Antietam National Battlefield -- Auto Tour

Auto Tour

Visitor Center
The visitor center is the obvious place to begin. It’s an ideal spot to get oriented to the battlefield. A video narrated by James Earl Jones details troop movements and is shown daily. Downstairs are four huge battle paintings by Antietam veteran-turned-artist James Hope.
Since the visitor center is located on a mild plateau, its observation deck provides gorgeous panoramic views of more then half the battlefield.

Eastern National’s gift shop sells everything from Antietam coffee mugs to t-shirts, to bottled water. The all-important rest rooms are there too.

Outside of the building, visitors will find a black bell. This is the ships bell for the USS Antietam, a WWII aircraft carrier. That the Navy named (and continues to name) vessels after great battles like Antietam is a testament to the place this battle has in US history.

Along the pathway that leads down to the Hagerstown Road are several cannon. They are there for two reasons. First they remind the visitor that this mildly elevated ground was a Confederate artillery emplacement. Second, the cannon of differing designs and types represent the variety of tube artillery that was all about the battlefield. Exhibit plaques and tables describe the abilities of each type of artillery.

Next to the visitor center, the impressively tall New York State monument honors all the Empire Staters who fought for the North at Antietam.


Tour Stop #1 – Dunker Church

The Dunkers were a pacifist sect of Christians. They were called Dunkers because they baptized new members by total immersion. Dunkers were plain and peaceful folk. The parishioners wary of the sin of pride, the church boasted neither a steeple nor stained glass. It was a cruel irony that their simple church would be used as a focal point to guide Union attacks. It suffered heavily from battle damage during the fight. The Confederates used the structure as a temporary aid station for their wounded.

Across the street from the church is the beautiful, gazebo like Maryland Monument. Maryland was boarder state whose citizens had both northern and southern sympathies. It was torn in two by the War. 115,000 Old Line Staters fought in the Civil War. 85,000 wore blue. 30,000 wore gray. The Maryland Monument is the only monument on the field to honor men who fought on both sides of the conflict.


Tour Stop #2- J. Poffenberger Farm

Union Springboard
One of the reasons for the heavy casualties at Antietam was that the battle began early in the morning, and the two armies had spent the previous night within sight of each other. And so, they wasted no time getting down to the deadly work. This farm was the stepping off point for the Union 1st Corps, under General Joseph Hooker. Hooker’s Corps was one of 4 Union Corps to attack the Confederate line during the battle. The men camped here the night before, and at first light moved out to the south, towards the Dunker Church. The Union attacks were piecemeal and confused. Each individual unit and brigade would make progress, then be stymied, and give ground to a Confederate counterattack.

Combat surged to and fro over the Miller Cornfield south of here (we’ll see more of it at tour stop # 4). The carnage was so appalling that one union colonel abandoned his brigade in fear and ran for the rear. Other Union soldiers broke and ran. Veteran troops would flee past this place babbling in terror.

The Angel of the Battlefield
The waves of wounded staggering back needed a hero. They received a heroine. A 40year old civilian woman named Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton came onto the battlefield. She had rare permission from the War Department to distribute medical supplies directly to the troops at the front. When the Union head surgeon for the 1st Corps saw her ride up with her wagons of supplies, he threw up his hands and said “God has not abandoned us!”

As unofficial nurse, Clara Barton was never afraid to get her hands dirty. Her tireless work on behalf of wounded soldiers earned her the nickname “Angel Of The Battlefield”. She tended to the injured so close to the front that when she stopped to water one stricken man, a Confederate stray bullet tore through her sleeve and killed her patient.

One of the most beautiful monuments on the field is right next to the parking area. It is the Clara Barton monument, commemorating her efforts of mercy. The whitewashed stone memorial has at its base two bricks taken from her Massachusetts home. They are arranged to form a Red Cross, symbolizing the relief agency that Clara later helped introduce, The American Red Cross.

Four other monuments form a “battle line” along the tour road. These monuments of Union soldiers are for the regiments Pennsylvania Reserve brigade. These Keystone Statesmen went into battle with Hooker’s 1st Corps.

This is also the stepping off point for the National Park Service’s Cornfield Trail.


