Miller's Cornfield

The Miller farm was established in the early 1800s by the Miller family, who cultivated the land for corn and other crops. The property remained in family hands at the time of the battle. Prior to the Battle of Antietam, Miller's Cornfield was typical agricultural land for Washington County, Maryland. Its fields provided natural cover and obstacles that influenced troop movements during the engagement. It extended eastward from the turnpike to the edge of another woodlot, now known as the East Woods. There were several other cornfields in the area where soldiers would fight during the battle, but only Miller's 30 acres became known as "the Cornfield."^[5]

In the early morning hours of September 17, Major GeneralJoseph Hooker's First Corps crossed Antietam Creek, moving south toward the Hagerstown Turnpike and pressing the Confederate defenders of Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's and Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's divisions. Around 6 a.m., the first Union brigade entered the Cornfield, that of Brigadier GeneralAbram Duryée, consisting of three regiments of New Yorkers and one of Pennsylvanians. The corn stood seven to eight feet tall, severely restricting visibility and making command and control nearly impossible once troops entered the field. Planted in narrow rows about two feet apart, the corn followed a checkerboard pattern typical of the era, with small mounds around each stalk that funneled movement along the rows. As a result, Duryee's troops were forced to advance straight down the rows, which fortunately aligned north to south, the direction of their movement, though the dense vegetation and irregular ground still made maintaining formation and cohesion extremely difficult.^[6]

Once they emerged from the Cornfield, they encountered withering fire from Georgians belonging to Brig. Gen. Alexander Lawton. The Union and Confederate troops stood around 250 yards apart, with little to no cover, exchanging volleys. Eventually, when the brigades of ColonelWilliam H. Christian and Brig. Gen. George Lucas Hartsuff failed to reinforce him, Duryée withdrew his brigade back through the Cornfield. In almost half an hour, around a third of the men in the brigade were killed or wounded, and the brigade would not take part in any further action during the battle.^[7][4]

كانت خسائر الكونفدرالية فادحة للغاية، مما دفع لوتون إلى نشر لواء العميد هاري تي. هايز ، المعروف شعبيًا باسم نمور لويزيانا ، وهي وحدة متنوعة تضم رجالًا أيرلنديين وكريول فرنسيين. وبينما كانوا يندفعون نحو حقل الذرة، تعرضوا لنيران مدفعية مدمرة من قوات الاتحاد قبل أن يصطدموا بعناصر من لواء هارتسوف بقيادة العقيد ريتشارد كولتر ، الذي تولى القيادة بعد إصابة هارتسوف. تمكن جنود لوتون من جورجيا ولويزيانا من طرد قوات الاتحاد من حقل الذرة، لكنهم سرعان ما وجدوا أنفسهم محاصرين بنيران من حقل الذرة أمامهم ومن الغابة شرقًا. تمكنوا من الفرار جنوبًا إلى بر الأمان، ولكن ليس قبل مقتل العقيد مارسيلوس دوغلاس ، قائد لواء لوتون الأول. قُتل أو جُرح جميع قادة الأفواج المنتمين إلى نمور لويزيانا، بينما بلغت نسبة الخسائر في اللواء بأكمله حوالي 61%. ^{[ 8 ]}

دخلت فرقة الحديد بقيادة العميد جون جيبون حقل الذرة تحت وابل متقطع من نيران مناوشة تابعة لفوج المشاة الحادي والعشرين من فرجينيا الكونفدرالي . انقسم فوج المشاة السادس من ويسكونسن ، حيث قاد الرائد روفوس داوز عدة سرايا ببطء عبر حقل الذرة الكثيف على اليسار، بينما قاد العقيد إدوارد إس. براغ السرايا المتبقية بسرعة أكبر على طول الأرض المكشوفة غرب طريق هاجرستاون بايك. تسبب اختلاف التضاريس في انقسام الفوج إلى جناحين منفصلين، مع صعوبة الرؤية والتنسيق بسبب المحاصيل الطويلة والأرض غير المستوية. عندما وصل جناح براغ إلى مرتفع بالقرب من الحافة الجنوبية لحقل الذرة، تعرض لوابل مفاجئ من نيران ألوية كونفدرالية مختبئة في الغابة غربًا. ولعدم قدرتهم على الصمود في مواقعهم المكشوفة على طول الطريق، أمر براغ بالانسحاب إلى سياج خشبي قريب على حافة حقل الذرة، حيث أعاد الرجال تنظيم صفوفهم تحت غطاء. ^{[ 6 ]}

