ANTIETAM: 'It was a wonderful sight'

BATTLEFIELD BACKSTORY: I got lucky with this image of the Miller cornfield and re-planted East Woods, timing it just as the sun broke through the fog above the woodlot. What an amazing scene it must have been here the morning of the battle on Sept. 17, 1862, after the Union I Corps marched out of the North Woods out of view to the left. "The number of regimental standards floating in the morning air indicated the immense numbers of the advancing enemy," Private Isaac G. Bradwell of the 31st Georgia recalled about that morning. "It was a wonderful sight." (Click on image to enlarge and click here for all posts on this blog.)

ANTIETAM: A cornfield 'reddened with blood'

BATTLEFIELD BACKSTORY: It looked like almost any cornfield in America when I shot this image on a splendid fall morning. But extraordinary events occurred here on Sept. 17, 1862. Extraordinarily awful events. "A man but a few paces from me is struck squarely in the face by a solid shot.," 12th Massachusetts Private George Kimball wrote of the fighting in The Bloody Cornfield at Antietam. "Fragments of the poor fellow's head come crashing into my face and fill me with disgust." Wrote 20th Massachusetts Lieutenant Francis Palfrey: "The corn and the trees, so fresh and green in the morning, were reddened with blood and torn by bullet and shell, and the very earth was furrowed by the incessant impact of lead and iron.” You can walk a trail through The Bloody Cornfield today, but it's impossible to truly comprehend what happened here. (Click at upper right to enlarge and click here for all posts on this blog.)