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Sunday, November 13, 2016

Visiting the Antietam Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland

The mountains of Western Maryland was settled in the 1700s.  Battles raged across this section of the state during the Civil War...  Antietam, Monocacy, Folcks Mill, Hancock, Williamsport, Boonsboro and South Mountain.





Eric and I are visiting Antietam 
Battlefield in Sharpsburg....

The bloodiest one day battle of 
America's war with itself.






Antietam National Battlefield
Visitor Center







England was considering recognizing the Confederate States of America in 1862.  A Southern win on Northern soil would do much to show the South to be a military power worth supporting.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee massed 38,000 troops to Sharpsburg to prosecute the first battle on Northern soil in mid September, 1862.





Union troops moving through
corn fields to engage Rebel
troops led by Robert E. Lee.









 The monument in the foreground is the 5th, 7th and 66th Ohio Infantry memorial.






This small white building is a
replica of The Dunker Church.







The German Baptists who worshiped here were known as Dunkers because they practiced immersion Baptism.






The battle raged throughout
the day.







Union General George B. McClellan commanded the 75,500 Union solders who marched here to repulse Lee's troops.

The monument in the background is the New York State memorial.  Antietam Battlefield is dotted with memorials to the soldiers who fought and died here.





The Maryland State
Monument memorializes
those who fought on
their native soil.













recognizes the volunteers
who fought & died at
Antietam.



I look across the farm fields
& see other monuments...

The Pennsylvania 130th
Volunteer Infantry
Monument












The Dunker Church is the tiny white building to the left.
Men died on the fields you see before you.









I image 100,000 plus troops, cannons and caissons moving across
these fields, punishing their enemy, being repulsed....

The North won this battle.  General Lee led his beaten soldiers south, in defeat.  Union and Confederate dead, wounded and missing soldiers totaled 22,717.

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