By the time sunset closed the Battle of Antietam September 17, 1862, nearly 23,000 men were dead, wounded, captured, or missing, making the fight the bloodiest day in American military history. This grim statistic, nonetheless, tells only part of the story, for the small community of Sharpsburg, Md., was the epicenter of that deadly day. Families lived, worked, and worshipped there. It was their home—and the savage combat turned their lives upside down. Shot and shell terrified the inhabitants, destroyed houses and barns, obliterated crop fields, and transformed portions of farmsteads into vast graveyards. Yet this was only the beginning of Sharpsburg’s struggles. Although the fighting ended on September 17, the civilians’ hardships continued.
The Battle of Antietam differed from other engagements like Gettysburg and Monocacy, where the armies departed the battleground soon after fighting, leaving only their wounded and medical personnel behind. After Antietam, tens of thousands of men in the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, remained in the battlefield area for almost six weeks while suffering from supply shortages. The presence of so many soldiers for so long a time devastated the local community on multiple levels. Expressing concern shortly after the battle, Sharpsburg resident Augustin A. Biggs wrote, “We have nearly the whole of McClellan’s army quartered here…we are all in a destitute state, and if the government don’t relieve us, this neighborhood is ruined.”
When General Robert E. Lee withdrew his Army of Northern Virginia from Sharpsburg on the evening of September 18, some residents may have wondered if McClellan’s army might immediately pursue Lee’s Confederates into Virginia. McClellan, however, had already met his Maryland Campaign objective, which was “to preserve the National Capital and Baltimore, to protect Pennsylvania from invasion, and to drive the enemy out of Maryland.” If he pondered rushing his army across the Potomac River to attack Lee, the clash at Shepherdstown (now West Virginia) on September 20
