Harper’s Ferry West Virginia

…continuing with our August 2018 exploration of parts of the northeastern United States. 

It was the afternoon of the twentieth day of our trip and we’d just finished touring the Antietam National Battlefield across the Potomac River in Maryland.  With truly hot weather at Antietam, (99 F), we had done most of that tour from the cool comfort of our car.

The next attraction did require getting out and about a bit on foot…

We crossed the Potomac River into West Virginia and we arrived at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.  The Park and the town of Harpers Ferry West Virginia are located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers.  The Park is managed by the National Park Service.  It had initially been declared a National Monument in 1944, but in 1963 it was designated as a National Historical Park. 

This is Shenandoah Street in the lower part of Harpers Ferry.  This street in “Lower Town” runs parallel to the Shenandoah River and it is all National Park Service land.  Do you notice anything unexpected?  Where are the tourists?  It was hot but bearable, especially if you explored inside the various buildings.  It was a Tuesday as well.  During our visit, I don’t believe that we saw more than a couple dozen tourists...

The Park recorded 331,691 visitors in 2016.  How they arrived at the number is somewhat of a mystery to me.  We didn’t have to pay an entrance fee and if we hadn’t stopped by the Visitor’s Center in the Lower Town, we wouldn’t have been anywhere where we could have been recorded.

The Harpers Ferry Park Association and National Park Bookshop are housed in the John G. Wilson Building which is also known as the Stagecoach Inn.  When it was built in 1826, it contained both stores and residences.  In the 1830s, it served as a hotel.  After the Harpers Ferry U.S. Armory was built, this building housed workers for the factory. 

Today, this building is a bookstore as well as offices for the Harpers Ferry Park Association, a non-profit organization that supports the Park and the National Park Service.  Proceeds from sales go to support educational and interpretive programs in the Park.

FYI, we’d parked in the almost empty Visitor’s Center Parking Lot which is some distance from the Lower Town area.  We took an almost empty shuttle bus to the Lower Town.  The Visitor’s Center by the parking lot was closed… As it turned out, we could have easily parked down by the main attractions along the river.      

I couldn’t determine when this building was completed but it’s safe to assume that it was built before the American Civil War.  The building has several signs on it, most prominent of which is “Stonebraker’s Bakery.  In reality, it is home to public restrooms and the Park’s Industry Museum.

As the sign in this photo showing a small part of the Industry Museum states, the gun manufacturing operation in Harpers Ferry made the whole weapon…”lock, stock and barrel’.

George Washington visited the area in 1785 to determine the need for bypass canals along the Potomac River.  In 1794, he proposed the site for a new United States armory and arsenal.  By the mid-1800s, Armory workers had invented the Minie Rifle bullet, special machinery and interchangeable parts for the rifles.  As Civil War approached the fact that the Harpers Ferry Armory and Arsenal were the only National armory south of the Mason-Dixon Line made the town a valuable and strategic target for both Union and Confederate forces. 

Note: Meriwether Lewis visited Harpers Ferry in 1903 to buy rifles and tomahawks for his expedition west.

We loved this random stone pattern in the streets of the Lower Town…

In 1733 a squatter settled on the land near the point where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet.  He established a ferry service across the Potomac from what is now West Virginia to Maryland.  In 1747, Robert Harper passed through the area and, given the area’s water power, he recognized its potential for industry.  He ‘bought’ the land from the squatter and then in 1751, he gained legal title to the area by purchasing 126 acres from its rightful owner, Lord Fairfax.  Then he ‘established’ a ferry…although one had been operating for years.  Although Harper and his heirs sold land to the government for the armory in 1796, they held on to key portions of Harper Ferry’s Lower Town…which became the commercial heart of the town.

Before the approaching American Civil War, Harpers Ferry was a thriving industrial and commercial town of about 3,000 residents.  It was linked to major cities via a system of railroads, canals and highways.  Over 40 stores in town served workers, businessmen, housewives, farmers and tradesmen.  

Despite the fact that the town was in a slave state, (Virginia at the time), whites and African-Americans, slave and free, shopped in these stores together.

The merchandise on display in the Dry Goods Store shown above were typical of the items carried in the 1850s.  They include fabrics, patent medicines, writing implements, hardware items and general notions. 

