Short Pitch
It is called Antietam
It is in the vein of A Bridge Too Far
It is like All Quiet On The Western Front meets Gettysburg
It follows the common Johnny Reb soldiers of The Army of Northern Virginia
And the common Billy Yank soldiers of the Army of the Potomac
As they fight to survive and win a war for either national independence or national unity.
Problems arise when Johnny Reb’s army is caught spread out and Billy Yank’s army is sent to battle him in head-on, piecemeal attacks.
Now together their individual courage, bravery and humanity will combine to produce dozens of human-interest stories on the Bloodiest Day in American History.
The idea came to me when reading Antietam: The Soldier’s Battle by John Michael Priest which follows individual soldiers during the battle instead of generals.
A set piece would be when the fighting is dying down around dark. Neither side has gained any ground. Thousands of bodies, wounded, dead, dying, litter the field. Slowly Confederate troops emerge from their lines and administer sips of water from their canteens to wounded Union soldiers. Union soldiers crawl out of their positions to bandage and rescue wounded Confederates. In the West Wood General “Stonewall” Jackson directs North Carolinians to treat wounded Minnesotans. An unofficial truce is declared in the Bloody Lane. In the cornfield, Yankees and Rebels talk about their desire for peace. At one Union field hospital, everyone looks up as from the darkness a blind Confederate soldier emerges carrying a wounded Union soldier who is serving as his eyes.
Target audiences would be teenagers, men and women, 20-80, military buffs, history nerds, war and action movie fans, military service members and their families, military veterans, and their families, students of the American Civil War, historical reenactors, and educators.
Audiences would want to see it for its themes of courage, valor, bravery, determination, brotherhood, suspense, edge-of-your-seat action, political intrigue, humanity in a dark time, and individual human-interest stories that honor the common soldiers during an epic historical event.
Today’s historical subject I would like to recommend as a movie is the Battle of Sharpsburg, more widely known as Antietam. Books I have consulted for this post include Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle by John M. Priest, from Oxford University Press, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam by Stephen W. Sears, from Mariner Books, When Hell Came to Sharpsburg: The Battle of Antietam and its Impact on the Civilians Who Called it Home by Steven Cowie, from Savas Beatie, The Bloodiest Day: The Battle of Antietam by Ronald H. Bailey, from Time Life Education, Burnside’s Bridge: Antietam by John Cannan, from Pen & Sword Publishing, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam by James M. McPherson, The Bivouacs of the Dead: The Story of Those Who Died at Antietam and South Mountain by Steven R. Stotelmyer, from Toomey Press, and Decisions at Antietam: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle (Command Decisions in America’s Civil War) and Decisions of the Maryland Campaign: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation (Command Decisions in America’s Civil War) by Michael S. Lang, from University of Tennessee Press.
The Battle of Antietam is one of the greatest anti-war movies never made. September 17, 1862, was a day of unending, unadulterated violence that ended with nothing accomplished due to the ineptness of officers except the killing and maiming of nearly 23,00 men. Then the draw is claimed as a victory and exploited by politicians for a cynical diplomatic ploy. If done right, a film about a bloodletting slugfest along a Maryland creek called Antietam could be held up there with anti-war classics like the original All Quiet On The Western Front, Paths of Glory, and Come and See. And a reminder to Americans that we never want to be that divided again.
My interest in Antietam (Sharpsburg to us Southerners) as a movie came about after reading Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle by John Michael Priest, a book that deserves a place among military classics like We Were Soldiers…And Young by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, 1776 by David McCullough, and the works of Cornelius Ryan. Unlike most books on the “Late Unpleasantness Between the States,” Priest’s work does not get bogged down in the macro view of commanders, commands, and maneuvers or, especially in the case of Antietam, national politics, but instead puts us right in the action as it follows individual regiments and companies and soldiers throughout the harrowing day of September 17th, 1862. He writes with a pace that keeps the reader engaged and, in my case, creates a visually moving picture. The dozens of micro-level human interest stories that Priest presents, both Confederate, Union, civilian, and even Clara Barton, would in an individualistic narrative-driven world make it ideal for an American Civil War film that would stand out from a category that often contains idealistic history lessons rather than entertaining personal stories. Like Randall Wallace’s We Were Soldiers, it could send the message “Hate the War, Love the Warrior.”
A film about Sharpsburg could do for the War Between the States what Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List did for the Holocaust and Saving Private Ryan did for World War II or Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ did for the Crucifixion Story. If I were the director, I would not hold back in portraying the violence and gore that survivors recorded about their experiences. Yes, it would be rated R for persistent strong, bloody, graphic war violence and grisly and disturbing images, all based on the writings of survivors. A private in the 1st Delaware reported seeing a private who had just lost his eyesight begging for someone to shoot him. A lieutenant takes out his pistol, puts it to the private’s head, and pulls the trigger. No sooner had the lieutenant begun to justify his actions than his own head was taken off by a cannonball (Private Henry J. Savage, quoted in Lee’s Terrible Swift Sword by Richard Wheeler, page 124). If I were the director, most of the background artists would be stuntmen because I would get as close as possible to showing nearly one in every four men who fought that day becoming a casualty, falling from bullets, tossed about by explosions, or torn apart by canister shot. If I were the producer, a good portion of the budget would go toward theatrical blood and bullet-hit squibs. The VFX department would be called upon to give the footage a red tint because veterans remembered the air turning that color from the amount of men being killed at once. Another said that the very landscape turned red (David L. Thompson, “With Burnside At Antietam”). This would not be for shock value or morbid love of gore, but to honor the men who fought there because it would all be based on what they wrote about the battle. And a reminder that we as a nation never want to be that divided again.
