Antietam
Battle of Antietam · September 17, 1862 · Sharpsburg, Maryland
13 contours at 5 m, traced from USGS 3DEP 10 m elevation data. Every 5th line is drawn heavier.
What happened
The bloodiest single day in American history - about 22,700 killed, wounded or missing between dawn and dusk. Tactically a draw, it was enough of a Union result to let Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation five days later.
Why the ground mattered
Antietam is a lesson in how little relief it takes to decide a fight. A farm lane worn a few feet below the surrounding fields by decades of wagon traffic became the Sunken Road, and Confederate infantry standing in it had a ready-made trench across the centre of the Union advance. It held for nearly four hours and cost some 5,500 casualties. Downstream, Antietam Creek funnelled Burnside's entire corps onto one stone bridge overlooked by a wooded bluff, where a few hundred Georgians held up thousands of men for most of the day. The creek was fordable in places nobody had scouted.
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