This is the Provost Marshal Office in Lower Town at Harpers Ferry.  Items and furnishings on display are typical of what one might expect in this office.  Rifles, guard uniforms, a drum, U.S. Flag, a status chalk board tracking the status of prisoners…and of course, the clerk’s desk…where all the work really took place.

The pair of 1806 Harpers Ferry pistols became the insignia of the U.S. Military Police Corps in 1923.

The Provost Marshal was frequently the most important and powerful man in town during the Civil War.  These Union Army Officers were charged with maintaining order among both soldiers and civilians.  They were the Union’s military police.  They hunted and arrested deserters, spies and civilians suspected of disloyalty.  They served as judge, jailer and sometimes, executioner. 

Note:

•          During the Civil War, Harpers Ferry was the northernmost point of Confederate controlled territory.  Harpers Ferry is the site of the first and for many years the only railroad bridge across the Potomac River.  The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad completed their bridge in 1837.  This was also the site of the first railroad intersection in the USA.  Amazingly, at the time of the Civil War, this was the only railroad link between the Northern and Southern states.  One of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson’s first actions was the Great Train Raid of 1861.  His forces disabled the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for almost a year by destroying tracks, bridges, water towers, coal depots and by stealing rolling stock.   

Mrs. Cornelia Stipes and her 3 daughters operated a boarding house above the Provost Marshal’s Office.  Apparently Mrs. Stipes was a widow and she provided board and lodging in order to ‘keep the wolves from the door’.  She primarily had military officers as boarders.  But she also had a ‘visual reporter’, James E. Taylor, a sketch artist for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper stay for a while as well.  Sketches like his were the only visual images that the general public saw all through the war.

Philip Frankel and Company operated a store in this building from 1858 – 1860.  He sold ‘ready-made’ clothing for men and boys.  In this photo there is a display of gloves, hats, socks and shoes but this reimagined store also had pants, vests, shirts and more in stock.  Researchers have matched the goods on display to the period when this store was in business.  

The picture above shows what Harpers Ferry looked like in 1859, just before the famous raid on the armory by John Brown.  Note the plumes of smoke and all the factories lined along the river.  Coal was the fuel that powered the town’s industries and it was reputedly as dingy and probably unhealthy environment.  This was an important industrial center…

Construction on the United States Armory and Arsenal began here in 1799.  This was one of only two such facilities in the United States, the other being in Springfield Massachusetts.  These 2 facilities produced most of the small arms for the U.S. Army.  Between 1801 and 1861, when it was destroyed to prevent capture during the Civil War, the Harpers Ferry Armory produced more than 600,000 muskets, rifles and pistols. 

Captain John H. Hall pioneered the use and production of interchangeable parts in firearms manufactured in his rifle works at Harpers Ferry between 1820 and 1840.  He developed the first breech loading weapon to be adopted by the U.S. Army and he used water power and ‘automation’ to speed production and standardize parts. 

To learn more about John Hall and his accomplishments, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Hall_(gunsmith). 

This large brick building was part of Storer College.  It was an historic black college that was originally established as a normal school to train black teachers.  It operated from 1865 until 1955.  It had been established after the Civil War with the help of philanthropic New England based Baptists.  It lost state funding after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. 

The old college former campus and buildings were acquired by the National Park Service in 1962.  The buildings are used as one of the National Park Service training centers, as well as the Park Services library.   The large building also a small exhibit that explains the history and nature of Harpers Ferry Wetlands…a special resource along the bottomland of the Shenandoah River.

The former Storer College campus is historically significant for another reason.  This is where “The Niagara Movement” held its first public meeting in the United States.  The group’s first meeting had been held near Niagara Falls…on the Canadian side of the border because the founding members of the organization, a group of African Americans were refused lodging in Buffalo New York.

 

Founded by W.E.B. Du Bois, a Harvard University educated African American, the Niagara Movement began the long process toward achieving racial equality.  Harpers Ferry was chosen for the first meeting on American soil because John Brown’s Raid on the Harper’s Ferry Arsenal is considered by many to have been where the first shots were fired in the Civil War.  The Niagara Movement continued until 1911, providing the cornerstone for the modern civil rights era.  Almost all of the members of the Movement became the backbone for the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. (NAACP)

This building immediately across from part of the old Storer College exhibit is home to another exhibit entitled “Black Voices: African American History”.  It is an interactive exhibit that has plenty of photos and exhibits along with narrated stories of hardships and the hard-won victories by African Americans from the days when they were slaves (‘just’ property) on through the Civil Rights era.  This poignant and disturbing exhibit will hold your attention, that’s for sure.