But for now, that is only one of my many dreams. So, here’s a basic idea of how I might write a screenplay about The Battle of Antietam.
ACT I
Beginnings – Setting the National Stage, The Battle of Second Manassas (Pages 1-10)
Opening title cards over a burning map of America explains that a war supposed to last only a couple of months has lasted over a year, taking over a hundred thousand lives. In June 1862 George B. McClellan, the Young Napoleon, nearly captured the Confederate capitol of Richmond before being driven back in the Seven Days Battle by Robert E. Lee.
On the diplomatic scene, the Confederacy’s cotton diplomacy to deny cotton to France and Europe to coerce them into recognizing their independence and intervening militarily appears to be working. 80,000 British textile workers are unemployed.
A desperate President Abraham Lincoln removes McClellan and calls John Pope, winner of an astonishing victory at Island 10 in the Mississippi Valley, to fight Lee in Virginia. Pope issues the infamous Order #5 for his army “to subsist upon the country in which their operations are carried on.” Some Union troops see this as a license to plunder.
The first scene is a company of Union troops plundering a farm, an example of how northern Virginia is denuded of food as its infrastructure is destroyed. An old slave stands looking around bewildered at the upheaval caused by war, a representation of the Union Army’s indifference toward slaves early in the war. A couple of Union soldiers chase some chickens or a cow, or more sinisterly to represent slaves being seen as contraband by the military establishment, a slave girl through a small patch of woods. Suddenly before them is a panorama of battle.
Superimposed on the Screen: Battle of Second Manassas Junction – August 30, 1862 – Longstreet’s Attack
During the climax of the Second Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run), regiments that will play major parts at Antietam are introduced. The 18th Georgia. The 12th Massachusetts. The 2nd and 20th Georgia and other Georgians under politician-turned-general Robert Toombs. John Bell Hood’s brigade of Texans, including the 1st Texas and 4th Texas.
The Union army retreats from the battlefield and sends up a dust cloud that rises to meet a sky in which storm clouds gather over Washington, D. C. Then there is a voiceover of President Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet discussing the Union Army’s casualties.
Predicament – Discussion of the Emancipation Proclamation (Pages 10-15)
Lincoln and his cabinet discuss the war measure of emancipating the slaves in the Confederate states. Several months of debate are encapsulated in a few minutes. Emancipating the slaves would deprive the Confederacy of manpower, and cripple their war effort. Confederate soldiers on the front would be diverted to plantations to guard against runaways, and uprisings. It would also cause Britain and France, teetering on economic depression due to the cotton shortage, to not recognize the Confederacy as a nation lest they be seen as condoning slavery.
However, Secretary of State William Seward advises that Lincoln wait on announcing the Emancipation Proclamation until it can be supported by military success. Otherwise, he says, Europe would see it “as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help…our last shriek, on the retreat.”
Lincoln agrees and symbolically puts the proclamation away in a drawer.
Inciting Incident – Robert E. Lee Launches Maryland Invasion. McClellan Returns (Pages 15-20)
Robert E. Lee’s soldiers have diarrhea from eating green corn and green apples. Others straggle during marches due to sore feet from marching without shoes. More regiments and characters that will play a part at Antietam are introduced: the 27th North Carolina, John B. Gordon, The 6th Alabama, Brig. Gen. Lawrence O’Bryan Branch, Brig. Gen. George B. Anderson, Brig. Gen. Roger Pryor.
Lee decides to invade Maryland to keep the forward momentum of his victorious army going, to give north Virginia a rest from war, to find supplies and provisions for his men, and to liberate what many see as a pro-Southern state. The army fords the Potomac on September 4, as one of liberation, singing “Maryland, My Maryland.” For some soldiers, it is their first chance to have a bath in months. Other soldiers see it as an invasion for which they did not enlist and remain on the Virginia side of the river, reducing Lee’s ranks by around 10,000.
In Washington, D. C., Lincoln and the Army of the Potomac reacts to the invasion. Lincoln removes Pope from command and offers the assignment to Ambrose Burnside, who turns it down due to loyalty to George B. McClellan. Lincoln reluctantly gives command to McClellan. “Little Mac” is popular with the soldiers, so many greet this news with cheers and waving of hats. The Army of the Potomac departs Washington on September 7th, moving at McClellan’s characteristic slowness.
More Union regiments and characters are introduced. The 3rd Wisconsin, the 59th New York, 15th Massachusetts, Maj. Gen. Joseph K. F. Mansfield, Maj. Gen. Israel B. Richardson, Brig, Gen. Francis C. Barlow. There are a good many fresh recruits and green untrained troops, like the 16th Connecticut.
