Antietam National Battlefield
Situated near Sharpsburg, Maryland, Antietam National Battlefield commemorates the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. On September 17, 1862, over twenty-two thousand Union and Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded, or reported missing during twelve hours of horrific combat. The battle ended General Robert E. Lee's first northern invasion and gave President Abraham Lincoln the political momentum to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Today, the pristine three-thousand-acre battlefield is widely regarded as one of the most intensely haunted historical locations in North America, with visitors and rangers reporting phantom gunfire, phantom marching drum cadences, spectral apparitions in period uniform, and disembodied cries echoing across Bloody Lane.