سرعان ما تلقت فرقة المشاة المتطوعة الرابعة والثمانون من نيويورك ، والمعروفة أيضًا باسم فرقة بروكلين الرابعة عشرة، دعمًا من اللواء الحديدي. كان "الشياطين ذوو الأرجل الحمراء" منافسين لحلفائهم في اللواء الحديدي، إذ كانت فرقة بروكلين الرابعة عشرة تابعة للواء الحديدي الشرقي ، وقد اكتسبت هذا اللقب قبل أن يُطلق على رجال جيبون. بدأ جنود لوتون من جورجيا بالتراجع عندما تلقوا تعزيزات من المزيد من جنود لويزيانا بقيادة العميد ويليام إي. ستارك . ومثل النمور، تمكنوا هم أيضًا من إيقاف تقدم الاتحاد، ولكن بتكلفة باهظة من الخسائر، بما في ذلك ستارك نفسه. ^{[ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ]}

At about 7 a.m., Confederate reinforcements under Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood's division came to relieve Lawton's men, enraged that the battle had interrupted their baking of hoecakes in their bivouac beyond the West Woods, their first rations in three days. Furious and hungry, the hardened veterans of the division let out a rebel yell and pushed into the corn and formed a line from the Hagerstown turnpike to the East Woods. In response, Hooker sent two brigades of the Pennsylvania Reserves under Brig. Gen. George Meade to support the two Iron Brigades. The 1st Texas Infantry Regiment pursued retreating Union troops to the northern edge of the Cornfield, moving far ahead of their allies. With their rifles propped on the lower rails of a fence, a Pennsylvanian brigade waited until the Texans came through the curtain of smoke before firing a volley directly at them. Alone and surrounded by Federal musketry and shells, four of every five men in the 1st Texas were killed or wounded in around twenty minutes, with two entire companies annihilated. When asked where his division was, Hood said, "Dead in the field." In his seven regiments of around 2,300 men that fought in the Cornfield, around 60 percent were killed or wounded. Hooker's corps also suffered around 2,600 casualties, about a third of those sent into action.^[12][13][14]

The 1st Texas' spontaneous assault through the cornfield left the regiment unsupported and exposed, resulting in heavy casualties and the collapse of Hood's center. The attack, lacking coordination and strategic purpose, exemplified the broader issues plaguing Hood's assault, most notably, the failure to maintain command structure and anticipate Union reinforcements. Although Hood's division temporarily bolstered the Confederate line, his decision to press beyond initial defensive gains led to a costly and unsustainable counteroffensive. The breakdown in leadership, extending from regimental officers to Hood and ultimately to General Stonewall Jackson, contributed to the Confederate failure to hold ground in the Cornfield, with the 1st Texas suffering the highest casualty percentage of any regiment in the Civil War.^[15]

Maj. Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield's Twelfth Corps arrived from the northeast around 8 a.m. to help Hooker's severely depleted troops, although of the 7,200 men in the corps, only around half having previously experienced combat, with Mansfield only appointed corps commander two days before. While the sight of large, fresh regiments big enough to be brigades managed to break some of Hood's surviving soldiers, Mansfield insisted on his brigades staying in column rather than switching to line formation, which made them very susceptible to Rebel batteries. Mansfield was soon shot while mounted and died the following day. Leaderless, his corps fought on as much as they could, but could not break the stalemate. Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams took over for Mansfield while the brigade of Brig. Gen. George Henry Gordon clashed with yet more Rebel reinforcements, this time Brig. Gen. Roswell S. Ripley's brigade from Maj. Gen. Daniel H. Hill's division. Many of Ripley's soldiers carried smoothbore muskets that fired buck and ball, cartridges that carried a standard musket ball along with three buckshot. In such close proximity, the smoothbore fire was akin to shotgun loads. Ripley's brigade was reinforced by the brigades of Col. Alfred H. Colquitt and Col. Duncan K. McRae and, again, the Cornfield turned into a bloody stalemate.^[16][17][18]

This changed with the arrival of another Union division from Twelfth Corps, that belonging to Brig. Gen. George S. Greene, a descendant of American Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene. Greene flanked the Confederates in the Cornfield on their right, sending Colquitt's and McRae's troops running in disorder for the rear. Greene's Ohioans and Pennsylvanians pushed hard, emptying the Cornfield as well as the East Woods of any Confederate soldiers still hanging on. To reinforce the area beyond the Dunker Church, GeneralRobert E. Lee recalled Hood's exhausted division from the rear, despite the heavy losses it had sustained earlier in the Cornfield. Hood's men moved forward once again to secure the western edge of the West Woods. Union control of the ground between the East and West Woods, secured through their success in the Cornfield, once again proved strategically decisive. This position provided Greene's division with a stable base from which to launch its attack on the West Woods and allowed reinforcements to be brought forward quickly to support any advances. When Greene's men were driven back, the same ground offered crucial depth that protected the retreating division during its most vulnerable moment. It also helped absorb and weaken Longstreet's only counterattack by drawing Confederate forces deep into territory they were unable to support effectively. The continued Union hold on the Cornfield and its surrounding area remained a significant advantage.^[19]

By 9 a.m., the Cornfield and the rest of the battlefield east of the Hagerstown turnpike belonged to the Union. As Hooker rode south of the Cornfield on his white charger, he too was wounded, shot through the foot by a Confederate marksman.^[20][21]