Man with Bicycle, Bloody Lane, Antietam Battlefield, June 27, 1907

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of statues and sculptures.

Handwritten caption: "Bloody Lane, Antietam Battlefield, June 27, 1907."

A man poses with his bicycle as he stands in the Sunken Road, or "Bloody Lane," as it became known during the American Civil War after the Battle of Antietam. The day of the battle, September 17, 1862, was the "Bloodiest Day in American History," with 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers "killed, wounded, or missing after twelve hours of savage combat." During the three hours of fighting that took place along the Bloody Lane, "5,500 soldiers were killed or wounded and neither side gained a decisive advantage."

Beyond the bicyclist is the 132nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Monument, which was dedicated in 1904. The statue atop the monument commemorates a battlefield incident, but not one that happened at Antietam. Instead, it depicts a soldier holding a regimental flag with part of its staff shot off, reflecting an event that occurred later during the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. For additional details, see "Description of the Monument," pp. 197-98, in Pennsylvania at Antietam: Report of the Antietam Battlefield Memorial Commission of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa., 1906).

For better views of the bicyclist and the monument, see a cropped version of the photo.

For modern photos of the monument and its surroundings, see the 132nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry page on HMdb.org: The Historical Marker Database.