Burnside's Bridge: The Climactic Struggle of the 2nd and 20th Georgia at Antietam Creek.By Phillip Thomas Tucker Thomas Tucker may refer to:
abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-8117-0199-9.) Burnside's Bridge Burnside's Bridge is a landmark on the Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Crossing over Antietam Creek, the bridge played a key role in the September 1862 Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War when a small number of Confederate soldiers from over Antietam Creek Antietam Creek is a tributary of the Potomac River located in south central Pennsylvania and western Maryland in the United States, a region known as Hagerstown Valley. The creek became famous as a focal point of the Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War. is perhaps the best-known landmark on a Civil War battlefield not located in the immediate vicinity of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Gettysburg is a borough 38 miles (68 km) south by southwest of Harrisburg in Adams County, Pennsylvania, USA, of which it is the county seatGR6. As of the 2000 census, the borough's population was 7,490. . There, on September 17, 1862, two Georgia regiments, taking advantage of terrain superbly suited for defense, frustrated the efforts of General Ambrose E. Burnside's Ninth Corps to cross the Antietam for five hours. In doing so, they bought precious time for the last Confederate reinforcements to arrive on the battlefield from Harpers Ferry Harpers Ferry, town (1990 pop. 308), Jefferson co., easternmost W Va., at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers; inc. 1763. The town is a tourist attraction, known for its history and its scenic beauty. John Brown's seizure of the U.S. and helped prevent the Maryland campaign The Maryland Campaign, or the Antietam Campaign, of September 1862 is widely considered one of the major turning points of the American Civil War. Confederate General Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North was repulsed by Major General George B. from becoming a disaster of monumental proportions for Robert E. Lee's army, which could well have dealt an early death blow to the Confederacy Confederacy, name commonly given to the Confederate States of America (1861–65), the government established by the Southern states of the United States after their secession from the Union. . The battle for what was once known as the Rohrbach Bridge has, of course, hardly been neglected by historians of the Civil War. Both Stephen W. Sears Stephen Ward Sears (b. July 27, 1932) is an American historian specializing in the American Civil War. A graduate of Lakewood High School and Oberlin College, Sears attended a journalism seminar at Radcliffe-Harvard. and James V. Murfin, for example, provided solid accounts of Ninth Corps's operations at Antietam in their popular studies of the Maryland campaign. In Burnside's Bridge Phillip Thomas Tucker offers a blow-by-blow account of the fight for the lower Antietam, the men of the Ninth Corps who fought for it, and the men from Georgia who defended it, one that is far more detailed than either Muffin or Sears could have hoped to provide in their efforts to chronicle the entire campaign in one book. Although Tucker's work is, on the whole, balanced and accurate, there are points open to dispute. For example, Tucker, like many historians, accepts the validity of the not-always-reliable Confederate officer Henry Kyd Douglas's comment that the Federals "might have waded [the Lower Antietam] that day without getting their waist belts wet in any place" (quoted on p. 61). In doing so, Tucker badly underestimates how formidable an obstacle the creek actually was. As the slaughter of the force that one enterprising Connecticut captain led into the Antietam demonstrated, the creek's actual depth, slippery bottom, and high banks made fording it exceeding difficult, if not impossible, under enemy fire and anything but the viable alternative to storming the bridge that Tucker believes it was. Tucker is undoubtedly correct when he concludes that Robert Toombs's Georgians performed heroically and that General Burnside did not cover himself with glory at Antietam. However, it is not necessary to discount the difficulty of the task the latter faced on the morning and afternoon of September 17 to sustain these conclusions. Still, in the final analysis, Tucker deserves considerable praise for his efforts. Drawing upon a truly impressive range of primary and secondary sources, he has produced a thorough and highly readable narrative of the battle for Burnside's Bridge that will appeal to anyone with an interest in this aspect of the bloodiest day in American military history. ETHAN S. RAFUSE Merriam, Kansas |
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