Tour Stop # 3 – The East Woods

Fallen Union General
On the way to this parking area, the tourist passes an impressive polished monument to Union General Joseph K. Mansfield, commander of Union 12th Corps. From the parking area, a mortuary cannon, a signature of the Antietam Battlefield is visible standing muzzle down in the stone block. Antietam has six of these cannons marking where generals died on the battlefield. Despite the loss of their leader early in the action, the 12th Corps supported the 1st Corps in battle, the second Union Corps to be committed to the fight.


Tour Stop #4 – The Cornfield

Even a novice battlefield visitor can immediately suspect that important – and horrible - things happened here. The concentration of large memorials next to the parking area makes it evident that veteran soldiers wanted to memorialize this place above all others.

David Miller’s cornfield is now simply known as The Bloody Cornfield, and Civil War soldiers did not give out the nickname “Bloody” without good reason.

It was here that the Battle of Antietam began in earnest. Union Soldiers from Tour Stop 2, the Poffenberger Farm (visible in the distance, especially if there are cars parked there) clashed here with Jackson’s waiting Confederates. Union troops gained the upper hand, but were then pushed back by a furious Confederate counterattack under Gen John Bell Hood, which saved the Confederate line. That Confederate counterattack was itself brutally crushed by Union reinforcements and artillery. The Cornfield changed hands too many times to easily count. Every stalk of corn was cut down and it became difficult for incoming soldiers to walk across the field, so thickly strewn were the dead and dying.

“Worm” fences mark the boundaries of Bloody Cornfield. Perhaps surprisingly, it doesn’t always have corn growing in it. The NPS leases the land to local farmers, and like all farmers, they rotate crops.

The large obelisk monument along the Hagerstown Pike is the Indiana Monument. Next to it is the dramatic New Jersey Monument capped by a Union officer with an upraised sword. The stout Massachusetts Monument is across Cornfield Avenue on the opposite corner.

There are only five Confederate monuments in the entire park, and two of them are here, Georgia and Texas. They made up the bulk of soldiers who blunted the Union attacks.

Be sure to investigate the exhibit tables. Here at The Cornfield, the exhibit includes two charts representing the Union and Confederate armies. Note how the Union section has many more soldiers then the Confederate section does. Note further how the chart “tracks” the progress of the battle, by coloring red the casualties that were suffered in either side


Tour Stop # 5 – The West Woods
Flanked and Routed
This clearing in the large woodlot north of the Hagerstown Pike marks the farthest penetration of the Union attacks. The Union 2nd Corps under Edwin V Sumner now stepped up to support the fought-out 1st and 12th Corps. The soldiers in this corps, the third to attack for the day, suspected that the battle was going their way, and that they would administer the deathblow to Lee’s Army.

Sumner’s 2nd Corps was divided into three divisions. The first division under Gen. John Sedgewick came here into the West Woods. Stacked three brigades deep, they engaged a few remnants of the Confederate line to their front … and immediately received a horrifying surprise.

Two fresh Confederate divisions roared in from the south, near the Dunker Church and attacked the blue lines in their vulnerable left flanks. It was a fortunate accident for the Confederate reinforcements, and the positioning could not have been better for them if they had planned it.

All three brigades of this division were hit simultaneously, and had no time to turn to fight their new attackers. Sedgewick’s division, which should have had a strong influence on the course of the battle, was squandered. Half of the men were killed and wounded and the rest ran for their lives to the north. The rout was so complete that these survivors would contribute nothing further to the battle of Antietam.

The gigantic Philadelphia Brigade monument dominates the park, and this obelisk is the tallest monument at Antietam. Along the way in, the visitor passes by a second mortuary cannon, this one to Confederate General Starke. Exhibits here illustrate the flanking of Sedgewick’s division and, like the exhibit at The Cornfield, tally up the Union and Confederate losses for this phase of the fighting.


Tour Stop # 6 – The Mumma Farm

This stop is usually of limited interest to the battlefield visitor. This is the Mumma Farm, which has the grim distinction of being the only civilian property deliberately destroyed by either army during the battle. The Confederate soldiers burned the buildings to prevent its use by Union sharpshooters. It saw no active fighting, but many a Union and Confederate soldier, while documenting their experiences on the battlefield remembered the burning Mumma Farm.


