Lawrence O'Bryan Branch was a North Carolina representative in the U.S. Congress and a Confederate brigadier general in the American Civil War, killed at the Battle of Antietam. He owned 40 slaves.
Lawrence O'Bryan Branch
Memorial cannon placed at site of Branch's death (pictured)
The Battle of Antietam, also called the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the Southern United States, took place during the American Civil War on September 17, 1862, between Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union Major General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek. Part of the Maryland Campaign, it was the first field army–level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It remains the bloodiest day in American history, with a tally of 22,727 dead, wounded, or missing on both sides. Although the Union Army suffered heavier casualties than the Confederates, the battle was a major turning point in the Union's favor.
Depiction of the fighting near Dunker Church by Thure de Thulstrup
Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, Army of the Potomac (USA)
Gen. Robert E. Lee, Army of Northern Virginia (CSA)
Dead horse belonging to a Confederate colonel who was also killed, near the East Woods.