Shepherdstown

At Boteler's Ford on the Potomac, Union and Confederate forces clashed on September 19 and 20, 1862, in an engagement remembered as either the Battle of Shepherdstown or the Battle of Boteler's Ford, part of the broader Maryland campaign fought during the American Civil War. This fighting came just days after Antietam had been waged on September 17, following which General Lee pulled the Army of Northern Virginia back across the Potomac. To guard the crossing, Lee stationed a rearguard under Brigadier General William N. Pendleton at the ford. When elements of the Union V Corps arrived on the nineteenth, they traded artillery fire with Pendleton's guns and managed, as evening fell, to force their way a short distance onto the opposite bank. Pendleton then sent Lee a mistaken account claiming the entire rearguard artillery had fallen into enemy hands. The following morning brought a Confederate response, as A. P. Hill's Light Division launched a counterattack that drove the Union troops back across the river. Not every Union unit escaped in time, however; the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment lagged behind the retreat and paid for it with severe casualties. In the aftermath, Lee's army resumed its march, moving on into the Shenandoah Valley.

Background

When Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston fell wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines in June 1862, General Robert E. Lee stepped in to command the Army of Northern Virginia. Major General George B. McClellan's Union Army of the Potomac stood as his primary opponent. During the Seven Days Battles, Lee pushed McClellan's forces away from their position near Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. Afterward, a separate threat emerged from Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia, approaching from another direction, but Lee's forces bested Pope at the Second Battle of Manassas as August drew to a close.

Though both campaigns had cost Lee's army dearly in casualties, he pressed forward with a bold move north into Maryland. McClellan, now placed back in charge of Union forces after Pope's removal, pursued Lee with the Army of the Potomac. Fortune favored the Federals when soldiers under McClellan stumbled upon a copy of Lee's orders, exposing the Confederate strategy. By September 14, McClellan had pushed Lee's men out of the mountain passes at South Mountain, and the two armies converged near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Three days later, on September 17, McClellan launched his attack.

What followed was the Battle of Antietam, where Lee's smaller force managed to hold off wave after wave of Union assaults throughout the day. The human cost was staggering: nearly 23,000 men fell dead, wounded, or missing, cementing this single day as the deadliest in the nation's history. Although Lee had committed nearly his entire army to the fighting, roughly a third of McClellan's men never saw combat. The following day, September 18, saw no renewed fighting; Lee held his ground while McClellan, despite having plenty of fresh reserves, chose not to press the attack.

Under cover of darkness that night, Confederate forces began withdrawing toward Martinsburg, Virginia. Once his army crossed the Potomac River, Lee assigned Brigadier General William N. Pendleton, his chief of artillery, to guard the rear at Boteler's Ford. Pendleton brought an unusual background to this task, having served as a clergyman before the war, and he lacked any real standing among his troops or prior experience leading infantry. His responsibilities extended beyond Boteler's Ford alone; he also needed to secure another crossing point to the south as well as Shepherd's Ford to the north. To manage this, he sent a modest cavalry detachment to watch the southern ford and dispatched both an artillery battery and a small body of infantry to Shepherd's Ford.

Accounts differ regarding the exact resources at Pendleton's disposal. Preservationist Frances E. Kennedy puts his strength at two brigades supported by 45 cannon, whereas historian Peter S. Carmichael describes a much thinner force of just 600 men, some without weapons, backed by around forty guns. Historian Shelby Foote offers yet another figure, placing the cannon total at 44.

Aftermath

Newspapers across the Confederacy, along with many inside Lee's own ranks, heaped blame on Pendleton once the fighting ended. Lee's forces then pulled back toward the Shenandoah Valley, and McClellan chose not to give chase. That failure to press the retreating Confederates cost McClellan his command, and he was removed from his post on November 5. In the wake of the failed Confederate push into Maryland, President Lincoln responded by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. This document made plain how central slavery was to the conflict, and together with the clash at Antietam, it closed off any remaining Confederate hopes for help from foreign powers. In this way, Antietam stood as one of the war's pivotal moments.