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America's Wars: Bloodiest Battles

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Civil War, Antietam, 1862

The battle of Antietam (or Battle of Sharpsburg, as it's still called in the American South) was fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, MD, and remains the bloodiest single-day battle in American history: More than 4,000 killed and 23,000 total casualties. The first major battle of the Civil War fought on Northern soil, the day ended with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee withdrawing his troops back across the Potomac, to Virginia — a move that, while strategically astute, effectively ended Lee's first real push into Union territory.