Antietam National Battlefield Park

Dunker Church

This small whitewashed chapel, built by pacifist Dunkard farmers, became Robert E. Lee's primary artillery sighting landmark for his entire Confederate line. Destroyed twice and rebuilt twice, the current 1962 reconstruction sits on its original foundation using original stone, and its interior served as a field hospital after the fighting.

Clara Barton's Monument

A plain stone marker with no statue honors the 39-year-old government clerk who arrived with wagons of supplies and no official permission, then dressed wounds with corn husks after the bandages ran out. A bullet once passed through her sleeve and killed the soldier she was holding — the night that set her on the path to founding the American Red Cross.

General Mansfield's Monument

Joseph Mansfield had 40 years of military experience but had commanded his corps for only two days when he rode into a crossfire on personal reconnaissance and took a fatal bullet to the chest. Two separate monuments claim his exact death spot, a debate historians still haven't settled after 160 years.

Greene and Battery B Monuments

At 61, Brigadier General George Greene was the oldest commander on the field, and he held a plateau alone for two hours after the divisions on both his flanks broke and retreated. Nearby, Lieutenant James Stewart's cannon crew kept firing as Confederate infantry closed to within 15 feet of the barrels, with wounded men loading rounds from their hands and knees.

The Miller Cornfield

This 30-acre field, where the battle opened at first light, changed hands at least six times in under three hours and left roughly 8,000 men killed or wounded. Soldiers on both sides wrote home that you could cross the field afterward without your feet ever touching the ground.

Philadelphia Brigade Monument

Marking the spot where 5,400 Union troops marched into a Confederate ambush from three directions at once, this stop tells the story of 2,200 men falling in under 20 minutes inside the West Woods. Confederate General William Starke was struck by three musket balls here and died on the field.

The Sunken Road (Bloody Lane)

Confederate General D.H. Hill turned this worn farm track into a natural trench, and four hours of point-blank fighting followed before a Union officer found the angle that finally broke the line. A hiker later discovered the unidentified remains of a teenage New York soldier in a nearby groundhog burrow, still holding a belt buckle and uniform buttons.

Observation Tower

Climbing the 75-foot stone tower's 110 steps rewards you with a full 360-degree view of the Cornfield, West Woods, Dunker Church, and Burnside Bridge all at once. Beside it stands the Irish Brigade monument, honoring immigrant soldiers who received individual absolution from their chaplain before charging Bloody Lane and losing more than 60 percent of their men.

Burnside Bridge

Five hundred Confederate riflemen held off 12,500 Union soldiers for nearly three hours at this narrow stone crossing before the 51st New York and 51st Pennsylvania finally took it at bayonet point. General Ambrose Burnside then waited two hours for ammunition resupply, a delay historians still call one of the most costly decisions of the battle.

McKinley Monument

Future president William McKinley, then an 18-year-old commissary sergeant, drove a mule cart of hot coffee and food through active fire to feed every man in his regiment. That same regiment's colonel, Rutherford B. Hayes, also became president — making this one unit home to two future commanders-in-chief.

Antietam National Cemetery

The tour's final stop holds 4,776 Union soldiers, 1,836 of them marked unknown, while Confederate dead were buried separately in Hagerstown and Frederick. Standing here, you're looking at the human cost behind the number that opened the day: 22,717 Americans killed, wounded, or missing in a single day.

Curious how a battle that ended with both armies still on the field could still hand Lincoln the “victory” he needed for the Emancipation Proclamation, read the “Who Won the Battle of Antietam?” to discover why the answer isn’t as simple as you think.