The Cornfield

The Civil War battle in western Maryland that killed 22,000 men—and served no military purpose. For generations of Americans, the word Antietam —the name of a bucolic stream in western Maryland—held the same sense of horror and carnage that the date 9/11 does for Americans today. But Antietam eclipses even this modern tragedy as America’s single bloodiest day, on which 22,000 men became casualties in a war to determine our nation’s future. Antietam is forever burned into the American psyche as a