S. G. Elliott & Co., Map of the Battlefield of Antietam (1864)

Simon Green Elliott (1828-1897) was a California railroad engineer who created two postbattle burials of the dead during the Civil War, including one of the battlefield at Gettyburg, and this one, of the battlefield following the Battle of Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle of the Civil War. The burial maps are considered invaluable tools for historians and preservationists, illustrating the importance of properties around these hallowed battlefields. This map marks the graves of 2,634 Union and 3,210 Confederate soldiers, the burials of around 269 horses, and the positions of 152 cannons. With estimated losses of nearly 23,000, the Battle of Antietam is considered a tactical draw, but Lincoln considered it a strategic victory. He took this as his opportunity to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. The proclamation was a vow to free slaves in all areas held by the Confederacy if the seceded states did not return to the Union by January 1st, 1863, and it officially bound the Union to the anti-slavery cause. None of the seceded states returned.