Miller's Cornfield
| Miller's Cornfield | |
|---|---|
| Part of Battle of Antietam | |
| Sharpsburg, Maryland | |
 Looking north into the Cornfield | |
| Site information | |
| Owner | Private and public land |
| Controlled by | United States National Park Service (part) |
| Condition | Preserved and commemorated |
| Location | |
 | |
| Coordinates | 39°28′24″N 77°44′41″W / 39.47333°N 77.74472°W |
| Site history | |
| Built | Early 19th century (as farmland) |
| In use | Site of major battle on September 17, 1862 |
| Materials | Farmland, cornfields, fences |
| Battles/wars | Battle of Antietam |
| Events | First major battle fought on Union soil during the American Civil War |
Miller's Cornfield is a historic American Civil War battlefield site near Sharpsburg, Maryland, notable for its pivotal and fiercely contested fighting during the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, one of the most significant battles of the American Civil War and the deadliest single day in U.S. history. The cornfield was the scene of some of the bloodiest combat of the battle, involving repeated attacks and counterattacks between Union and Confederate forces.
Description
[edit]Miller's Cornfield was named after the local Miller family who owned and farmed the land prior to and during the Civil War. The field was a roughly rectangular plot of farmland, characterized by tall corn stalks standing over six feet high during the battle season.[1] The cornfield was bordered by low stone fences, which became significant tactical obstacles during the fighting.[2]
The intense combat in Miller's Cornfield was marked by confusion and brutal close-quarters fighting. Visibility was limited due to the height of the corn, and control of the field changed hands multiple times throughout the morning of September 17.[3]
History
[edit]Pre-battle
[edit]The name "Miller's Cornfield" derives from the farmstead of David R. Miller that straddled the road to Hagerstown, Maryland. The farm was established in the early 1800s by the Miller family, who cultivated the land for corn and other crops. The property remained in family hands at the time of the battle.[4] Prior to the Battle of Antietam, Miller's Cornfield was typical agricultural land for Washington County, Maryland. Its fields provided natural cover and obstacles that influenced troop movements during the engagement.[1] It extended eastward from the turnpike to the edge of another woodlot, now known as the East Woods. There were several other cornfields in the area where soldiers would fight during the battle, but only Miller's 30 acres became known as "the Cornfield."[5]
Hooker's First Corps Advances
[edit]
In the early morning hours of September 17, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's First Corps crossed Antietam Creek, moving south toward the Hagerstown Turnpike and pressing the Confederate defenders of Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's and Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's divisions. Around 6 a.m., the first Union brigade entered the Cornfield, that of Brig. Gen. Abram Duryée, consisting of three regiments of New Yorkers and one of Pennsylvanians. Once they emerged from the Cornfield, they encountered withering fire from Georgians belonging to Brig. Gen. Alexander Lawton. The Union and Confederate troops stood around 250 yards apart with little to no cover exchanging volleys. Eventually, when the divisions of Col. William H. Christian and Brig. Gen. George Lucas Hartsuff failed to reinforce him, Duryée withdrew his brigade back through the Cornfield. In almost half an hour around a third of the men in the brigade were killed or wounded and the brigade would not take part in any further action during the battle.[6]
Confederate casualties were also very high, leading Lawton to deploy the brigade of Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays, popularly known as the Louisiana Tigers, a diverse unit including Irishmen and French Creoles. As they charged toward the Cornfield, they suffered devastating Union artillery fire before encountering elements of Hartsuff's brigade under Col. Richard Coulter, who had assumed command after Hartsuff was wounded. Lawton's Georgians and Louisianans drove the Union troops out of the Cornfield, but quickly found themselves suppressed by fire from the corn in their front and the woods to the east. They managed to escape south to safety, but not before Col. Marcellus Douglass, commanding Lawton's first brigade, was killed. Every regimental commander belonging to the Louisiana Tigers was killed or wounded, while the entire brigade suffered a casualty rate of around 61 percent.[7]
The Iron Brigade under Brig. Gen. John Gibbon next entered the Cornfield but met the same devastating Confederate fire as Duryée's brigade earlier once they emerged from the corn. The Iron Brigade was soon supported by the 84th New York Volunteer Infantry, also known as the 14th Brooklyn. The "red-legged devils" were actually rivals of their Iron Brigade allies, as the 14th Brooklyn belonged to the Eastern Iron Brigade, having earned that nickname before Gibbon's men received it. Lawton's Georgians had begun to retreat when they were reinforced by more Louisianans under Brig. Gen. William E. Starke. Like the Tigers, they too managed to halt the Union advance, but at the cost of heavy casualties, including Starke.[8]
Hood's Counterattack and Withdrawal
