Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to episode 189 of our Civil War Podcasts.

I'm Rich. And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Welcome to the podcast. With the last

episode we continued setting the stage for the Battle of Antietam which took

place on Wednesday, September 17th, 1862. In the last show as y'all recall we

took our discussion right up to Tuesday the 16th, the day before the battle.

Yep, and so far we've seen that George McClellan has passed on two

opportunities to attack Lee at Sharpsburg. The first opportunity was on Monday

September 15th when the Federals advancing from South Mountain first closed

up on Sharpsburg. And then the second missed opportunity was the next day on

Tuesday the 16th. In a telegram to General and Chief Henry Halek on Tuesday

morning McClellan had said he would attack the enemy that day, but Little Mac

actually made no move to fulfill that promise. McClellan realized however that if

Lee was still there in front of him, they're across the Antietam on the 17th,

then he would simply have to attack the rebels. Because if McClellan wanted to

prove he could fight and win battles, then come Wednesday there could be no

putting off an attack any longer. Exactly, and remember we said that by putting

off his attack until Wednesday, Little Mac was actually inadvertently

increasing his chances of inflicting a decisive defeat on almost the whole of

Lee's army. That's because if the Federals would have attacked at Sharpsburg

late on Monday or early on Tuesday, they were facing only a portion of Lee's

force, about 15,000 men. But by midday on Tuesday, with the arrival of Stan

Wal-Jackson, with two divisions from Harper's Ferry, the number of confederates in

...