Second Thoughts – Harper’s Ferry Not Evacuated, Lee Divides His Army (Pages 20-25)
Lee’s campaign is not going as he hoped. Many Marylanders in the area turn out to be either indifferent or hostile to his army of smelly, lice-covered soldiers in tattered uniforms. The fact that two generals, A. P. Hill and John Bell Hood, are both under military arrest does not help the Confederate image. The campaign turns into a giant foraging expedition. (A Note for the Costume Department: The Louisiana artillerymen of the Washington Artillery find a supply of beaver fur top hats and spend the rest of the campaign dressed “as our fathers were”).
Lee, who has to ride in an army ambulance with his hands bandaged after Traveller threw him, sees his plans further confounded when General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States Henry “Old Brains” Halleck decides to leave 12,000 Union troops at Harpers Ferry under Dixon S. Miles.
Now with a sizable Union presence west of his rear, Lee calls off his march to the fertile Cumberland Valley. He divides the Army of Northern Virginia into two forces of five divisions. One force under Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson will take three divisions 25 miles west to capture Harpers Ferry. James Longstreet will take the remaining two divisions 25 miles northwest and cover Jackson’s rear at Boonesboro. D. H. Hill will form the rearguard. Lee gives these instructions in Special Order 191.
Climax of Act One – Siege of Harpers Ferry Begins, Lost Order Found (Pages 25-30)
Jackson’s siege of Harpers Ferry begins September 12th. His opponent Miles is no match for him and abandons the heights around the town. Jackson soon has his artillery on the heights and begins firing down into the Union position.
Meanwhile, D. H. Hill retreats from Frederick County. One of the Union soldiers who quickly occupies the area is Corporal Barton W. Mitchell of the 27th Indiana Volunteers. September 13th turns out to be a lucky day for him when he finds three cigars. It proves luckier for the Army of the Potomac that the paper the cigars were rolled up in is Special Order 191. The paper is determined to be authentic and sent to McClellan.
“Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee,” declares the Young Napoleon. “ I will be willing to go home.” And he his army out with uncharacteristic speed to catch Lee’s divided one
ACT II
First Obstacle – Battle of South Mountain, Harpers Ferry Siege Continues (Pages 30-35)
Lee is surprised at the speed with which the army under his old friend McClellan is marching toward his soldiers. He orders A. P. Hill and John Bell Hood released from arrest. While Jackson is besieging Harpers Ferry, he has little choice but to offer a delaying action at South Mountain. Here Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman, the Zouaves of 9th New York Volunteers, John Gibbon’s Brigade, including an artillery sergeant, the 6th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, including Captain Werner von Bachelle and his Newfoundland dog that can salute, are introduced on the Union side. On The Confederate side, the 15th Virginia Infantry Regiment and 10th Georgia Infantry Regiment are introduced.
The Battle of South Mountain is really three fights as Union troops attack uphill against heavily entrenched Confederate troops at three different locations – Fox’s Gap, Turner’s Gap, and Crampton’s Gap. During the fighting at Turner’s Gap Col. Edward S. Bragg of Gibbon’s Black Hat Brigade orders his men to lie down, let the unit behind them fire over them, then advance forward. Despite fierce fighting on the part of the Black Hats’ and other Yankees and 2,325 casualties, only Crampton’s Gap is in their possession at the end of the day. However, Lee has succeeded in delaying the Union advance long enough for his scattered army to reunite and withdraw during the night, leaving behind 2,685 men, including 800 captured.
Rising Tension – Harpers Ferry Siege Ends, Lee Offers Battle At Antietam, McClellan Accepts (Pages 35-40)
On September 15th Colonel Dixon Miles surrenders Harper’s Ferry and the 13,000 men under his command to Jackson. Then he is killed when someone who has not received word of the truce fires a cannon. Jackson leaves A. P. Hill to take care of the Yankee prisoners and over a thousand escaped slaves while he marches his men to join Lee and Longstreet who have camped next to a stream named Antietam.
While Lee’s back to the Potomac River is military unsound since there is only one ford, Boteler’s, for his army to retreat across, the ground facing east toward McClellan’s advancing army is excellent for defense. Ridges and undulating farmland provide a natural fortress from which he can fire down on the Union army as it crosses the only three bridges over the creek. If he can beat a Union army here on “Northern soil” it just might be the victory to gain European recognition of Southern Independence and give Northern Peace Democrats a victory during the 1862 elections.
McClellan reaches the area after being slowed at South Mountain. He has 70,000 men, twice as many as Lee. Yet he bides his time, skirmishing on the evening of the 16th. This allows Jackson and most of his men time to arrive from Harpers Ferry and move into position. Hood’s Texans also arrive and are hungry.
McClellan comes up with a simple plan for battle on the 17th. Strike the Confederate left flank hard with the I, II, and XII Corps and the right with the IX Corps under Burnside that pressures the thin center rebel line into splintering.