Appropriately enough, this is High Street which leads to the ‘Upper Town’ portion of Harpers Ferry.  We didn’t have time to explore it but much of the Upper Town (about 100 buildings) is included in the Harpers Ferry Historic District.  There are many houses from the 1800s that were built by the United States Government for the Harpers Ferry Armory. 

Unfortunately I missed my chance to photograph the Harpers Ferry railway station… It is a wooden Victorian style depot that was built in 1889.  It sits on the buried foundation of the original Harpers Ferry Armory Building.  Better yet, 4 passenger trains stop here each day, two of them Amtrak’s Capitol Limited which operates between Washington D.C. and Chicago Illinois. 

These are various photos of John Brown… He was a fervent American abolitionist who believed in and advocated for armed insurrection as the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States.  He gained much attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis in 1856.  He and his supporters killed 5 supporters of slavery in the infamous Pottawatomie Massacre, a response to the sacking of Lawrence Kansas by pro-slavery forces.  Later he commanded anti-slavery forces in 2 other battles in Kansas.

John Brown’s history and life story are well documented and it is a long and twisting tale… There isn’t enough room for it here.  You can learn a lot more about this more than impassioned man by going to Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_%28abolitionist%29.

This old fire-engine/guard house is where John Brown barricaded themselves before being captured by Federal troops.  It’s now known as “John Brown’s Fort”.  This is the only surviving building in the old federal armory complex that was built over the years starting in 1799. 

John Brown’s raid didn’t go according to plan.  He had met with Harriet Tubman and she told him that she’d recruit former slaves living in southern Canada for his purpose which she did.  He told abolitionist Frederick Douglass about his plan at Harpers Ferry and Douglass tried to talk him out of it.  In the end, Brown went forward with his plan.  He led far fewer men on the raid than he’d planned…only 16 white, 3 free blacks, 1 freed slave and a fugitive slave.  He was well equipped though…with 200 rifles and 950 pikes for the slaves that he expected to rise up and join forces with him.  In addition of course, Harpers Ferry Armory held 100,000 muskets and rifles.

Although the raid started out well for the group, it wasn’t long before local shopkeepers, townspeople and the local militia has the group pinned down.  The uprising didn’t happen.  The group was surrounded and the only escape route was blocked.  They did have hostages, one of them was Colonel Lewis Washington, President George Washington’s great, great nephew. 

In any case, by the next morning “John Brown’s Fort” was surrounded by a company of U.S. Marines…with Colonel Robert E. Lee of the U.S. Army in overall command.  First Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart asked them to surrender but Brown refused saying that he preferred to die there.  That didn’t work out too well for him either as the doors were quickly breached, and he and his remaining men were captured. 

In the aftermath of the raid, John Brown was hung but the abolitionist cause in the north was energized.  In the south, fearing a real uprising, the states better organized their militias…which in turn prepared them better for the upcoming conflict.  Of course, Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart resigned from their Union/Federal Commissions and went on to lead Confederate forces against the North. 

We really only saw a portion of Harpers Ferry National Historic Park and none of the town of Harpers Ferry.  The Park itself covers over 3,600 acres and we only saw its Lower Town portion.  To learn more, you can go to https://www.nps.gov/hafe/index.htm.

There have been a number of railway bridges built across the Shenandoah and/or the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry.  The first one was constructed in 1839 and a second one was built in 1851.  They were destroyed in the Civil War and replaced by temporary structures as the war raged on.  A new bridge was built in 1870 but it washed away in a 1936 flood.

There are two bridges today, both of them over the Potomac River and used by CSX.  The ruins at the right are from the 1870 bridge.  The bridge at the left was built in 1896 and it’s still in use.  Another bridge is just beyond this one and it was added in 1931.  The tunnel across the river was built in 1894 but it has been widened to allow the widest possible curve in the newer bridge as it crosses the river.

