Early in the film, Henry Fleming ('Audie Murphy') is shown writing a letter to his family. The date at the top of the letter is 10 September, 1862. This makes the battle depicted in the film either Turner's Gap, South Mountain, Maryland, on Sept 14; or Antietam Creek (Sharpsburg), Maryland, on Sept 17. Scholarship generally agrees that the battle in the novel is more like Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 1863. The novel never names a place or gives a date.
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