(A Note On Script Page Number Count: In a perfect world Antietam and every other War Between The States battle and even campaigns, would by now be a miniseries. In an ideal world, The Battle Sharpsburg would be a miniseries that plays out in real-time, each episode representing an actual hour of the fight. The battle is easy to show chronically since it is made up of four sectional fights – The Cornfield, The Sunken Road, The Narrow Bridge, and The Harpers Ferry Road – that occur in succession instead of simultaneously. This allows the script to focus on one fight at a time. Scenes of orders and movements that set in motion later fights could be edited in between earlier fights during postproduction. I think the closest a film could get to representing the real time of the battle would be to have every five pages representing 30 minutes. While it might be possible for every section of the battle to be portrayed with 5 pages for every 30 minutes, from its initial skirmishes to the hottest action to the reorganization of the lines and units involved as the fighting comes to an end, the script would be too long, stretching to over 4 hours. So, for now, I have 5 pages representing approximately every thirty minutes of the battle that lasted from 5:40 am to a little before 7:00 pm, 14 hours and 30 minutes, which equals 175 pages.)
Second Obstacle – The Cornfield, The West Woods The East Woods 5:30 am – 10:00 am (Pages 40-90)
The fighting begins around 5:30 a.m. as cannons open a battle that will become known as “Artillery Hell.” Leading the Union advance is Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s I Corps. Hooker hopes to outflank Lee on his left and catch Confederates at the center of the Sunken Road in enfilade fire – shooting straight down diagonal rows of Southern soldiers. His troops are in a quarter-mile line with West Woods on its right, the East Woods on its left, and the Dunker Church, a place of worship for peace-loving Germans, as their center target. As they advance, they pass into D. R. Miller’s fertile cornfield.
The Cornfield section of the battle has produced a nearly 400-page book called The Cornfield: Antietam’s Bloody Turning Point by David A. Welker, Disaster in the West Woods: General Edwin V. Sumner and the II Corps at Antietam by Marion V. Armstrong, Miller Cornfield at Antietam: The Civil War’s Bloodiest Combat by Philip Thomas Tucker and Texans at Antietam: A Terrible Clash of Arms, September 16-17, 1862 by Joe Own, Philip McBride, Joe Allport and even a website, AntietamsCornfield.Com. It alone could be a movie.
Hooker’s men are initially repulsed by troops sent by Jackson under Brigadier General John R. Jones. Louisianans from the brigades of William E. Starke and Harry T. Hays emerge from the West Woods and outflank the Yankees along the Hagerstown Road. Then Hooker’s men return and drive them out of the field. Jones is wounded and command falls to Starke. He grabs the flag of a retreating regiment and tries to rally it. The Black Hats of Gibbon’s Brigade fire at him. He falls with four mortal wounds. In the first thirty minutes, Hooker has devastated the Confederate brigades of Jones, Hays, Alexander Lawton, and James L. Kemper, forcing them to retire to the rear. By 7:00 am, 32 percent of the 13,500 men engaged are casualties.
Now only the brigade of Roswell S. Ripley, who is wounded, is holding off the Union advance that is passing the Dunker Church. Jackson calls upon Hood’s Texans to take back the cornfield. Many of the Texans have just settled down for their first meal in a while so after stuffing their mouths with food on their march to the point of battle, take out their anger on the Yankees. As they charge into the cornfield, the division splits apart and begins fighting two different engagements on different ends of the field. The First Texas “slips the bridle” and charges 150 yards ahead of the rest of the Confederate line. Pennsylvanian troops are lying in wait behind a rail fence. They rise and open fire at no more than thirty yards. The 1st Texas loses eight color bearers before finally retreating.
Sometime between 7:30-8:00 a.m. Joseph Mansfield’s Twelfth Corps, which was supposed to have supported Hooker at the start of the attack, arrives in the field. Many of the men are inexperienced, including Mansfield who has been in command of the corps all of two days. Concerned his green troops might panic under fire, he marches them ten ranks deep instead of two. They become perfect targets for Confederates firing buck-and-ball cartridges that have the effect of a shotgun blast. One of those wounded by these blasts is Corporal Mitchell who had discovered Lee’s lost order.
Confederate cannons still pour their deadly loads on the advancing bluecoats. Union Brigadier General William A. Christian, a veteran of many engagements, starts giving strange commands that make no sense to his men. ”Forward! By the right flank! Left oblique!” Then he dismounts his horse and, whimpering about how he cannot stand the shells, runs and hides in the woods.
Meanwhile, Captain von Bachelle is killed. The rest of his 6th Wisconsin Infantry retreats from the Cornfield. Except for his Newfoundland dog, which remains at his side.
The Union troops are fed in battle in piecemeal attacks while Confederates are able to move reserves back and forth to meet these attacks. Four times the Confederates are driven from the high ground, the line almost breaks, and four times they hold while Union units are used up as they attack unsupported over the same ground for three hours. It is estimated that the line of battle passes back and forth across Miller’s Cornfield fourteen times. Muskets, canteens, and haversacks are shattered and torn apart by the fire. An artillery sergeant in Gibbon’s Brigade receives a disfiguring facial wound. General Hooker is wounded.
