Burnside at Antietam: Twice Refusing Command, Then Three Hours at One Bridge

Twice in the summer of 1862, Ambrose Burnside was offered command of the Union's Army of the Potomac, and twice he said no. Then, at Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, his men spent three hours trying to take one stone bridge — and when they finally crossed, the delay gave the Confederates just enough time.

Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. Credit: Library of Congress.

The command he didn't want

His successes in North Carolina earned Burnside promotion to major general of volunteers on March 18, 1862.

• After the Peninsula Campaign, when George McClellan failed to take Richmond, Burnside was offered command of the Army of the Potomac. He refused, citing his loyalty to McClellan and his own lack of military experience. McClellan stayed, and Burnside sent part of his corps to support John Pope's Army of Virginia.
• After Second Manassas (Bull Run), the Union debacle, he was offered it again and again refused — which helped persuade Lincoln to keep McClellan once the Army of Virginia was merged into the Army of the Potomac.

A wing taken apart

When the Maryland Campaign began, Burnside commanded the army's "Right Wing," the I and IX Corps. He did superbly at his first task, keeping the Confederates from advancing on Baltimore, and then fought at South Mountain. But as the army took position at Antietam, McClellan split the two corps, placing them at opposite ends of the Union line — in effect ending Burnside's role as wing commander.

Reluctant to give up that higher authority, Burnside kept passing his orders for the IX Corps — his usual command — through Gen. Jacob D. Cox, who had been acting corps commander, instead of giving them to the divisions himself. The clumsy arrangement slowed his attempts to carry out his orders to turn the Confederate right flank.

The bridge

McClellan planned to strike both ends of the Confederate line at once. As Union troops attacked the sunken road, Burnside began his assault on the Confederate right a mile and a half to the south.

When McClellan's inspector general came to confront him, Burnside bristled: "McClellan appears to think I am not trying my best to carry this bridge; you are the third or fourth one who has been to me this morning with similar orders."

The last two-hour delay was enough for A. P. Hill's Confederate division to arrive from Harpers Ferry and throw back the Union breakthrough. Burnside asked McClellan for reinforcements; McClellan refused, and the battle ended in a tactical stalemate.

Burnside's troops at the stone bridge, in a lithograph made after the war. Credit: Kurz & Allison, 1888, Library of Congress.

Command after all

Burnside was criticized for his slow response and for the delays in moving his men. Even so, Lincoln still believed he was the best choice to lead the Army of the Potomac, and when he relieved McClellan in November, Burnside was ordered to accept the command he had twice refused.

Sources

Based on "From the Peninsula to Maryland: Burnside's Role in the Summer of 1862," Antietam National Battlefield, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.