Antietam National Park

This last weekend we had the opportunity to visit our first Civil War site. The Antietam National Battlefield is located only about 20 minutes from us (we love being surrounded by so much history!) Many people have never heard of this battle, maybe because there was no clear winner, although the Emancipation Proclamation was a direct result from it. It was the first major battle to take place on Northern soil and the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with more than 23,000 casualties. The battlefield itself is beautiful, but it was sobering to think about what it must have been like that horrific day.

Dunker Church, perhaps one of the most famous churches in American military history.
During the battle of Antietam the church was the focal point of a number of Union attacks against the Confederates. At battles end the Confederates used the church as a temporary medical aid station.

On the Saturday that we were there, they had a group demonstrating some actual manuevers complete with musket fire. It was humbling to be walking around the battlefield and hear gunshots go off in the distance.

Abby enjoyed walking around and seeing the different sites.

This is known as Burnside Bridge, the place where Union forces attempted to cross Antietam creek.

You can see from this picture what a gorgeous place this was. Maryland is a beautiful state with lush green fields and rolling hills. This was the last stop on our tour, the Antietam National Cemetery. This was perhaps our favorite site because of what it represented, all those who fought and died for something they so desperately believed in, both Union and Confederate. There are about 5000 Union soldiers buried in this cemetery, one-third of whom are unknown. The unkown soldiers graves' are marked with just a number. I think this was the saddest part to me, for families to never have closure and always wondering where the final resting place was for their loved ones.
In the cemetery, there was a plaque that had Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address engraved upon it. I think it applies to us today just as much as it did to the audience 150 years ago.

"In a larger sense, we can not dedicate–we can not consecrate–we can not hallow–this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."