The Union Second Corps, under Edwin V. Sumner, who has a son-in-law on Lee’s staff, does not cross Antietam Creek until 8:30 a.m. And even then, only the division of Major Gen. John Sedgwick and part of Brig. Gen. William French’s men participate in the attack. Sumner decides to attack what he thinks is Lee’s flank by wheeling to the left, occupying the West Woods, and overwhelming the Southerners’ position to the south.
By 7:30 a.m. Lee and his men are in desperate straits. In a little over two hours, twelve of the thirteen Confederate infantry brigades on the northern end of the field are effectively out of action as 30% of the ten thousand Confederates engaged are now casualties. Lee pulls Walker’s Division and Anderson’s Brigade from the right flank.
Leading the Union attack into the West Wood is Sedwick’s Division. Like the Texans in the cornfield, it becomes separated. Soon his men are mired in a pocket of Confederate fire from the front, left flank, and rear. The den of battle is so loud voices cannot be heard and commands must be given by hand signals.
Between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. Confederate general Jubal Early deploys his men in the West Woods, splits his forces, and holds off the Union attacks from two different directions. This forces Sedgwick to make a disastrous flank encounter.
During an advance of Virginian regiments, the 15th Massachusetts Regiment is caught between a Confederate assault and friendly fire from the 59th New York who are firing point blank in their backs. Only the personal command of General Sumner stops the frenzied New Yorkers from killing more Massachusettsans. In a film, this could call for an arching shot as the camera on a crane or gib twirls around the 15th Massachusetts’ position and back and forth between those of the 59th New York and the Virginians.
General Mansfield tries to stop a similar incident of friendly fire. The soldiers say the men he thinks are Union are really Confederates. “Yes, yes, you’re right,” the elderly general says right before he is shot by a rebel bullet. He’s the highest-ranking officer on either side to be killed that day which sees many officers killed, wounded, and mentally broken.
John Sedgwick is also wounded, leaving the field with minie balls in his body. His division is routed out of the West Woods with a loss of 40%. In less than 20 minutes over 2,100 men had become casualties. One of those treating these casualties, despite standoffish male doctors, is “The Angel of the Battlefield” Clara Barton. When the hospital runs out of bandages, she begins using corn husks to wrap wounds.
In a film the closeness of combat and speed of volleys in the woods and cornfield can be shown with wide angle lenses, rack focus, and over the shoulder, speedy push-in and push-out, whip pan, zooms, and crash zoom shots. These can be shot with cable cameras and drone technology that float over the shooting locations to save time and help with continuity by reducing the number of times the crew would have to “turn around” over the set.
By 9:30 a.m. Lee has committed all available forces to protect his left flank. Nine thousand men have been committed into the maelstrom. But the momentum of the Union attack has stalled, forcing a stalemate. The First and Twelfth Corps are knocked out of the fight for the rest of the day. Lee’s left flank is saved.
But at what cost?
According to the website Antietam Cornfield, the 4th Texas suffered a casualty rate of 53.5%, The 10th Georgia lost 84 out of 148 men (56.7%), the 18th Georgia, 101 out of 176 men (57.3%), the 15th Virginia, 75 out of 128 men (58.5%), the 59th New York, 224 of 381 (58.7%), The 3rd Wisconsin, over 200 out of 340 (58.8%), the 27th North Carolina (61.2%), and The 12th Massachusetts, 224 out of men 334 (67%).
It is not without exaggeration that when Lee asks Hood where his division is, he replies “Dead on the field.” On just twenty acres of corn and wood, 13,860 men in both blue and gray were casualties.
And it wasn’t even noon yet.
Rising Obstacles, Rising Tension – The Sunken Road 9:30 am – 1:00 pm. (Pages 90- 120)
The first attacks upon the Confederate center at a tranquil country lane called the Sunken Road begin at 9:30 when II Corps Commander Edwin V. Sumner orders the 5,000-man strong division of William H. French to attack. By 10:30 fighting has shifted from the Cornfield to what would become known as Bloody Lane as another 4,00 men under Israel B. Richardson, including the famous Irish Brigade, have joined in the assault.
Here is another example of why Antietam is ideal for a movie. Since Lee has sent so many units to fight on the left flank, the center of his line is stretched taut, creating the Rising Tension existential to the middle of a three-act structure. Tensing his line at the Sunken Road and opposing the charging Yankees are the men of Richard H. Anderson’s Division, Alabamians under Robert E. Rhodes, and North Carolinians under George B. Anderson. 6,700 Confederates are packed into a section of road a half mile long and two hundred yards deep. Many are tired from having marched all night from Harpers Ferry. In a film the fighting in this area could best be captured with jibs and cable cameras.
George B. Anderson is killed, and Major General Richard H. Anderson is wounded. Brigadier General Roger Pryor is in command and in over his head. He leads a piecemeal counterattack into the Sunken Lane. Only two of his five brigades make it. Four supporting brigades are soon crammed into the crowded road. Chaos reigns as units mix up and officers are killed. The confusion of the officers like Pryor could be captured with random movement and Snorricams, cameras attached to the actors.
