocery store, as I paid for some PowerAde and Cheetos, I asked the clerk how far it was to the John Brown farmhouse.... she said, "The what?" I repeated my query and was greeted by a blank stare and a shrug. I told her, "You know, John Brown! The abolitionist who started the Civil War." That last bit of added information was no help to the perplexed clerk, so I rode off to find it by myself. The John Brown house was the real deal. It was spooky and it didn't take much imagination to hear the charged conversations that took place inside. I found a small pamphlet that showed where the farmhouse was in relation to Harpers Ferry road. "Fucking hell," I said to myself and palmed myself in the forehead like Archimedes in a bathtub. "That's the route the John Brown took to the arsenal." Not knowing the distance to Harpers Ferry (again, having left Antietam without any maps), but knowing that John Brown's gang rode it on horseback, I took off on the bike and retraced their steps to the terrorist act of civil disobedience that started the Civil War. These roads were sinuous, rollicking, tight, shaded by maple leafs and lonesome and my steed was far quieter than the gallop of a cadre of abolitionists hell-bent for human truth and justice.... I made the journey in an hour or so.... As I tooled around Harpers Ferry, the sun began its descent and I was in strange country with no lights on my bike. My rentacar and belongings were back at Antietam and I cycled furiously to get back to Antietam before the sun went down... Overall, the days' cycling routes were an exercise in triangulation, as I was now riding the roads that CSA General AP Hill took to battle. He hot-lapped his troops 17 miles from Harpers Ferry to Antietam, as Robert E. Lee's entire army faced extinction at the Potomac unless AP Hill's reserves could save the day... As I rode and tried to make time, I had to acknowledge my fatigue -- I'd put in quite a few miles that day, but I now put myself in the position and mindset of one of AP Hill's infantry, marching double-time in wool uniforms, anchored by guns, ammo and whatever provisions were available. Once back at Antietam, the sun was in its last moments. There was a calm over the battlefield and a refreshing lack of fanny packers, joggers and cub scouts. I took another pass around the park and began to document it. I stopped at the Sunken Road, where the Union's New York-based "Irish Brigade" and sundry compatriots died by the score. The bloodshed at the Sunken Road was unspeakable. The road served as perfect fortification for the Rebels to slaughter wave upon wave of marching bluecoats. Due to a miscommunication by Confederate commanders and the leviathan volume of Federal troops, the momentum and savagery switched uniforms... By a quick flanking maneuver that capitalized on the aforementioned Confederate communications cock-up, the Federals gained a position perpendicular to the rebel soldiers lined up and down the road and began blasting into them with a furor later seen by Chicago gangsters on St. Valentines Day.... when the shooting finally stopped, Southerners were stacked on the sunken road like cords of firewood.... Down the road and on the other side of the creek, however, the fortunes of the armies were reversed.... General Ambrose Burnside insisted his troops cross the creek at a bridge as narrow as an anorexic's hips... Wave upon wave of infantry was brutally repulsed by a mere 4 or 500 Georgians who had dug earthworks into the side of a hill that cast its shadow on the bridge itself. The bloodletting was finally staunched and upended, ironically by a collection of Pennsylvania and New York fighters who stormed the Confederate position only after tee-totalin' 51st Pennsylvania Colonel Edward Ferraro promised his men they could have their daily whiskey privileges restored... By the time the sunset, the number of dead, wounded and missing was legion... The Federals got it worse -- but they had more men to lose -- and the Confederate losses were sufficient enough for Lee to pull back across the Potomac and into Virginia. Tactically speaking, the Battle of Antietam was a draw, as both sides retreated. No matter: this was enough for Lincoln to consider Antietam a Northern victory -- a victory that he needed desperately for p.r. purposes. Immediately after -- and because of Antietam -- Lincoln played his trump card. He unveiled to the world his Emancipation Proclamation, which for all practical purposes would free the slaves. France and England could not sanction the South. Cotton or no cotton, they could not support the Secessionist Nation in a war that was now about human bondage. Ergo, without overseas economic support, Antietam doomed the Confederacy. But the two armies would tear each other to bits in unprecedented numbers for the next two years. But it could be argued that emancipation was a result of a dropped cigar wrapper... |