On September 16, 1862, Union troops from the First and Twelfth Corps rested in the fields near Sharpsburg, Maryland, preparing for what they knew would be a monumental fight. General Joseph Hooker gathered his staff at the Poffenberger Farm barn and told them, “Tomorrow we fight the battle that could very well determine the fate of the Republic. ”
The next morning, a heavy mist hung over the fields as the soldiers formed their lines. What followed became known as the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American military history, and the opening actions unfolded across the very ground now preserved as a national battlefield.
The Poffenberger farmhouse, which still stands today, was built in two sections—one dating to the 1790s and another added in the 1880s. During the battle, the structure and its surrounding fields served as a staging area for Union forces rather than a place of rest. Soldiers spent the night bracing for combat, and when dawn broke, the landscape took on an ominous quality that one soldier described in his diary as they advanced into battle. The battlefield itself is defined by distinct landmarks: the West Woods, the East Woods, and the Cornfield, which became known as the Bloody Cornfield for the carnage that took place there.
The fighting opened from Nicodemus Heights, where Confederate artillery fired on Union soldiers as they emerged and formed their battle lines. In the East Woods, on the evening of September 16, troops under Confederate General John Bell Hood clashed with Union forces under Seymour. A fierce firefight broke out, but as darkness fell, both sides pulled back to their original positions. During the lull, Hood requested permission for his men to fall behind the lines and cook a meal, as they had not eaten in days.
Jackson granted the request but warned Hood that his men must be ready to return at a moment’s notice. The next morning, those men were called back into battle almost as soon as their food began cooking. The morning of September 17 brought intense fighting in the East Woods. Union Brigadier General Alexander Lawton brought 2,500 men into the fight and lost roughly 1,000 of them, killed or wounded, in the initial impact.
The combat was so ferocious that musket fire literally chopped down trees in the wooded areas. A young musician crossing the field later described the aftermath in haunting terms. He wrote of heaps of dead and wounded men barely buried, some still gurgling in their own blood. He recalled seeing a man who had been shot and could no longer speak, and a boy of around sixteen lying on the ground with an open book beside his head, perhaps a parting gift for going off to war.
As Union forces pressed through the Cornfield, they faced a wall of Confederate fire. One soldier described how lead “rained like hail” on the men lying in the corn, and the bullets that missed their targets traveled through the stalks and struck the backs of soldiers lying on the ground. On the Confederate side, the Georgians were ordered to lie down and wait, then rise and fire into the faces of Union soldiers emerging from the corn. A Georgian wrote home describing how three men around him went down almost instantly, and his brother took a slight wound to the leg.
Confederate forces under Colonel Henry B. Strong of the Sixth Louisiana Infantry were positioned in the field when Strong was killed. His body was taken to the nearby Dunker Church, where a wooden headboard marked his grave. The battlefield is also the site of some of the most famous photographs of the Civil War.
Photographer Alexander Gardner captured images of dead soldiers along the Hagerstown Pike, and those photographs account for six to ten percent of all death-related photographs taken during the entire conflict. One striking image shows a dead horse lying in the field near where Strong was killed. Another photograph, taken in the same area, shows a Confederate soldier lying near a grave while a Union soldier lies buried with wooden head markers. That photograph also preserved the story of First Lieutenant John A.
Clark of the Seventh Michigan. Clark died in the field while attempting to attack the West Woods. Without the photograph, his story might have been lost entirely. Thanks to the wooden headboard marking his grave, his body was returned home for burial.
The photographs brought the reality of war to the Northern public in a way they had never experienced. People who had never seen a battlefield up close were now confronted with images of mass death. For many, the visceral reaction turned public sentiment against the war. For others, it hardened their resolve to finish the fight.
One monument on the field commemorates the First New Jersey Brigade, which was ordered to form a charge on the Confederate line near the Dunker Church. The order was countermanded, and the brigade instead took position across the road in support of Sixth Corps artillery, remaining under fire until the morning of September 19. Among the remarkable stories from the battlefield is that of fifteen-year-old Johnny Cook, a Union bugler. When Cook saw that the artillery pieces were about to be overrun and the officer in charge needed help, he jumped into action and began assisting with the guns.
His bravery earned him the Medal of Honor. One story that reflects the human cost of the battle involves a Confederate private named Decatur “Ko” Pickren of the 31st Georgia. He was deployed as a picket ahead of the Confederate lines and never returned. He was not listed as a prisoner of war, was never recorded in any hospital, and never made it home to Georgia.
His mother never found his body or any trace of him. She tried to claim a pension from the Confederate government based on his presumed death, but without proof, she received nothing. The fighting at Antietam was more terrible than anyone had expected. For hours, the two armies pressed each other back and forth across the Cornfield until the Union began to gain the advantage.
The field was covered with the dead, and the roadways were lined with bodies. A Union major, Rufus Dawes, remembered, “The piles of dead on the Sharpsburg and Hagerstown turnpike surpassed anything on any other battlefield. ”
There is a bitter irony in the history of this ground. Maryland was a slave state at the time of the battle, and enslaved people lived in the nearby town of Sharpsburg.
The Confederates fought in part to preserve the institution of slavery, while the Union army fought to preserve the nation. The battlefields themselves are a reminder of the cost of that conflict. The Battle of Antietam was far from over after the fighting at the Cornfield, and the struggle would continue across the rest of the field.