The Union Army

Civil War History

The Battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day of the American Civil War. Almost one-third of the men from the 1st Delaware Infantry were killed or wounded on September 17,1862, when they were among the Federal troops ordered to charge the center of the Confederate line in a ravine-like farm lane called the Sunken Road. The men of the 1st waded through Antietam Creek, then charged the enemy with fixed bayonets.

"We Met the Enemy in Two Lines of Battle..."

"The enemy's batteries now opened a severe fire," reported Colonel John W. Andrews, one of the survivors of the charge. "Having advanced steadily through woods and cornfields, driving all before us, we met the enemy in two lines of battle, posted in a road or ravine four feet below the surface of the adjoining field, with a third line in a cornfield in the rear, the ground gradually rising so that they were able to fire over the heads of those in the ravine; our right was also exposed to the sudden and terrible fire from the troops who succeeded in breaking the center division of the line of battle."
"We were at this about 20 paces off the enemy, and returned their fire for some time with much coolness and effect," Andrews continued. "A charge was then ordered and attempted, but our second line, composed of new levies, instead of supporting our advance, fired into our rear. We had now lost one-third of our men, and eight officers commanding companies were either killed or wounded. Under these circumstances we fell back gradually to a stronger position.... The color guard were all killed or wounded...."
When the Battle of Antietam was over, the survivors of the 1st Delaware had established a record for valor in combat matched by few other regiments. They had done so despite a remarkable lack of experience: Antietam was their first battle.

The 1st Delaware Infantry Regiment was organized in Wilmington, Delaware on October 19,1861 and was assigned to Fort Monroe in Virginia. The regiment stood ready for action on March 8-9,1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads where the C.S.S. Virginia engaged the U.S.S. Monitor in the first warfare between ironclad ships. Soon afterward, the regiment participated in a Federal expedition to Norfolk, which had been abandoned by Confederate forces. The regiment served in Norfolk's Federal occupation force for several months, then was posted to Washington, D.C., where it joined the Army of the Potomac. Under command of General George B. McClellan, the Army of the Potomac pursued General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland where the two forces were engaged at ;he Battle of Antietam. It was the 1st Delaware's baptism of Ire — and the regiment distinguished itself in battle.

With Iron Will, the Regiment Maintained its Position

After Antietam, the regiment was posted to Harper's Ferry, hen served in Virginia's Loudon Valley. On December 12-15, he 1st Delaware was engaged in the bloody fighting against Lee's army at Fredericksburg. As part of the Army of the Potomac, the regiment participated in General Ambrose E. Burnside's unsuccessful "Mud March" and was engaged at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
The regiment arrived on the second day of fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg and was initially engaged as skirmishers. On July 3,1863, however, the 1st Delaware manned a key section of the Federal line on Cemetery Ridge and helped repel Pickett's Charge. Left in command of the regiment was a junior officer, Lieutenant William Smith. "[We] received the united attack of the Pickett and Pender columns," as a survivor explained the charge. "These columns overlapped in our immediate front, and made the pressure on our line very heavy, the Pickett column moving on us in an oblique direction from the left, the Pender column moving on us in an oblique direction from the right..."
"The regiment, however, with iron will stubbornly maintained its position, and repulsed the combined attack," the survivor continued to recall. "As soon as the charge of the enemy was broken, the regiment sprang over the wall and gave them a countercharge, capturing many prisoners and five battle-flags.... It was in this charge that Lieutenant William Smith, commanding the regiment, fell, and, when picked up, his sword was found in one hand and a captured rebel flag in the other."
After Gettysburg, the 1st Delaware remained with the Army of the Potomac throughout the war and was engaged in most of the army's major actions. When Lee's tattered army was forced to surrender at Appomattox on April 9,1865, the troops of the 1st Delaware Infantry were among the Federal forces which received the surrender. The regiment marched in the Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, D.C. on May 23,1865, and a few weeks later — on July 12,1865 — was mustered out of Federal service.