Camp Cromwell follows Lee North 1862

In 1862 Lee struck north in the hope a great victory there would encourage European powers to recognise the Confederacy.  His first objective was Harpers Ferry, a Federal arsenal town with a garrison of 12,000 men.  It's a very pretty place now, nestled on a promontory between the confluence of the Potomac & Shenandoah Rivers.  It looks easy to defend with Bolivar Heights making a fine defensive line across the neck of the promontory.  But it's overlooked by the bluffs on the other sides of the rivers.  It's like Chattanooga except very much smaller so the town's in range of guns on the surrounding bluffs.

Lee surrounded the town & Jackson attacked it from the west.  Jackson had been stationed there earlier in the war & knew the ground.  He sent a force through the woods at night, dragging 20 guns through the scrub & up steep slopes to outflank the Union position on Bolivar heights & 12,000 Yankees had no choice but surrender.

This is the view from Bolivar Heights looking east.  There were less trees there then.  Finding a Reb division with 20 guns deployed there behind their flank when the Union army woke up in the morning must have been rather dispiriting. 

While the Rebs were taking Harpers Ferry McClennan was massing an army twice the size of Lee's in Maryland.  The sensible thing to do was to declare victory & go home with the spoils of war, but Confederate generals didn't think that way (or at all often).  Lee headed north to Sharpsburg where he Made a stand against McClellan's army at the battle that became known as Antietam.  The battle raged all day with no decisive result as the army of the Potomac again demonstrated the total incompetence of its generals.  They made a series of uncoordinated frontal attacks with no attempt to use their superior numbers to outflank the Rebs.  The first day was a bloody draw.  The next day nothing happened as both sides licked their wounds. 

The Rebs were outnumbered 2:1 & held their ground inflicting 12,000 casualties for 10,000 of their own.  But the North could afford the loss the South could not.  A good general like Grant would have realised that the Rebs were even more stuffed than his own men (with 25% casualties compared with 15%), attacked & routed Lee on day two, but McClennan did nothing & let him quietly sneak away the next night. 

The contrast in the terrain with the battlefields we'd seen in the west is obvious.  The ground is so much more open with fields of corn & wheat, but with some ready made strong points like a sunken road & strong fencing.

A tower built in the middle of the battlefield provides a wargamer's overview.

Looking NW from the tower.  The Union attacked the sunken road from the right.

looking SE from the tower.  The Union attacked from the left.

On the Union left, this is Hooker's bridge.  Rebs dug in on the hill on the other side held the bridge for some hours.

Hooker sent 3,000 men down river looking for a ford, but by the time they found one the Rebs had ran low on ammo & the Feds had stormed across the bridge anyway.  Hooker began to roll up the Reb line, but Hill's Division arrived from Harpers Ferry in the nick of time to hit Hooker in flank & save Lee's butt.

An interesting item we found on the battlefield was the monument to the Federal Irish Brigade - which mentions Tasmania on the side dedicated to its commander.  It was lead by Thomas Meagher who was an Irish revolutionary who was sent to Van Diemans Land but escaped & went to the US.