Sharpsburg, MD by Robert Andrew Johnson
For ninety minutes French throws three successive waves of brigade-sized attacks against the Sunken Road. Union troops march past ruined barns and houses set aflame to deny hiding places to snipers. Thomas F. Meagher of the Irish Brigade is wounded. The Confederates counterattack, but then retreat to the safety of the road when they realize they are outnumbered. Union troops crawl up a crest above the lane, unload a volley into the Confederates below them, pull back, and repeat. The Confederates pile up fence rails and even dead bodies for protection.
Nowhere is anyone safe on the battlefield. General Richardson has stopped for water while retiring to a safe distance when a shell fragment strikes him in the shoulder, mortally wounding him. Company F, 49th Pennsylvania is held in reserve for most of the day near the Cornfield. Most of the fighting is over in that sector when a random cannonball lands in their ranks, wounding their 13-year-old drummer boy, Charles E. King.
In the Sunken Road, now quickly becoming a Bloody Lane, Captain John B. Gordon of the 6th Alabama is hit five times, twice in the right leg, once in the left arm and another in his shoulder. He urges his men to remain “until the sun goes down or victory is won!” Then he is hit in the face. He falls forward into his hat. If a bullet had not already shot a hole through the hat, he would have drowned in his own blood.
Then New Yorkers under Francis C. Barlow capture a knoll at the end of the Sunken Road and catch the Confederates in a raking fire. The 6th Alabama holding the center of the line experiences the enfilade fire and is commanded to throw their right flank and hold the road. However, the lieutenant colonel of the 6th Alabama is confused and gives the order “About face; forward march.” The other regiments think the order is for them as well and soon the whole of Rhode’s Brigade is retreating out of the Sunken Road in confusion as Union troops who have gained the high ground rain fire down upon them.
Rhodes is in the rear attending to a wounded aide and realizes only too late what is transpiring. Only a last-minute desperate stand by Confederate artillery and some infantrymen stopped the Union Army from completely splitting the Army of Northern Virginia in two.
Lee hastily puts together a last-ditch defense against the coming Federal assault on his center. While overseeing a flimsy line of cavalry and stragglers, Lee is asked by a begrimed artilleryman if they are being sent back into the fight. It takes the general a moment to realize it is his son, Robert E. Lee, Jr. “Yes, my son,” he tells him. “I may need you to help drive those people away.” [A Note For the Cinematographer: Throughout the film, I would like Lee to be shot with extreme wide lenses, from a low angle with tilt-ups and other “hero shots” that distance him from others around him. For his meeting with Lee, Jr. I would like the cinematography team and editors to construct a scene from closeups and other intimate angles that jar the audience into realizing that this near mystical figure that still inspires love and hatred was merely human.]
But “those people” never come. A battle that lasted for three hours has produced nothing besides 5,000 casualties. Because Sumner has held back the VI Corps under William B. Franklin. He reasons that even if Franklin’s troops succeed in their attack, they will have no support from other Union elements. In case of a Confederate counterattack, they would have to fall back.
An upset Franklin goes to McClellan, who agrees with Sumner. McClellan believes that Lee has thousands of troops hidden from view. He wants to see how Burnside’s attack on the Confederate right goes before launching another attack.
Rising Obstacles – Burnsides Bridge 9:00 -1:00 (120-140 pages)
One of the reasons that Antietam would make a great movie is that the land literally rises like the rising beat points of a script as it moves from the first two sections of the battle and onto the third, the bluffs overlooking the Lower Bridge. One of the most iconic landmarks of the Antietam Battlefield, this narrow stone bridge is now known as Burnside’s Bridge because he was in command of this portion of the field. Lesser known about the battle for the bridge are the 125 men of the 2nd Georgia and the 225 men of the 20th Georgia who defended the high ground just beyond it and saved Lee’s army from annihilation on September 17th. Their story deserves to be told like the stand of John Buford’s cavalry at Gettysburg. It could be its own movie based on Burnside’s Bridge: The Climactic Struggle of the 2nd and 20th Georgia at Antietam Creek by Phillip Thomas Tucker.
Under the politician General Toombs, they held the heights above Antietam Creek for eight hundred and seventy-five yards, a man placed every eight feet. They took cover behind rocks and outcroppings or shinnied up trees to fire down upon the blue-clad troops crossing the bridge. Two batteries covered the Georgians from a ridge five hundred yards west of the bridge. Another regiment, the 50th Georgia, patrolled the creek from Yankees looking to cross the fords. Since so many brigades had been pulled from the right early in the battle to support Lee’s left flank, the Georgians were all that opposed Burnside’s IX Corps, an enemy four times their size.
Burnside had orders to turn Lee’s right flank, get behind him, and cut off his line of retreat across the Potomac. To avoid the funnel that was the Lower Bridge, he dispatched troops under Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman between nine and ten in the morning to locate Snavely’s Ford. Rodman finds one ford, but the banks are too rocky and steep for the men to cross.
