GETTYSBURG

In the Fall of 2008 I had the opportunity to visit the battlefield at Gettysburg. It was the battle that turned the tide of victory for the Union army. It was an amazing place to visit and travel around. It was easy to see why so many were killed or wounded. Open spaces with high ground to set up cannons. The idea apparently was to charge the cannons, lose the first few lines of foot soldiers and then overcome the men at the cannons before they could reload. The next bit of info is from Wikipedia:

The two armies had suffered between 46,000 and 51,000 casualties. Union casualties were 23,055 (3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, 5,369 captured or missing). Confederate casualties are more difficult to estimate. Many authors cite about 28,000 overall casualties, but Busey and Martin's definitive 2005 work, Regimental Strengths and Losses, documents 23,231 (4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing). The casualties for both sides during the entire campaign were 57,225. There was one documented civilian death during the battle: Ginnie Wade, 20 years old, was shot by a stray bullet that passed through her kitchen in town while she was making bread.

Nearly 8,000 had been killed outright; these bodies, lying in the hot summer sun, needed to be buried quickly. Over 3,000 horse carcasses were burned in a series of piles south of town; townsfolk became violently ill from the stench. The ravages of war would still be evident in Gettysburg more than four months later when, on November 19, the Soldiers' National Cemetery was dedicated. During this ceremony, President Abraham Lincoln with his Gettysburg Address re-dedicated the Union to the war effort.