The Battle of Antietam, fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest single day of the American Civil War, with more than twenty-three thousand Confederate and Union casualties. One Union surgeon reported that most of the dead remained unburied more than a week later. By positioning her camera close to the ground for a number of these photographs, Mann assumed the viewpoint of a dying soldier. She used antique lenses, welcoming the light leaks, fogging, and flares they produced to convey the unsettling history of the landscapes.