The Civil War was tough on Harpers Ferry.  The town changed hands 8 times between 1861 and 1865.  Because of its strategic location the opposing armies frequently moved through the area.  When Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland in 1862, he didn’t want to continue without capturing the town.  It was not only on his supply line but it was also one of his escape routes if the invasion didn’t go well.  Lee had General Stonewall Jackson surround the town and after a brisk fight, the Federal garrison of 12,419 troops surrendered.  This was the largest surrender of U.S. Military personnel until the Battle of Bataan in World War II. 

This is the view looking downstream on the Potomac River.  It actually comes in from the left and is joined by the Shenandoah River on the right.  In any case, the ‘notch’ through the mountains carved by these rivers created the strategic and historic town of Harpers Ferry.  The view is rather pretty too…don’t you think?

Then it was off to our Hampton Inn in the nearby town of Charles Town West Virginia.  From there, it was all about finding a place to have dinner.

This is Mi Degollado, a Mexican restaurant in Charles Town.  On their website, they state that all of their Mexican food is ‘homemade and prepared on site’.  As of this year, they will have been in business for 20 years…quite an achievement.

It was a Tuesday night and Mi Degollado was a very busy place!  Like many Mexican restaurants, the colors are bright and cheerful if a little over the top.  The plants along the divider between the dining areas is a nice touch.

Laurie had a Margarita and I had my usual Miller Lite.  The Margarita was pretty good but there wasn’t much ice in it and had to ask the waiter for more.

Sorry about this picture of our appetizer…or part of our appetizer.  We ordered this Chori Queso ($5.50) with tortilla chips to get us started.  It was good and we were hungry…so this is all that was left when I remembered to take a picture. 

Laurie decided to order a pair of Cheese Quesadillas with sour cream and guacamole. ($8.30 in total) She liked the quesadillas and she loved Mi Degollado’s guacamole!

I ordered from Mi Degollado’s “Specialties of the House”.  These were my pair of soft Chimichangas filled with beef tips and topped with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream…served with fried beans.  Laurie was happy because I gave her my guacamole (on the side) but this entrée just didn’t appeal to me, either visually or taste-wise.   It was just a mess!  Maybe I just ordered wrong for me…

Degollado is a small town in the eastern highlands of the Mexican State of Jalisco…and I’m sure that the name of the restaurant is in reference to the town.  If not in Spanish, the word ‘degollado’ means “to slit one’s throat’.

Mi Degollado has 2 locations, this one in Charles Town and another in Sheperdstown West Virginia…the latter allegedly being the most haunted town in America.  The Charles Town restaurant is located at 92 Somerset Boulevard.  Phone: 304-725-0333.  Their website is found at: http://midegolladowv.com/home/4215125.

That’s it for now.  Only 2 more posts and our August 2018 trip will be completed!  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Antietam National Battlefield

…continuing with our August 2018 exploration of parts of the northeastern United States. 

On the afternoon of our nineteenth day on the road, we stopped to visit an important but sad very historic location in American history.

This is the Visitor’s Center for the Antietam National Battlefield.  This is one of the 11 National Battlefields, 9 Military Parks, 4 National Battlefield Parks and 1 National Battlefield Site…out of the more than 390 parks in the National Park System. 

This park commemorates the Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War.  The battle took place on September 17, 1862.  The battlefield park encompasses 3,230 acres and it’s situated among the Appalachian foothills near the Potomac River.  This marked the South’s Confederate Army’s first invasion of the Union/North.  Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee commanded the Confederate forces…

The visitor’s center features a variety of exhibits and an audio-visual program related to the battle and the Maryland campaign.  The 3 photos that follow offer just a small glimpse of the exhibits…

This quilt was completed in the early 1850s by Barbara Miller and it was signed by many local families.  A family farm was one of the scenes of some of the worst fighting in the battle.

The top of this display consists of the debris remaining on the battlefield when the struggle at Antietam ended.  Part of a pike, bayonets, shell casings and more were littered everywhere.  The bottom shelf shows some of the infantry’s rifles.  At least early in the war, the rifles were musket loaders and troops could load and fire them 2 – 3 times a minute.  As one Union solder described it, there was “a perfect roar of musketry and a storm of bullets”.

The display case at the lower right shows examples of everyday items from an army camp.  We have canteens, a pot, knapsack and whetstones.  At the left there is a drum which were usually used by a boy both to keep the men marching in step but also to signal different commands from officers to their troops.

