America's worst military disaster for ground troops?

I know this battle very well its on the top of my list along with The Battle of the Bulge and Iwo Jima. Honestly this is the worst for me because a suppose to be trusted leader let his men down it was a pointless slaughter a real disgrace to our military history.

Battle of the Somme, World War One: over a million casualties total.

Battle of the Marne, World War One: similar casualty count.

Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam) 17 September 1862: bloodiest single day of battle in American history.

Battle of Gettysburg: over fifty thousand casualties during this three-day battle.

I would say they battle of Bataan/Corregidor was worse in terms of being disastrous for ground troops. The battle was lost due to being totally unprepared and unsupplied. The US and its Filipino allies lost to a smaller Japanese force with all the defensive advantages. Over 125,000 troops were killed or captured. Many of the captured prisoners would die in the Bataan Death March. It was MacArthur's job to prepare the defense of the Philippines and he did it so well. MacArthur was overrated IMO.

1) The Korean War was between 1951-1953...

2) The Battle of Cold Harbor, (American Civil War, 31st May- 12th June, 1864). Under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant (Union), assaulted General Robert E. Lee's (Confederate) entrenched forces for 13 days. The total losses for the Union accounted are estimated to be close to 13,000, one account in a book by Trudeau (Bloody Roads South), accounted for 14,931 deaths. With this in mind, we turn to the Confederate losses, which barely cap 5,000 deaths, with the highest attribute by Young (Lee's Army) being 5,287 dead.

Aftermath: The battle was so horrendously costly, that most Northern Newspaper companies called Grant the "Butcher", having slaughtered so many Union troops in the attempt to destroy Lee's Army before Christmas (Commonly, Christmas during war, as a promise to "End the war by Christmas", usually ends up in disaster with enormous losses for the attacking group). Grant's image was so beaten that his legacy for the slaughter still rings true today. Despite his becoming President, many people resented Grant, simply because his war record during the Civil War shows that he was responsible for an enormous amount of deaths (next to William T. Sherman during his march on Atlanta, Georgia).

Conclusion: The Battle of Cold Harbor was the worst military disaster to American troops, and to a commander's legacy as an efficient leader (it was already in question after the near-disaster at the Battle of Shiloh).

You're mistaken about the marines- they were able to do their "fighting retreat" because the army was handling the majority of the enemy forces.

And yes there are tons of worse episodes. The battle of antietam and picketts charge are the first 2 to come to mind.

Worst disaster? Hardly. It was a bad defeat, but not a disaster.

If you want to talk about disasters, let's talk about the Battle of the Wabash River.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Clair%27s_Defeat