Part of the reason why the fight for the Lower Bridge did not start until most of the fighting around the Cornfield and Sunken Road had died down was communication problems as officers tried to figure out who exactly was in charge of the Federal left wing. With that worked out, Burnside begins ordering attacks on the bridge at 10:30.
The first to attack is the 11th Connecticut. Despite covering fire from Ohio regiments, they are easily repulsed by the Georgians. Captain John Griswold, mortally wounded, makes it to the Confederate side of the creek where he collapses and bleeds to death on the muddy bank. In fifteen minutes the 11th Connecticut had lost 21 killed, 88 wounded, and 28 men taken prisoner. Their colonel, H. W. Kingsbury, is also mortally wounded. His brother-in-law, David R. Jones, is the divisional commander of the Georgians he died fighting.
The next attack consists of the 2nd Maryland and 6th New Hampshire. The Georgians hold their fire until the Union troops stop to take down a fence. Then they open, according to a union veteran, with a torrential rain of fire. Men are prostrated by fear and nervous excitement. They charge parallel to the bridge, a length that exposes them to flanking fire, as other regiments from the trees and heights on the eastern bank lay down suppressing fire on the Georgians.
This charge fails too. The northern troops shelter behind stone fences along the creek, firing until they run out of ammunition. Cannister shot throws the Union troops back. About one-third of the Marylanders fall. The 6th New Hampshire loses sixty-seven men.
For the next two hours, both sides fire away at each other, slowly running low on ammunition. McClellan sends Burnside an order to take the bridge by bayonet charge if necessary. An officer of the 2nd Maryland is promised a general’s star if he can take the entire brigade of Colonel George Crook across the bridge. The 51st Pennsylvania is promised the return of their whiskey ration. They advance with the 51st New York, and shelter behind a stonewall.
Slowly the Georgians, worn down by five hours of fighting, running out of ammunition, begin retreating by twos and threes. Rodman has finally found a place to cross the creek and presses toward the Confederate rear. The 8th Connecticut leads the way through a deep and brisk current under skirmish fire from the 50th Georgia. By the time they drive the Georgians away, the 51st Pennsylvania and the 51st New York are attacking the Lower Bridge.
The 51st New York leads the way, the 51st Pennsylvania follows. They become jumbled up but make it across the bridge. Soon all the Union regiments are rushing pell-mell across the bridge and up the hill. The 9th New York Zouaves sweep aside skirmishers. Confederate sharpshooters fall dead from the trees.
It is not until 1:00 p.m. after Burnside has launched three bloody assaults on the bridge, that the IX Corps is west of the Antietam. It has taken five hours at the cost of 550 Federals versus 120 Georgian defenders. But now they are in Lee’s rear. The high ground gives the Union cannoneers an amphitheater-like view to fire down on the Confederates.
Climax of Act Two – Lee’s Line of Retreat Nearly Cut
One of the reasons that Antietam would make a good anti-war film is because it does not take sides. This is shown through the irony that while the first Obstacles like the Lower Bridge are faced by the Union, the Final, Greatest Obstacle, that of being cut and captured, is faced by the Confederates. This is done by subverting the audience’s expectations. The moment they sense the euphoria of victory, it is snatched away from them, and replaced with the panic and dread of defeat.
ACT III
Final Obstacle – Union Final Assault 1:00-4:00 (pages 140-155)
There was a brief lull in the battle a little after one in which Burnside’s men had to stop to rest, straighten their lines, and replenish their cartridges. The Union assault did not pick up steam again until about 3:00 p.m. But to keep the emotional momentum of the film up and going, artistic license would have to leave that part out.
IX Corps is now a mile from Sharpsburg. A thin line of infantry from David R. Jones’ division is all that is between them and cutting Lee’s army off from its path of retreat. Another Union corps advances across the Middle Bridge, pressuring Lee’s center.
The brigade of Harrison S. Fairchild – 9th, 89th, and 103rd New York regiments – take part in one of the most spectacular charges of the battle. Despite ravines and awkwardly angled fences in their path, they outflank and overwhelm Confederate artillery and infantry regiments. Southern gunners out of ammunition fly toward the Harpers Ferry Road and into Sharpsburg where confusion reigns in the streets. Union cannon balls and shells begin raining down on a town whose people consider themselves loyal citizens of the United States.
Fifty-five men of the 17th Virginia wait behind a wall. When the 9th New York Zouaves reach a crest fifty feet away, the Virginians rise up and open fire. The Zouaves stagger back, fire, and charge again. They leap over the wall and after hand-to-hand combat, break the thin gray line and continue their charge. Some Union soldiers make it into Sharpsburg. Not even the death of Brigadier General Isaac Rodman, struck in the chest by a rebel bullet, can slow the Federal advance.
Once again, all that stands between The Army of Northern Virginia and disaster is Robert Toombs and a few hundred Georgians. The “stand or die” order is given.