[edit]At about 7 a.m., Confederate reinforcements under Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood's division came to relieve Lawton's men, enraged that the battle had interrupted their baking of hoecakes in their bivouac beyond the West Woods, their first rations in three days. Furious and hungry, the hardened veterans of the division let out a rebel yell and pushed into the corn and formed a line from the Hagerstown turnpike to the East Woods. In response, Hooker sent two brigades of the Pennsylvania Reserves under Brig. Gen. George Meade to support the two Iron Brigades. The 1st Texas Infantry Regiment pursued retreating Union troops to the northern edge of the Cornfield, moving far ahead of their allies. With their rifles propped on the lower rails of a fence, a Pennsylvanian brigade waited until the Texans came through the curtain of smoke before firing a volley directly at them. Alone and surrounded by Federal musketry and shells, four of every five men in the 1st Texas were killed or wounded in around twenty minutes, with two entire companies annihilated. When asked where his division was, Hood said, "Dead in the field." In his seven regiments of around 2,300 men that fought in the Cornfield, around 60 percent were killed or wounded. Hooker's corps also suffered around 2,600 casualties, about a third of those sent into action.[9][10]
Mansfield's Twelfth Corps Counterattack
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Maj. Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield's Twelfth Corps arrived from the northeast around 8 a.m. to help Hooker's severely depleted troops, although of the 7,200 men in the corps, only around half having previously experienced combat, with Mansfield only appointed corps commander two days before. While the sight of large, fresh regiments big enough to be brigades managed to break some of Hood's surviving soldiers, Mansfield insisted on his brigades staying in column rather than switching to line formation, which made them very susceptible to Rebel batteries. Mansfield was soon shot while mounted and died the following day. Leaderless, his corps fought on as much as they could, but could not break the stalemate. Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams took over for Mansfield while the brigade of Brig. Gen. George Henry Gordon clashed with yet more Rebel reinforcements, this time Brig. Gen. Roswell S. Ripley's brigade from Maj. Gen. Daniel H. Hill's division. Many of Ripley's soldiers carried smoothbore muskets that fired buck and ball, cartridges that carried a standard musket ball along with three buckshot. In such close proximity, the smoothbore fire was akin to shotgun loads. Ripley's brigade was reinforced by the brigades of Col. Alfred H. Colquitt and Col. Duncan K. McRae and, again, the Cornfield turned into a bloody stalemate.[11]
This changed with the arrival of another Union division from Twelfth Corps, that belonging to Brig. Gen. George S. Greene, a descendant of American Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene. Greene flanked the Confederates in the Cornfield on their right, sending Colquitt's and McRae's troops running in disorder for the rear. Greene's Ohioans and Pennsylvanians pushed hard, emptying the Cornfield as well as the East Woods of any Confederate soldiers still hanging on. By 9 a.m. the Cornfield and the rest of the battlefield east of the Hagerstown turnpike belonged to the Union. As Hooker rode south of the Cornfield on his white charger, he too was wounded, shot through the foot by a Confederate marksman.[12]
Preservation
[edit]Today, Miller's Cornfield is preserved as part of the Antietam National Battlefield managed by the United States National Park Service. Visitors can walk the battlefield trails, view interpretive signage, and see the remnants of the original stone fences that defined the field's edges.[13] Portions of the land remain in private ownership but are protected by easements and historical preservation agreements.
References
[edit]- ^ a b Cozzens, Peter (2008). This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Antietam. University of Illinois Press. pp. 210–215.
- ^ Shea, William L. (1958). The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 1 – Fort Sumter to Perryville. Knopf. pp. 284–286.
- ^ Harsh, Joseph L. (2000). Sounding the Shallows: A Confederate Companion for the Battle of Antietam. University of Tennessee Press. pp. 90–92.
- ^ "Miller's Cornfield Historic District". National Park Service. Retrieved June 9, 2025.
- ^ Sears, Stephen (2003). Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. Mariner Books. pp. 180–181.
- ^ Sears, Stephen (2003). Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. Mariner Books. pp. 185–187.
- ^ Sears, Stephen (2003). Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. Mariner Books. pp. 189–190.
- ^ Sears, Stephen (2003). Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. Mariner Books. pp. 193–194.
- ^ Sears, Stephen (2003). Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. Mariner Books. pp. 197–202.
- ^ McPherson, James (2002). Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam. Oxford University Press. pp. 118–119.
- ^ Sears, Stephen (2003). Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. Mariner Books. pp. 203–209.
- ^ Sears, Stephen (2003). Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. Mariner Books. pp. 211–215.
- ^ "Antietam National Battlefield – Miller's Cornfield". National Park Service. Retrieved June 9, 2025.