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