The flag was hand sewn and it’s also one-sided in the sense that the stars and stripes are just on one side of it.  It was sewn by Union General George McClellan’s niece for him to carry into battle.

Like most Civil War battlefields, Antietam has a plethora of monuments honoring troops from the various states represented in this battle.  Cannons can also be found in many places around the National Battlefield, most of them aimed at where the opposing troops were located.

Just looking around, this appears to be a very peaceful setting.  However, if you believe in ghosts, the spirit world, etc. this battlefield is not so tranquil.  This was the first field army sized battle in the eastern theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil.  It was also the bloodiest day in the History of the United States!  Between the Union and Confederate Forces, a total of 22,717 soldiers died, were wounded or went missing.  It was only a one day battle!

This little church is one of the most noted landmarks on this battlefield.  The Dunker Church was constructed by local Dunker farmers in 1852. (Dunker refers to the method of baptism) This group was officially known as German Baptist Brethren…now the Church of the Brethren. 

Services were held in the church the night before the battle.  Then Confederate infantry and artillery were positioned around the church in anticipation of the battle the following day.  It was used as a temporary aid station by Confederate forces.  The church itself was heavily battle scarred but by 1864, it was rebuilt and rededicated.  Regular services were subsequently held here until ca. 1900.

Note: The original church was destroyed by fire in 1921.  It was rebuilt in 1962 as a faithful copy of the original.

This is the Miller farmhouse at Antietam.  D.R. Miller was named after his grandfather who immigrated to Maryland in 1768 and established the first store in nearby Sharpstown.  D.R. Miller’s father operated the store, post office, a hotel, a gristmill as well as several farms.  During the War of 1812, he was a colonel in the militia.  Colonel Miller also helped his sons establish farms in the area. 

D.R. Miller and his wife Margaret moved in in April of 1846 and by September of 1862, they had 7 children.  Many of their crops were in and their 24-acre cornfield had ‘stalks higher than a man’s head’ and ready to harvest. 

As the converging armies neared Sharpsburg, Miller had his livestock driven to safety…except for one angry bull “that refused to be herded”.  The day before the battle the family and their pet parrot “Polly” moved out of the house to be safe.  As it turned out, some of the most deadly fighting raged in and around the Miller’s cornfield.

As the epicenter of the battle, the carnage at the Miller farm was some of the worst of the entire Civil War.  “There was a soldier killed or wounded every second for 4 hours in a row”…creating the “bloodiest square mile in the history of the USA”.

 

The Cornfield changed hands again and again as both sides attacked and counterattacked.  One soldier recalled: “The air seems full of leaden missiles.  Rifles are shot to pieces in the hands of soldiers, canteens and haversacks are riddled with bullets, the dead and wounded go down in scores”.  Over 25,000 soldiers fought in and around the Cornfield and by 9:30 AM, thousands of them lay dead and dying.  Every stalk of corn in most of the field was cut as if it had been done with a knife and the dead lay in rows precisely as they had stood in their ranks just a short time before. 

D.R. Miller confirmed the destruction in the Cornfield when he returned to his home.  However, there was very little damage to the house and barn…with only his blacksmith shop being destroyed.  Of course the crops were ruined or had been consumed by the soldiers and their horse.  D.R. filed a claim of $1,237.75 for damages and he was awarded $995.00 from the Federal Government.  He and his family continued to live and work on this farm for 20 years after the war. 

 This symbol of an encampment is an example of one of thousands that spent the night around the battlefield the night before the bloody struggle.  The number of troops at and around the battlefield were fairly staggering.  The Union Army of the Potomac under General McClellan numbered 87,164 men while the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia combined with the Texas Brigade, all under General Robert E. Lee’s command, numbered 38,000.  Over 125,000 soldiers were camped out in these fields…

This is the Joseph Poffenberger farm.  Union troops were bivouacked here the night before the battle.  During the morning phase of the battle, the Union Army positioned artillery on the ridge line behind this cluster of farm buildings.  Occupation of the farm by the Union Army continued for several weeks after the battle.  Most of Poffenberger’s store goods, wood products and animals were used to keep the troops and horses fed and sheltered.  The army’s occupation had lasting negative effects on the Poffenberger family but for 140 years the property was maintained much the same way as it had been in the 1860s. 

