Here is an excerpt from my book THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM:THE BLOODIEST DAY (HISTORY PRESS 2011) pp. 100 - 103. When we visit battlefields with the neatly mowed fields, and well maintained roads and monuments, it is easy to forget the carnage that littered the landscape. : The morning of September 18, 1862 revealed the bloody yield of the previous days battle.Twelve hours of brutal combat rendered scenes that were never forgotten. Nearly 4,000 dead bodies were scattered over a three mile front. Otho Nesbitt of Clear Spring, Maryland kept a detailed diary of the period.He visited the area on September 18th and 19th and wrote that The whole country around about is a hospital. Houses and barns full... I saw a man with a hole in his belly about as big as a hat and about a quart of dark - looking maggots working away. 99 Colonel David Hunter Strother of McClellans staff rode across the north end of the battlefield on the 18th and observed that the bodies of dead Confederates were already far advanced in putrification, hideously swollen, and many of them black as soot. 100 Hardened veterans were amazed at the carnage. Pvt.Edward Burrus of the 21st Mississippi wrote to his parents, “I had the opportunity of going over the battlefield- in fact we were immediately on one of the very bloodiest parts of it. It is no figure of speech, metaphor or anything but a simple fact to say that there were frequently places where for 50 or 60 yards you could step from one dead Yank to another and walk all over the ground without once touching it with your foot On one little knoll about 25 or 30 yds. Square I myself counted 189 dead Yankees and they were no thicker there than in many other places.” 101 The 145th Pennsylvania had arrived on the field too late for the battle, but they drew the dubious assignment of burial detail. One soldier left a vivid account of the macabre scenes of Antietam’s aftermath in a letter to his local newspaper. “…Before me is a stubble field covered with dead bodies of men and horse. Behind that fence which is full of bullets, the rebels lie very thick – from the manner in which they lie you can see how the line of battle was formed…. The trees are splintered and torn; houses are riddled, the ground is covered (with) crackers and canteens and haversacks and knapsacks that fell from, or were thrown away by the wounded or dying there are found thousands on thousands of bullet, grape, cannon balls, shells, muskets, swords, etc. etc.” He went on to write, “But I can only see and think about those dead bodies. Most of them look as black as the darkest negroes; they are greatly swollen and fearfully distorted some scarcely looking like human beings. Back blood and putrid matter are still oozing from the wounds in their heads, breasts and sides. They fell in every conceivable manner, and some lie as they fell, and others try to twist themselves into a more comfortable position. I will not speak of those eyes open as if staring at you, of the lips parted as if to address (sic) you, of the hair clotted with blood, of the hands pressing the wound or folded as if in prayer, for I am sick of the sight, which still haunts me and causes a chill to pass over my frame” 102 The story was the same everywhere one turned. Scenes of death dominated the landscape. In Sharpsburg dead bodies, mostly Confederates, were found in gardens, alleys, and parlors. One local story tells of the Grice family returning to thier home and being shocked to find three dead Confederates lying inside and two more in the yard. 103 Besides the dead soldiers there were also a large number of dead horses and other animals. The army paid local farmers to collect and burn the carcasses. Most of these were destroyed where they had fallen. Near the Hagerstown Pike Otho Nesbitt saw a white bull or steer lying on his back all swelled up and 2 sheep nearby all swelled up and ready to burst... In a letter to his wife Captain David Been of Company H, 14th Indiana wrote that hundreds of dead horses strew the fields in every direction. In Sharpsburg dead horses were seen lying in the streets for days.104 John P. Smith, a boy at the time and later the town historian recallled that The stench arising from the battlefield was intolerable. Another citizen said the stench was terrible. We had to close doors and windows to shut out the nauseating odor of decaying corpses. The stench was noticeable for miles away. Soldiers on the burial details often drank whisky to kill the smell. Samuel Fletcher of the 15th Massachusetts; had the misfortune to be on a burial party. He recalled the hot weather and that “ The bodies were getting soft and it was very unpleasant... I tasted the odor for several days. 105 After a battle it was important to dispose of the bodies as soon as possible. Typhoid ,cholera and other diseases could be spread by contact with dead bodies. The bloated corpses attracted disease spreading flies. Union burial details began their work on September 19. At first the focus was on the Union dead. The next day burial details started on the Confederates. The whole process took about four days. However, farmers continued finding bodies under ledges and bushes for some time afterwards.es. Many of the Antietam dead, particularly the Confederates, were buried in shallow graves, later to be rooted up by hogs. At some points on the field the Confederates ended up in mass burial trenches, such as one on the Roulette farm where 700 were buried. 106 For some of the locals the battle was a financial boon. The Dunker Church was used as an embalming station. There this relatively new science was being practiced by contractors for those families who could afford it. Local farmers made extra money hauling coffins with embalmed Union soldiers from the church to the railroad station in nearby Hagerstown.107 About 19,000 men were wounded in the battle. Their care posed a logistical challenge that encompassed an area of more than 40 miles and parts of three states. Practically every house, church, barn and shed in and around Sharpsburg, more than 120 structures, was used as some sort of hospital. But, beyond that the wounded were taken to hospitals in nearby villages such as Keedysville and Boonsboro. Frederick and Hagerstown Maryland became major hospital sites and around four hundred wounded Union soldiers were sent north by rail to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The Confederates set up hospitals in Shepherdstown, Martinsburg and Winchester, Virginia. A Hagerstown newspaper referred to the are as “one vast hospital.” 108
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 15:02:26 +0000
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