Military
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At dawn on September 17, 1862, as Union soldiers stepped out of the Cornfield, Confederate troops aligned in the nearby fields unleashed a horrific volley, and the bloodiest single day in American history began in earnest. For the next four hours, Federal soldiers from the First and Twelfth Corps clashed with Lee’s men in a storm of lead, iron, and flame as the Cornfield changed hands again and again through attacks and counterattacks. One soldier recalled air full of leaden missiles, rifles shot to pieces in soldiers’ hands, canteens and haversacks riddled with bullets, and the dead and wounded falling in scores. More than 25,000 soldiers fought in and around the Cornfield, and by 9:30 a.m. thousands lay dead and dying. Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood called it the most terrible clash of arms he had witnessed during the war, and Union Gen. Joseph Hooker remembered the corn cut down as closely as with a knife and the slain lying in rows where they had stood moments before.
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Shepherdstown, Maryland · United States
