Antietam .... souls still wander there. Every time I’ve visited, the place really “gets” to me in a way I can’t describe.
I would agree with you.
I spent some time all alone in the Dunker Church, which is about one third original materials from that day.
It changed hands many times during the battle, and was used by both sides as a field hospital.
The suffering and agony that occurred in there must have been monumental.it was eerie to be alone in there, but it was not due to a feeling of malice; rather it was more due to extreme sadnesses adding the place.
Unlike
Gettysburg, Antietam is not expansive—it is a rather compact battleground.
To have two large armies firing almost point blank at each other for an entire day in such a small area is almost incomprehensible.
The bravery of the men who fought that day is unequalled.
Antietam has always been one of my favorite battlefields to visit. I always enjoyed visiting Gettysburg, Antietam, and other sites during the winter months because you practically had them to yourself. The place that really got to me the first time I went there was Andersonville. I walked the perimeter of the wall, all the way around the camp, and as I walked, I felt an unbelievable sorrow and depression come over me, to the point that by the time I had gotten back to where I had started, I felt like bursting into tears, and had to fight the feeling off. It took several hours for those feelings to finally leave me, and it only happened after I’d left the park. I’ve been to many battlefields, but this was the first time I had ever been effected that severely.
Shaprsburg sits on a wide bend in the Potomac River, and, for whatever reason, it has always had a reputation for violence and the macabre. Long before the Civil War, the indians used to think it was haunted, and they avoided the place. Later, when the B&O Railroad and the canal came through, it became the site of deadly battles between Irish and German laborers who were competing for jobs. When that was settled, a cholora epidemic swept through and killed hundreds of the survivors, who are burried in a mass grave now lost to hisory. I’ve camped out on the C&O Towpath nearby the battlefield, and I know what the indians were talking about.
Antietam is definitely spooky.