Seemed as if a Million Bees were in the Air: Saving the Colors at Antietam

During the Civil War, the task of protecting the regimental colors fell to the regimental color bearers and color guard, men specially selected for their courage and tenacity. The colors served as a rally point for the regiment and equally as a target for the enemy; that said, casualties among the color guard were high. For the 1st Delaware at Antietam, all nine men guarding the colors were struck down when the regiment advanced against the Confederate positions in the Sunken Road. The colors lay in the field between the fires, and Lieutenant Charles B. Tanner describes the anguish this caused within the ranks of his regiment.

          “We had become desperately enraged, thinking not of life, but how to regain the broad strips of bunting under which we had marched, bivouacked, suffered, and seen our comrades killed,” he wrote. “To lose what we had sworn to defend with our blood would have been, in our minds, a disgrace. Every man of 1st Delaware was ready to perish rather than allow the colors to fall into the hands of the enemy. Two hundred rifles guarded the Stars and Stripes and if they were not to be recovered by us, the foe also should not have them while a single member of the regiment remained alive.”

Lieutenant Tanner then proceeds to tell the story of how he was awarded the Medal of Honor while saving the regiment’s colors. His account originally saw publication in Walter Beyer and Oscar Keydel’s 1901 book Deeds of Valor: How America’s Heroes Won the Medal of Honor.

 

Lieutenant Tanner risked his life to move forward and retrieve the fallen colors of his regiment at Antietam. Tanner would be wounded three times while performing his heroic deed and would receive the Medal of Honor in 1889.
(Deeds of Valor)

          The 1st Delaware Infantry formed the right of Brigadier General Max Weber’s brigade. On the morning of the 17th of September 1862, we forded Antietam Creek and marched in column for a mile and facing to the left advanced in line of battle. We now formed the first line of General French’s division of General Sumner’s Second Corps.

          Presently the enemy’s batteries opened a severe fire of spherical case, shell, and solid shot. We advanced steadily through woods and cornfields, driving all before us, and met the Confederates in two lines of battle posted in a sunken road or ravine with rudely constructed breastworks or rails, sod, etc. There was a third line of troops in a cornfield 40 yards in the rear where the ground was gradually rising and permitted them to fire at us over the heads of those below. Our right was also exposed to the sudden and terrific fire from the troops who had broken the center division of our formation.

          The cornfield, where we had taken up our position, terminated about 100 yards distant from the sunken road, leaving nothing but short grass pastureland between us. On coming out of the corn, we were unexpectedly confronted by heavy masses of Confederate infantry with their muskets resting on the temporary breastworks. We all realized that the slaughter would be great, but not a man flinched and cheerfully we went into our baptism of fire. [The 1st Delaware was advancing south along the farm lane connecting Mumma Farm with the Sunken Road; the cornfield Tanner is describing was on the left hand side of the road as they advanced. The Confederates opposing them included Howell Cobb's and Robert Rodes' brigades.]  

The color guard of the 1st Delaware poses with their scarred battle flags later in the war. 

          Our colonel [Colonel John W. Andrews] dashed in front with the ringing order, “Charge!” and charge we did into the leaden hail. Within less than five minutes, 286 men out of 635 and 8 of 10 company commanders lay wounded or dead on that bloody slope. The colonel’s horse had been struck by four bullets; the lieutenant colonel was wounded and his horse killed, and our dearly loved colors were lying within 20 yards of the frowning lines of muskets, surrounded by the lifeless bodies of nine heroes who died while trying to plant them in that road of death.

          Those of us who were yet living got back to the edge of the cornfield and opened such a fire that, though the enemy charged five times to gain possession of the flag, they were driven back each time with terrible slaughter. We had become desperately enraged, thinking not of life, but how to regain the broad strips of bunting under which we had marched, bivouacked, suffered, and seen our comrades killed. To lose what we had sworn to defend with our blood would have been, in our minds, a disgrace.

Every man of 1st Delaware was ready to perish rather than allow the colors to fall into the hands of the enemy. Two hundred rifles guarded the Stars and Stripes and if they were not to be recovered by us, the foe also should not have them while a single member of the regiment remained alive.

First Lieutenant Charles B. Tanner, Co. H, 1st Delaware Infantry. 

Charge after charge was made and the gallant 5th Maryland, forming on our left, aided in the defense. The fire from our lines directed to the center of that dense mass of Confederates was appalling. Over 1,300 noble dead with covered with earth in that sunken road by the burying party on the following day. When the Maryland boys joined us, Captain James Rickards of Co. C, our regiment, called for volunteers to save the colors and more than 30 brave fellows responded. It seemed as if they had but just started when at least 20, including the gallant leader, were killed and those who would have rushed forward were forced back by the withering fire.

Captain James Rickards of Co. C, 1st Delaware was killed in action at Antietam while directing an effort to save the colors. 


"You wouldn't shoot a wounded man!" were the last words Capt. James L. Rickards would shout on the front lines of the battlefield of Antietam. An injured Confederate soldier had approached Rickards and other men of the 1st Delaware Volunteers, using his gun for support. When a fellow Union soldier rose to take aim, Rickards intervened and chastised the soldier for being too eager to kill. The Confederate took advantage of the pause and instantly fired upon Rickards. The Captain died as a massive volley of returning fire took the Confederate soldier's life.” ~ National Museum of American History

Maddened, and more desperate than ever, I called for the men to make another effort and before we marched 50 yards, only a scattering few remained able to get back to the friendly corn in which we sought refuge from the tempest of death. Then Major Thomas A. Smyth (later major general and killed on the day General Lee surrendered) said he would concentrate 25 picked men whose fire should be directed right over the colors. “Do it, and I will get there!” I cried.

There were hundreds of brave men yet alive on that awful field and at my call for assistance, 20 sprang toward me. While covering that short distance, it seemed as if a million bees were in the air. The shouts and yells from the other side sounded like menaces and threats. But I had reached the goal, had caught up the staff which was already splintered by shot, and the colors pierced with many holes and stained here and there with the lifeblood of our comrades when a bullet shattered my [right] arm. Luckily, my legs were still serviceable, and seizing the precious bunting with my left hand I made the best 80-yard time on record, receiving two more wounds.

Major Thomas A Smyth
1st Delaware

The colors were landed safely among the men of our regiment just as a large body of Confederate infantry poured in on our left flank, compelling us to face in a different direction. We had the flags, however, and the remainder of the 1st Delaware held them against all comers.

 

Lieutenant Tanner was promoted on the spot to the rank of first lieutenant. “After recovering from his wounds, he participated in several engagements equally as exciting and one year later was so badly disabled that he was given his discharge,” Deeds of Valor stated. “Nevertheless, three months later the lieutenant again took up his sword and remained in active service until the war had virtually come to an end. Altogether, he was wounded three times and has had as many narrow escapes from death as any soldier in the army.”

Lieutenant Tanner was awarded the Medal of Honor on December 13, 1889, for his heroism at Antietam. After serving as the postmaster of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania for many years, he took a position as a clerk in the War Department where he worked the rest of his life. Lieutenant Tanner died December 16, 1911, in Floral Park, New York and is buried at Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale, New York. 

In 2015, the Delaware Historical Society preserved the flag Lieutenant Tanner saved at Antietam, click here to read more and to see an image of the flag.

 Source:

“To Save the Stars and Stripes,” by First Lieutenant Charles B. Tanner, Co. H, 1st Delaware Volunteer Infantry, from Beyer, Walter F. and Oscar F. Keydel. Deeds of Valor: How America’s Heroes Won the Medal of Honor. Volume 1. Detroit: The Perrien-Keydel Co., 1901, pgs. 83-85

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