Summary:
Union General George B. McClellan writes General-in-Chief Halleck on the
positioning of troops after the battle of Antietam in this October, 1862,
letter. McClellan recommends that additional troops be sent to several towns,
including Chambersburg.
Maj.-Gen. HALLECK,
Gen.-in-Chief, Washington:
October 29, 1862
On the 25th instant I sent you a dispatch requesting you to decide what steps should be taken to guard the line of the Potomac when this army leaves here. To this I received your reply that I had been intrusted by the President with defeating and driving away the rebel army; that you had given me no orders heretofore, did not give me any then, & c. Under these circumstances, I have only to make such arrangements for guarding this extended line as the means at my disposal will permit, at the same time keeping in view the supreme necessity of maintaining the moving army in adequate force to meet the rebel army before us.
The dispositions I have ordered are as follows, viz: Ten thousand men to be left at Harper's Ferry; one brigade of infantry in front of Sharpsburg; Kenly's brigade of infantry at Williamsport; Kelley's brigade, including Col. Campbell's Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Infantry, at Cumberland, and between that point and Hancock. I have also left four small cavalry regiments to patrol and watch the river and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Cumberland down to Harper's Ferry.
I do not regard this force as sufficient to cover securely this great extent of line, but I do not feel justified in detaching any more troops from my moving columns. I would therefore recommend that some new regiments of infantry and cavalry be sent to strengthen the forces left by me. There should be a brigade of infantry and section of artillery in the vicinity of Cherry Run, another brigade at Hancock, and additional brigade at Williamsport, one regiment at Hagerstown, and one at Chambersburg, with a section of artillery at each place if possible. This is on the supposition that the enemy retain a considerable cavalry force west of the Blue Ridge. If they go east of it, the occupation of the points named in my dispatch of the 25th instant will obviate the necessity of keeping many of these troops on the river.
There are now several hundred of our wounded, including Gen. Richardson, in the vicinity of Sharpsburg, that cannot possibly be moved at present.
I repeat that I do not look upon the forces I have been able to leave from this army as sufficient to prevent cavalry raids into Maryland and Pennsylvania, as cavalry is the only description of troops adequate to this service, and I am, as you are aware, deficient in this arm.
GEO. B. MCCLELLAN,
Maj.-Gen., Commanding.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 19, Serial No. 27, Pages 85, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