Tour Stop #7 – Union Advance

This is another tour stop that’s a bit scanty on information. The view from the parking area is that of the Roulette farm, the avenue of attack for the remainder of the Union 2nd Corps. The visitor will remember that the first division of the 2nd Corps (under Sedgwick) was knocked out of action at the West Woods (Tour Stop 5). The other two Union divisions under Generals William French and Isreal Richardson advanced across these fields to strike Confederates under Gen. D.H. Hill at the “Sunken Road”


Tour Stop #8 – The Sunken Road (Bloody Lane)

Point Blank
Before the battle, this country lane was the boundary between the Roulette farm to the east, and Piper farm to the west. Years of use by heavily laden wagons pressed the roadbed to a level below that of the surrounding area. For the Confederates of Gen D.H. Hill’s division, it was a pre-fabricated infantry trench. A thin gray line of Southerners stood there ground here, and waited for the Northern boys under French and Richardson to attack.

The viewer can see the ridge that the Federal soldiers had to crest to attack the road. It’s not even a football field away from the lane. By the time the blue-coated soldiers cleared the ridge and descended towards the rifles of DH Hill’s men, it was death at nearly point blank range.
Soldiers fell left and right as each side sent volleys of rifle fire crashing into each other. Casualties were horrendous, as detailed in both the exhibit table (another one with a chart) and yet another mortuary cannon, this one to Confederate General T.G. Anderson. The lane is fairly lengthy, and contains two parking areas. One is by Anderson’s cannon, site of the attack of French’s division. The other is about a ¼ mile to the right, next to the observation tower. Richardson’s Federals attacked in this area.

Deathtrap
The Southerners had a formidable position, but the Northerners had the superior numbers, and that carried the lane. When one Union regiment found a knoll from where they could rain down rifle fire on the Southern position, the Sunken Road became a deathtrap, and Confederate line collapsed. The Union held the ground, but the two divisions were too fought out to advance any further. Few sights of the Civil War were more gruesome then the Sunken Road filled with Confederate bodies. Unsurprisingly, the Sunken Road forever after bore the name Bloody Lane. Like Miller's cornfield, it had seen more then enough carnage to earn the gory nickname.

The view from the observation tower is as spectacular as one might imagine. Go climb! The Dunker Church, Cornfield, West Woods, Visitor Center and Sunken Road are all visible from the deck. Near the tower is the artistic monument to the Union Irish Brigade, which opened up Richardson’s attack. Richardson has his own monument too, his mortuary cannon, by now a familiar sight on this sanguine battleground.


Tour Stop # 9 – Burnside's Bridge

500 vs 12,500
The 9th Corps, under General Ambrose Burnside, made the fourth major Union attack of the day. To hit the Confederate lines, they had to cross the Antietam creek. To cross the creek, they had to capture the three-arched stone bridge. General Burnside would spend far too much time trying to claim this bridge that would bear his name.

Everything that could possibly go wrong for Burnside did go wrong. Even though only a few hundred Georgians held the Confederate side of the span, three separate Union attacks failed to capture it. One of them even got lost on their way to the bridge. Finally, the fourth attack succeeded – three hours after the bridge was supposed to have been captured Roughly 500 Confederates had paralyzed 12,500 Federals for this long.

The parking area has trails that lead down to the bridge. First, there’s a quick detour exhibiting the Confederate positions from the bluffs overlooking the bridge. On the Union side of the span, more exhibits display the scene from the Northern point of view. Here are the monuments to “The two 51sts”, the 51st Pennsylvania and 51st New York that captured the bridge.
Also near the parking area is the impressive McKinley Monument. One might wonder why a lowly commissary sergeant has a monument of this grandeur dedicated to him, but Sgt. William McKinley was no ordinary sergeant. Rather he had a brilliant and tragic future ahead of him as the 25th President of the United States, and the 3rd to be assassinated.

Exhibit tables are situated on either side of the bridge, and again the tally of casualties increases on both sides.

