Barton was almost killed at the Battle of Antietam

During the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, Barton arrived at the now-famous Antietam cornfield. She worked late into the night helping the surgeons, preparing food for the soldiers, and tending the wounded despite nearby cannon fire and bullets flying overhead after dropping off her wagon load of medical supplies to grateful surgeons struggling to make bandages out of corn husks.

While Barton was tending to one unfortunate soldier, Barton narrowly escaped death in the bloody Battle of Antietam. A shot ripped her sleeve as she lifted an injured man's head to give him water. She lived, but her patient did not: "A ball went through his chest from shoulder to shoulder, through between my body and the right arm supporting him. I couldn't do it. nothing more for him, so I let him rest," Barton wrote, "that hole in my sleeve was never patched."