There were 22,700 casualties, 12,400 Union and 10,300 Confederate. The photo right shows Confederate dead on the east side of the Hagerstown Pike near the hill where the Visitor Center is located today, with the photographer looking toward the Dunker Church. Click on the photo for a larger view then hit your browser back button to return.
The townspeople of Sharpsburg had to care for the wounded besides dealing with the other problems resulting from the battle.
Rev. John W. Schildt, a Chewsyville author of eight books, nearly all of them on the Antietam battle and Maryland campaign, wrote the following:
"The swollen corpses, darkened by the sun, gave off a terrible stench. Many people at the time said they had to keep their windows down until late October because it stunk so bad. Scattered also on the rolling battlefield were hundreds of dead horses. Some were killed by bullets when they were shot out from under their riders; others had been blown apart by artillery shells. Large fires were started to consume the carcasses of dead horses, which gave off a rather foul odor."
A typhoid epidemic swept through the area in late October and historians believe it was caused by rainfall that fell on the shallow graves of some soldiers and found its way into water supplies. It wasn't until several years later that many of the bodies buried on the battlefield were exhumed and moved to cemeteries.
The battle also gave President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which, on January 1, 1863, declared free all slaves in States still in rebellion against the United States. Now the war had a dual purpose: to preserve the Union and end slavery.