Sharpsburg/Antietam

While traveling through Maryland, we took a few hours to tour the battlegrounds of the "bloodiest day of the Civil War". More men were killed or wounded here on September 17, 1882 than on any other single day of the Civil War.

Clara Barton, eventual founder of the Red Cross, tended to the wounded during and after the battle.

During the battle, the Texas brigade bridged a threatening gap in the Confederate line and suffered a casualty rate of 82.3 percent. This was the largest percentage of loss by an infantry regiment, north or south, during the war.

The Sunken Road (Bloody Lane) was the sight of much of the mid-day phase of the battle. Over 5,000 casualties occurred during nearly 4 hours of fighting.

The Lower Bridge (Burnside Bridge) was a key factor in McClellan's failure at Antietam. A few hundred Georgia riflemen, and a few from South Carolina, held off the Union troops for most of the day.