Antietam National Battlefield
Sharpsburg, Maryland
June 13, 2004

Click on image for larger view,

The day started out well, Hiroki, Uncle John, and I set out from Media, PA early in the morning on our way to Antietam National Battlefield, central location of the bloodiest day in American history. We traveled westward through Pennsylvania, passing by more than one Amish buggy on it's way to church, then down past Gettysburg to the Maryland border. Just accross the border, we bought some overpriced vending machine drinks at a rest stop. One vending machine tried to steal 75 cents, but it goofed up and gave us an extra bottle, so we can out 50 cents up in the deal (take that Maryland!).

We continued down through Maryland to Fredericksburg, where we somehow missed a major road connection. By the time we figured out that we had missed the road we wanted, we were nearly in West Virginia. Using the complimentry road map of Maryland that we'd picked up at the rest stop, we foraged northward, attempting to take a short cut down unnamed (on the map) roads. That did not work out to well (I suspect these Maryland mapmakers never made it further into Maryland than Baltimore), but we made it back to a road that we could find on the map, and then made it to Antietam, passing through some very rustic small Maryland towns on the way, some of them more than once.


The Visitor Center

Upon arriving in Antietam, we went immediately to the Visitors Center. We went upstairs to the viewing area for a few minutes, then down to watch the twenty-five minute film that provides an overview of the battle. After the film, we looked around the museum for a few minutes. We decided it would be a good idea to eat lunch before starting the battlefield tour, so we grabbed some food at a place called the Battlefield Market just in town.


Some views from the observation area of the Visitors Center

The first stop on the tour is the Dunker Church. This church was the center of the fighting and the armies swarmed back and forth to control the bit of ground the church rested upon. After the battle, this church served as a hospital. The orginal church was destroyed by a storm in 1921, but was later rebuilt from much of the same materials.


View up the Hagerstown Pike


Army tent

I met a locust. Actually, I met about 15 billion locust, they were everywhere, and they are really loud. The locust sitting on the fencepost were nice and calm, but ones that were found later on were flying into walls and people, possibly trying to knock people over to feed on them and/or take their lunch money. You just can't be too sure with those locust.

The picture to the left is a view down the North Woods, the second stop on the tour. From here, General Joe Hooker launched the opening assult of the battle, across a cornfield and smack into the assembled troops of General Thomas Jackson.


Reenactors between demonstrations

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