This is the Mumma farm.  It was Samuel Mumma who donated the land where the Dunker Church was built.  At the time of the battle, the Mumma family had operated a farm here for more than 25 years.  Just 2 days before the battle, the family with their 13 children evacuated their home.  When they returned on September 19, only the smoking remains of their house, barn and outbuildings remained.

They learned that Confederate troops positioned in the area had been ordered to set the property on fire to prevent Union soldiers from using it as a sharpshooter position.  This was the only deliberate destruction of civilian property during the battle.  The family filed a claim with the Federal Government for reimbursement for their losses but their claim was denied as the damage had been caused by Confederate, not Union, troops.  A year after the battle, the Mummas rebuilt the farm which still stands today.    

When Union troops discovered the prosperous farm of Joseph and Sarah Sherrick, it had been hastily evacuated as it was located between the lines of the opposing forces.  The troops quickly looted the place, removing anything that was remotely eatable.  One soldier from the Massachusetts reported that there was “a splendid assortment of jellies, preserves, etc.” and that “the orchard was filled with the choicest fruit”.  “What a feast!”

Both armies swept across the property during the Battle of Antietam.  Following the conflict, the Sherrick’s house and barn were used as field hospitals.  The Sherrick’s yard and orchard were littered with bodies and their crops were destroyed.  Luckily, the $3,000 in gold that Joseph had hidden in a stone wall on his property before the family fled had not been discovered…

Note: The Sherrick barn was struck by lightning and was destroyed in 1982.   

The Otto farmhouse is located close to the Sherrick farm and it too served as a field hospital after the battle.  The Otto family left their farm on the morning of September 16 after foraging soldiers had appeared the night before.  Although a good bit of fighting occurred here during the afternoon and evening of the battle, the buildings suffered no major damage.

Of interest was the encounter between a slave on John Otto’s farm with a Confederate soldier.  Hilary Watson had returned to the house and found himself confronting a Confederate looter.  To quote: “I was skeered, but he was mo’ skeered than I was…certainly he was; and I said, ‘you dirty houn’ you, I have a notion to take you and throw you down those steps’.  He didn’t say anything.  He left.  I rekon I was too big for him.”   

In the 1830s a total of 14 bridges were built in Washington County Maryland in order to improve commerce and communications.  This 125 foot long bridge over Antietam Creek was constructed in 1836 by local Dunker farmers and it enabled farmers to more easily take their produce and livestock to market in nearby Sharpstown.

The bridge was a key point on the battlefield during the Battle of Antietam.  For several hours, about 450 soldiers from Georgia under the command of Confederate General Robert Toombs held off several attempts to seize it by Union forces commanded by General Ambrose Burnside.  Although it was finally taken by Union troops, Toombs’ 450 Georgian’s had held off 14,000 Union attackers for many hours.  It is now referred to, perhaps with ‘tongue in cheek’, as the “Burnside Bridge”.

The Battle of Antietam took place on just one day…September 17, 1862.  Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his forces were outnumbered 2 to 1!  Union General George McClellan failed to fully commit his forces and that enabled Lee to fight the Federals to a standstill.  This allowed Lee to fight rear guard actions along the line and remove his battered forces south of the Potomac River into Confederate territory. 

McClellan had the opportunity to destroy the Confederate army but his persistent but erroneous belief was that Lee’s army was superior in number as compared to Union forces.  McClellan’s refusal to pursue Lee’s army led to President Lincoln removing him from command.  Still, Antietam was a strategic Union victory and it gave Lincoln the confidence to announce his Emancipation Proclamation.  In turn, the British and French governments were discouraged from any possible plans to recognize the Confederacy.

If McClellan had destroyed Lee’s army at Antietam, the war probably would have ended much sooner than it did.  The American Civil War continued for another 2 and a half plus years, ending with the surrender of Lee’s army at Appomattox Virginia on May 9, 1865.  This terrible conflict left between 620,000 and 750,000 people dead.  That is more than the total number of U.S. military deaths in all other wars combined.

For information about the Antietam National Battlefield, just go to https://www.nps.gov/anti/index.htm.

To learn more about the actual Battle of Antietam, you can check out Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antietam_National_Battlefield.  

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit! 

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave