In the Aftermath of the Bloodshed at Antietam, an Anguished Maj. William Child Asks His Wife, “Who Permits It?”

With the exception of a few critical victories—such as Admiral David G. Farragut’s capture of New Orleans, the South’s largest and most active port—the late spring and summer of 1862 did not augur well for the Union. Despite having a superior number of troops, Gen. George B. McClellan was outwitted and outmaneuvered throughout Virginia’s Peninsula by Gen. John Magruder and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in April and May. In early July just five miles outside of Richmond, McClellan was forced into retreat during the Seven Days’ battle by Robert E. Lee, newly appointed to lead the Army of Northern Virginia. An exasperated President Lincoln ordered the Union troops to evacuate the peninsula and head north, where the majority of them would serve under Gen. John Pope. Pope fared even worse; at the second battle of Manassas (Bull Run) in late August he lost five times as many men against the Rebels as had been lost there over a year earlier. Desperate for a decisive triumph and anxiously watching Robert E. Lee and his army march into Maryland, President Lincoln reluctantly placed the Army of the Potomac under the control, once again, of George McClellan. And once again McClellan, with almost twice as many troops, thought he was outmanned and proceeded tentatively, allowing Lee the time to concentrate his forces at Sharpsburg, Maryland. The two armies descended on one another along Antietam Creek on September 17, 1862 with unprecedented fury. With more than 23,000 casualties, Antietam remains the bloodiest one-day battle in American history. Major William Child, a surgeon with the Fifth Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, cared for many of the soldiers wounded in the fighting. Overcome by the sheer immensity of the suffering and incredulous that a civilized society allowed it to continue, Child appealed to his wife and family back home for emotional comfort and support.

U.S. General Hospital at Smokestown near Sharpsburg Md.

My Dear Wife:

It is now evening. I am very much better than I have been, but am yet as yellow as an orange. There is nothing of interest here to write unless I give you some of our hospital operations. How many patients we have I do not know—probably four hundred and fifty certain. The wounds in all parts you can think, but seven tenths of all have suffered amputation. Many die each day. Some are doing well. No one can begin to estimate the amount of agony after a great battle. We win a great victory. It goes through the country The masses rejoice, but if all could see the thousands of poor suffering dieing men their rejoicing would turn to weeping. For days our wounded after the last great battle lay in and about old barns and in the yards on straw. It was impossible to take care of them all for three or four days—and were not all removed from the barns for three weeks. Now many will recover to live a poor maimed old soldier—while others are fast going to the grave.

When I think of the battle of Antietam it seems so strange. Who permits it? To see or feel that a power is in existence that can and will hurl masses of men against each other in deadly conflict—slaying each other by the thousands—mangling and deforming their fellow men is almost impossible. But it is so and why we can not know.

But I must go to bed. I think of you every day and dream of you every night.

Tell Clinton to be a good boy—be kind to his ma-ma and his sister. You must let him go up to his grandfather and his grandmother—and Uncle Hazens. Keep him well clothed this fall and winter—and Kate—kiss her for me. Tell her pa-pa has not forgotten his “daughter.” O what I would not give to see you all. Well we will patiently wait. Time will soon pass away and we shall meet again and I hope to be able to live in our own happy home. I only hope to be able to obtain enough to live comfortable and improve our house and farm. For several days I have been in my own mind making plans of what I would do when I do get home if I am able. But we will live in remembrance of our full duty to ourselves our children and our Maker. I too often forget it I know.

Good night. Kiss the babes for me.

Write soon and often and tell others to do so.

Tell me all the news you can about everybody that you think I would like to know. It seems a year since I left Bath and two years since I heard from there, but again good night—good night—God preserve us all.

As ever, Wm

Major Child eventually made it home to his family after the war. The immediate consequences of Lee’s narrow defeat at Antietam were enormous and far-reaching. George McClellan was relieved of his command—permanently—and replaced by Ambrose Burnside. (President Lincoln was irate that McClellan had ignored his direct order to continue after the badly weakened Army of Northern Virginia, which gave Lee the time to regroup and rebuild.) Most significantly, Lincoln now had the opportunity to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in the “rebellion” states to be “forever free” after January 1, 1863. Critics were quick to point out that these were precisely the states over which the Union had no control and that the proclamation did not free the slaves in the border states (which Lincoln still feared might ally themselves with the Confederacy). But despite its limitations, the document was a potent symbolic statement that infused great moral force into the war. “I hail it as the doom of Slavery in all the States,” thundered former slave and revered abolitionist Frederick Douglass during a speech in New York. “We are all liberated by this proclamation.”