SEPT 17: Custer Meets Lincoln
Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan (sixth from left) faces President Abraham Lincoln as the two meet following the bloody Battle of Antietam. First Lt. George A. Custer is seen standing at the tent opening on the far right. (Credit: Library of Congress)
On Sept. 17, 1862, First Lieutenant George A. Custer, serving on the staff of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, meets President Abraham Lincoln for the first time when Lincoln calls on the Union commander at Antietam after conclusion of a bloody battle. It was the deadliest single day of battle in American history, with nearly 23,000 soldiers killed, wounded or missing.
In a letter he wrote to an Ohio newspaper after the battle, Custer said the fighting lasted until 7 p.m., “making it, in all, fourteen hours of continuous hard fighting. The slaughter had been dreadful.”
Antietam was the only battle McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, fought from start to finish, according to American Battlefield Trust. “Colonel Ezra Carman, who survived that bloody field and later wrote the most detailed tactical study of the fighting there, had it right when he observed that on September 17, 1862, ‘more errors were committed by the Union commander than in any other battle of the war.’”
The battle was declared a Union victory, but it was costly. Approximately 87,000 Union troops engaged in battle, compared with 45,000 Confederates led by Gen. Robert E. Lee. There were an estimated 22,717 total casualties: 12,401 on the Union side, and 10,316 on the Confederate. Antietam was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. The Battle of Gettysburg, fought 10 months later, would yield more than 50,000 estimated casualties, but over a three day period (July 1-3, 1863.)
Following the battle at Antietam, Lincoln relieved McClellan of command of the Army of the Potomac on Nov. 7, 1862. He was never given another field command, although he remained in the Army until November 1864, when he ran as the Democratic Party’s candidate against Lincoln in the presidential election. Lincoln won a second term in a landslide victory.
