Existing comment:
A Contest of Casualties:
-- "... every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain laid in rows precisely as they had stood... It was... a bloody, dismal battlefield." -- Major General Joseph Hooker -- First Corps -- Army of the Potomac -- November 8, 1862
Outmoded tactics and modern weaponry combined to produce high casualty rates in many Civil War battles. The Battle of Antietam was especially gruesome, however, because the Union forces attacked frontally, unsupported, and in piecemeal fashion against a resolute, well-positioned foe who also happened to be very well led. In the Civil War, sheer courage rarely prevailed over massed firepower. |