It's obvious I've been on a bit of a Sharpsburg kick right now. And why not? 23,000 men from both sides were killed, wounded, or missing, making this day in 1862 the single bloodiest day in American military history. Besides, I'm one of about a billion Civil War descendants.
The Antietam battlefield is criminally under-visited. I've been to the Antietam National Battlefield about 10 times. Never has there been more than maybe 50 tourists milling about. It's a small battlefield compared to Gettysburg. The area looks much as it would have that day. Whether you stand at the Cornfield, the Sunken Road, the Dunker Church, or the Burnside Bridge, it's easy to imagine the thousands of men who met their Maker that day. This is hallowed ground indeed.
Located in Western Maryland, Sharpsburg is only a mile from Confederate Virginia. My great great grandfather lived right next to the battlefield. As civilians emerged from hiding, they returned to trampled fields, burned outbuildings, destroyed fences, and looted homes. Vandalism by both armies had been rampant. Buildings were filled with wounded. Only 5 structures in Sharpsburg were spared damage. Dead horses were everywhere. Flies filled the air. There were outbreaks of dysentery and typhoid. Otherwise tillable soils were compacted due to the occupying armies. Any horses left in the area were confiscated by either Confederate or Union officers as cavalry mounts or draft animals. The Army of the Potomac would remain in the area for another 5 weeks. A Union army surgeon reported, "Days after the battle are a thousand times worse than the day of battle." Another Federal surgeon observed:
The farms between here and there are completely desolated -- fences and trees destroyed and everything moveable and of value stolen. What the Rebels left the Unionists finished. You have no idea of the damage done just by the passage of an army through their own land even when all is done possible to save property. The man with whom I stop has not an apple, peach, sweet or Irish potato left. He would have had great quantity of each had no army passed this way.
I can only imagine the horror my ancestors -- all German Baptist pacifists -- must have felt to find thousands of soldiers on their doorstep. The battle gave Lincoln the much needed opening to change the character of the war. The thousands of Union soldiers who struggled there had no idea that where they fought that day would have such great consequences.
The events that occurred on a Wednesday in western Maryland in September of 1862 would lead to emancipation and to the America we know today.