Monuments to Individuals at Antietam
The monument to Confederate Brigadier General Lawrence O’Bryan Branch is located on Branch Avenue. (Branch Avenue South tour map) This is one of six “mortuary cannons” placed on the Antietam battlefield to honor six generals, three Union and three Confederate, who were killed or mortally wounded in the Battle of Antietam.
Branch was senior brigadier in A.P. Hill’s Light Division, commanding a brigade of North Carolina regiments. At the height of Hill’s successful counterattack on Union General Burnside’s Ninth Corps at the end of the battle, Branch was struck in the head and killed while conferring with Hill and his fellow brigadiers.
Monument to Brigadier General Lawrence O’Bryan Branch
From the monument:
Brigadier General
L. O’B. Branch
C.S.A.
killed here
Branch was born in 1820 in North Carolina. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his uncle, who served as Governor of North Carolina and Secretary of the United States Navy. Lawrence graduated in 1838 from Princeton, and went on to a career in law. He was elected to Congress from 1855 until 1861 and turned down the position of Secretary of the Treasury under President Buchanan.
At the start of the war he became a Quartermaster and Paymaster of North Carolina state troops with the rank of colonel, but resigned in September of 1861 for a fighting command, becoming colonel of the 33rd North Carolina.
He was promoted to brigadier general in January of 1862 and led his men through the New Bern and Peninsula campaigns, Cedar Run and Second Manassas.
See more information on the life of Lawrence O’Bryan Branch.
Location of the monument to General Branch at Antietam
The monument to Confederate Brigadier General Lawrence O’Brian Branch is southeast of Sharpsburg on the east side of Branch Avenue about 200 yards north of where it turns west to Harpers Ferry Road. (39°26’52.6″N 77°44’28.7″W)