[PaulZe]

Are any freepers planning on being there?

[Fiji Hill]

I visited the battlefield in 2005 and liked it better than Gettysburg, which is strewn with monuments. The corn in the famous corn field was almost ready to be picked.

[yarddog]

Although Antietam stopped the Confederate invasion of the North it is generally considered a tie. The Union did suffer greater casualties.

I do know some of the Confederate officers considered it one of the most masterful performances by Lee who was outnumbered, and found himself in a situation where his opponent had possession of his battle plans including where his men would be, how many were there etc.

McClelland upon getting those plans announced he would destroy Lee’s army the next day and he came close to doing it. Lee somehow managed to block every move McClelland made despite his numerical inferiority.

Lee did figure out pretty quickly that McClelland had his plans.

[2banana]

When blacks want their “reparations” they need to read about this battle (and others) and see the bill fully paid...

[JIM O]

Bump for later

[rdl6989]

bttt

[UB355]

While my daughter lived in DC I visited her and we went out and took the tour of this battlefield. A memory I will cherish. We also visited the cemetery that adjoins the battlefield. We found some markers for some Wisconsin solders which surprised me. My great great grandfather Was in the 24th wisonsin, they fought mostly south Ky, aLa, GA
.

[Kush]

I will be there, filming, Saturday and Sunday, looking forward to it. I was at 1st Bull Run last year (1st Manassas for all you Johnny Rebs out there), and it was quite impressive, 9000 took part, hoping for something close to that. For any interested, here is a link to a quick video I threw together from it...

150th Anniversary First Bull Run

Should be fun.

Kush

[Reo]

My great-grandfather, Samuel Pittman, at that time a 1st Lt, was there as aide to BG Alpheus Williams. Pittman had been a bank clerk in Detroit before the war, and it was he who identified and authenticated the signature of Robert Chilton, Lee's AG who had signed the Lost Order. Prior to the war Chilton and been the paymaster for federal troops in Detroit, and Pittman had learned his signature well as part of his bank duties. Some years ago, when cleaning out my parents home following their passing, we found a box stuffed with Pittman's papers that my grandmother and mother had carefully preserved. One of the papers was a letter he wrote to his wife a few days after the battle, where he had been in The Cornfield. Here is an excerpt:

" I cannot possibly detail to you now the trials of that day. Suffice it to say that the “iron hail” was so thick and my duties took me to so many different points , nothing but the protecting care of my God can have saved me from injury. My little horse and self both yielded to fatigue about the same time, but not until our most important part had been played. I found water for both and few minutes rest revived us and we again entered upon our duties.

I had the privilege of walking the battlefield a few years ago, a most moving and humbling experience.

[Vinnie]

We visited Gettysburg, Antietam several years ago.. Very sobering.
It’s just hard to wrap my mind around the way battles were fought and the losses suffered.
I had an ancestor in the 49th Alabama, captured, sent to a camp in Columbus, Oh.
Released with the condition he would go home and not participate any longer. Somehow he ended up in Pickett’s Charge.
He survived the war, wounded from a mini-ball to the shoulder.

When we pulled out of the parking lot at Antietam we turned right onto Harper Ferry Rd. instead of left toward the major highway.
Wonderful drive, right along the Potomac River. The Chesapeake-Ohio canal locks clearly visible.
It doesn’t take much imagination to mentally see mule drawn barges plying the waterway.

When you get to the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers you are on the opposite side of the Potomac from Harpers Ferry. There is a little row of bldgs. that looked to be period. A really nice perspective of the site.

We stumbled upon this drive. A fortuitous ‘mistake’ of my navigating.