Descending Action – A. P. Hill to the Rescue – 4:00-7:00: (Pages 155-170)
Then a moment too unbelievable even for the movies
Lee looks to the southeast and sees a long column of troops. “What flag is that column flying,” he asks an artillery officer. “They are flying the United States flag,” the officer replies.” Lee points to another column of men, and asks, “What troops are those?” The officer looks through his binoculars, and replies, “They are flying the Virginia and Confederate flags.”
It is A. P. Hill! He has marched his men 17 miles in 7 hours from Harpers Ferry. Hill had once courted the future wife of McClellan, so even though he only has 3,000 men, he is still out to prove himself the better man. He joins with Toombs’ Georgians and Confederate units driven back into Sharpsburg and counterattacks.
The battle has gone full circle, starting off in D. R. Miller’s Cornfield and ending in the 40 Acre Cornfield. Once again the feeling of elation that the audience is supposed to feel when the “cavalry arrives” is ripped away from them when the perspective is suddenly that of the green, ill-trained soldiers holding the Union flank, the the16th Connecticut, whose ordeal is recorded in A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War by Lesley J. Gordon. Many of the 16th’s officers are also inexperienced. Contradictory orders are given. The lack of visibility caused by the cornstalk adds to the confusion. Add to this that many of Hill’s men have exchanged their tattered gray uniforms for brand new blue ones at Harpers Ferry and are carrying captured Union flags and it is a perfect recipe for a disaster. A God’s Eye shot could show the enemy closing in on them through the corn like the velociraptors in the long grass in Jurassic Park.
Two South Carolina regiments, including the First whose blue flag I wrote about in my Carrying The Flag post, come to overlook the 16th Connecticut, begin firing down on the New Englanders. One Carolinian veteran recalls the corn was so dense that they were within thirty to forty yards before opening fire. The Connecticut soldiers were given the command to enfilade the enemy line, which meant turning their line under fire. This is too much for the inexperienced troops. Numbers began bunching to the left, jumbling into other regiments’ lines. Suddenly the 1st South Carolina Rifles outflank the Union soldiers and begin firing bursts into their confused ranks. The 16th collapses. Some officers try to rally it but are killed as the men stream to the rear.
Hill’s men continue their counterattack, turning the flanks of and scattering Union regiments. Confederate Brig. Gen. Lawrence O’Bryan Branch is looking through his field glasses when he is killed, the sixth and final general to be killed that day. The Maryland officer promised a general’s star for crossing the Lower Bridge is slain. McClellan could send in an entire fresh reserve corps under Fitz John Porter but does not. Georgians under Toombs return to the fight. The 7th Maine launches a diversionary attack on the Bloody Lane. They are driven off. Hill drives more northern regiments back toward the Lower and Middle bridges. Some Massachusetts regiments take a stand near Antietam Creek but are running low on ammunition.
Then. Silence.
Twist – Confederate and Union Take Care of Each Other’s Wounded (Pages 175-180)
A few scattered shots are fired as the sunsets in a sky marred by smoke from burning buildings and other fires started by cannon balls and shells. Dusk settles over a battlefield that in the words of John Micheal Priest, “Neither side had gained an advantage of any sort. Only the wounded, dead, the dying, and the looters possessed the fields.”
Then that remarkable paradox that so often happens in war occurs. Enemies who just minutes before were trying to kill each other begin saving each other’s lives. Confederate troops emerge from their lines and administer sips of water from their canteens to wounded Union soldiers. Union soldiers crawl out of their positions to bandage and rescue wounded Confederates. In the West Wood “Stonewall” Jackson directs North Carolinians to treat wounded Minnesotans. An unofficial truce is declared in the Bloody Lane. In the cornfield Yankees and rebels talk about their desire for peace. Clara Barton even receives respect from the male doctor. And. in contrast to the Union officer who shot the blinded northerner, from the darkness emerges a blind Confederate soldier carrying a wounded Union one who is serving as his eyes.
Then. Rain.
Resolution – Lincoln Signs the Emancipation Proclamation (pages 175-200)
Then as Union soldiers stand on the abandoned Confederate lines there is a voiceover of Lincoln and his cabinet discussing Lee withdrawing the Army of Northern Virginia on September 19th. Lincoln grows hopeful when he hears that Fitz John Porter attacked Lee’s rear at Boteler’s Ford. But another voice-over explains that it was a Southern victory as Union troops are pushed back across the Potomac by Confederates.
Antietam is not the victory for which Lincoln longs. But it is good enough for him to make a preliminary announcement about the Emancipation Proclamation. The cabinet makes sure he puts in a statement that discourages slave rebellion lest “civilized” Europeans see him as “inciting servile insurrection.” Lincoln gives the Southern states one hundred days to return to the Union or lose their slaves.
Then the Emancipation Proclamation, a document that we are told since elementary school is a glorious piece of American history, is compared with the harsh and brutal military and political realities of a time that many, including myself, often romanticize. The simplicity of “Lincoln freed the slaves” is portrayed as more ambiguous as, well, I will let you decide by showing you approximately how I would write the final pages of a screenplay about the Battle of Antietam
To honor the common soldiers in blue and gray and to remind us that as a nation we never want to be that divided again is why the Battle of Antietam Should Be An Anti-Movie
