today we commemorate the bloodiest day in american history

[lookingland]

september 17, 1862 ~ antietam creek

Estimates vary but center around 23,000 total Americans, Northern and Southern, killed, wounded, or missing during this one days fighting. [T]he count of those who lost their lives because of this single day of battle could exceed 7,000. No other day in American history produced a greater number of casualties. If the battle lasted about 11 hours, 6am to 5pm, that meant on average one casualty inflicted every 1 1/2 seconds. Of those casualties, one man would die for every 5 to 6 seconds of conflict.

The above website is a great tour of the battlefield and what occurred there.

Below: "snow along Bloody Lane"
from fantastic photoblog MidatlanticImages.com



x-posted to uscivilwar

Comments

[gwyn-hwyfar.livejournal.com]

Oh! thank you for this reminder....I hadn't even been thinking about the Maryland battles this week :(

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

well it's not like happy-happy-joy-joy to think of them ~ but for whatever reason this one has always been close to my heart.

[gwyn-hwyfar.livejournal.com]

No, definitely not happy-joy..