Antietam—Phase Two: The Sunken Road

The Sunken Road

As the maelstrom around the Dunker Church and West Woods began to quiet, the fighting shifted southward toward the Confederate center. For three hours, 2,500 Confederates hunkered down in a sunken road held off wave after Federal wave—some 10,000 attackers in all. Shortly after noon, the line broke, and Federals swarmed in, trapping Southerners like fish in a barrel. Afterwards, the Confederate dead were lying in rows like the ties of a railroad, in heaps like cordwood mingled with splintered and shattered fence rails.”