The Burnside’s Bridge parking lot is also the starting point for two key hiking trails. The Burnside Bridge Trail carries forth to the Union side of the creek, and walks over much of the ground seen by the four Union attacks to storm the bridge. The Final Attack Trail follows in great detail the action after Burnside seized the bridge, and outlines the end of the Battle of Antietam. This brings us to …


Tour Stop #10 – The Final Attack

Last Minute Miracle for the South
This last action tour stop is situated on the last Confederate line of resistance. The parking area has a view of the fields upon which the Union soldiers of the 9th Corps to attack the badly outnumbered Southerners. After seizing the bridge, an operation that took three hours, the 9th Corps squandered another 2 hours getting all 12,000 men across the bridge, and re-supplying the soldiers with ammo. Finally, at around 3:00pm, the massive 9th Corps moved towards where the visitor is parked, intent on capturing Sharpsburg and crushing Lee’s army.

It was a miracle of timing that saved the Confederate army. The last division of Confederates to arrive on the field showed up at 4:00pm, under Confederate General A.P. Hill. These last fresh Southern troops drove straight into the unguarded flanks of the Union 9th Corps knocking them back to the heights by Burnside’s Bridge, and ending the battle in a tactical draw.

The terrain at this tour stop works against the visitor. A viewer at the parking area is only about a half mile from Burnside’s Bridge, but the bridge is hidden by the intervening hills on the Otto Farm making it difficult to appreciate how far (or rather, how short) the Federal units had to march to engage the Confederates here. Part of this reason is that much of the land at this part of the battlefield was not acquired until the early 2000s. Because of this, the Final Attack hiking trail is strongly recommended.

Scattered monuments to the front memorialize the Union regiments that fought here, both along the road and in the undulating fields in front of it. Also along this road are two more mortuary cannons to Union general Rodman and Confederate General Branch. To the viewers rear is the obelisk to the 9th New York regiment, which made the furthest advance during this attack before being compelled to retire by Hill’s counterattack.

The by-now familiar exhibit tables bring the battle to a close, with the final grim tally for the tragic Battle of Antietam: 23,000 soldiers killed wounded and missing, Americans all.


Tour Stop # 11 – Antietam National Cemetery

The battle was over, and very little ground had changed hands at all. Union and Confederate forces had mauled each other into a stalemate. Union general McClellan had almost 25,000 soldiers ready who had not yet fired a shot. Confederate general Lee had fought his last man. But McClellan, badly shaken by the terrible casualties did not finish off his foe.

Two days after the fighting, Lee evacuated the battlefield, and his invasion was over. Although it had been tactical draw, the battle was a strategic victory for the North.

President Abraham Lincoln now had the political credibility to extend the goals of the Northern war effort. The Civil War was no longer going to be a petty feud over states rights and secession, but a noble quest to crush slavery in America. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued a mere five days after the fighting at Antietam, was an important first step. The modest, yet important Union victory at Antietam made that first step possible.

The final stop on the tour invites the tourist to contemplate the human cost of the Battle of Antietam. Most of the casualties, Northerners and Southerners were buried by Union grave details where they fell on the battlefield. And there was a lot of such work to do. More then 2100 Federals and 1500 Confederates were dead, making this one day battle the bloodiest day of violence in United States history. 9500 more Union and 7700 Confederates were wounded. In addition, more then 700 Yankees and 1000 Rebels were listed as “missing”, mostly captured.

The Antietam National Cemetery houses the remains of more then 4,000 Union soldiers. They were reintered following the war. Confederate casualties were kept apart, and buried in cemeteries in Hagerstown, Frederick, (both MD) and Shepherdsville, WV. Most of the bodies were found shortly after the war. But not all of them were. In 2008, the bones of a young New York soldier were found near the Bloody Cornfield. 146 years earlier, the reinterment details had missed his grave.

In addition to Civil War casualties, the cemetery also houses the earthly remains of veterans of the Spanish American War, the two world wars, and Korea. It was closed to further interments in 1953. However, in the year 2000, an exception was made, and the cemetery was opened again to receive the remains of yet another hero, USN Fireman Patrick Howard Roy, who died in the terrorist attack upon the USS Cole.

The Private Soldier Monument, a statue of a gigantic Union soldier stands sentinel in the center of the cemetery, guarding the rest of his brothers. His name is Old Simon, and he looks out over the battlefield towards the North, and home. An inscription on his base says all there is to say about the Union casualties that slumber at his feet. Indeed, his words bring to mind the selflessnes and bravery of soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War.

“NOT FOR THEMSELVES, BUT FOR THEIR COUNTRY”