This past Saturday I volunteered at Antietam National Battlefield. In spite of the light rain that fell most of the day the park was busy. A Confederate Artillery re-enacting battery was on hand and provided three firing demonstrations throughout the day. I witnessed one of the displays and I would critique it, but I am going to invoke the "my mother told me that if I can't say anything nice..." clause.
The Rangers did an excellent job of providing lively educational information and the cannon blasts were impressive and that's what the crowd really wanted to see and hear anyway. The public wants the bang bang shot em ups. Anyway, it was great to be back at the battlefield working the information desk. I really do enjoy working with the people that come to visit the field. For the most part the visitors are a good and inquisitive bunch. Sometimes a bit misinformed, but the Rangers, other volunteers and I straighten them out. In Antietam news a new hiking trail is opening and you can read it about below. I have already been over the new trail area and it is really nice. There are lots of good hiking and biking opportunities at Antietam and if you enjoy these activities, I highly recommend visiting the park.
By Karen Gardner
News-Post Staff
Copyright 2005 Frederick News Post
The Antietam National Battlefield Park is establishing a hiking trail on
recently acquired land which will afford visitors access to areas
significant to the final stages of the battle and hundred year old monuments
that were previously on private land. In the background is a monument to the
12th Ohio division of the Union Army.
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SHARPSBURG
The Battle of Antietam is best understood by walking where the soldiers
walked, by feeling the terrain, by seeing the
landscape. A new section of Antietam National Battlefield allows visitors to
do just that.
Three years ago, the park purchased 136 acres of the Shade Farm. A trail
opening next month takes visitors through fields where the final attack took
place.
The Final Attack Trail winds through a cornfield where the last action of
Sept. 17, 1862 happened. It's a 1.7-mile walking trail, traversing the farm
fields and hilly terrain that Union and Confederate soldiers climbed.
"It's hard to tell the story of this place without letting the visitor touch
it and feel it and see it," said John Howard, park superintendent.
Indeed, as one stands atop the ridge overlooking the 40-acre cornfield, it's
easy to recognize the trepidation of 8,000 Union soldiers as they carried
their ammunition across some of the roughest terrain in the area.
It's also easy to wonder at the 2,500 Confederates who marched 15 hilly
miles from Harpers Ferry to join the 2,800 Confederates in Sharpsburg.
Together, they pushed up the hills through the cornfield and stopped the
Union attempt to cut off Gen. Robert E. Lee's line of retreat. In that one
section, 4,000 soldiers were dead or injured after the battle.
"When you have an opportunity to see the 200-foot change in elevation, when
people come out here and walk, they can see the terrain stopped the Union
advance as much as the Confederate soldiers did," said Brian Baracz, a park
ranger and historian at Antietam. "You don't get much of an idea from your
car."
Corn doesn't grow on the Shade Farm anymore. It may or may not ever grow
there again -- the result of a fallow field that was neglected for many
years. But the tiny red cedars, and the invasive vegetation that has taken
over many local uncultivated fields, have been cleared by hand. Hay and oats
will one day grow in the field, Mr. Howard said.
"This has always been a really popular part of the battlefield," Mr. Howard
said. "Most of the troops were from New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and
Ohio, and we get a lot of letters from folks in those areas wanting to see
this. It's really important for them to be able to walk in the footsteps of
the soldiers."
For many years, a park road has led visitors past the Shade Farm. Its role
in the battle is evident from the handful of monuments that dot the field.
About 100 years ago, veterans organizations and states erected the monuments
on small parcels of land they bought from farmers. Eventually, the park
service took over ownership of the monuments.
Access, however, was another matter. Once a year, park maintenance staff
could clean the monuments, but visitors trekked through uncleared fields at
their own risk.
"It made a real disconnect in the story," Mr. Howard said. The fight at
Lower Bridge, now called Burnside Bridge after the Union general who fought
to gain control of the bridge, is well known. The image of Burnside Bridge
is synonymous with the battle.
But the story didn't end until a few hours later when Gen. Ambrose
Burnside's troops pushed on. They moved into the 40-acre cornfield, not to
be confused with the Miller Farm cornfield, the site of intense fighting
earlier in the day.
Gen. Burnside intended to push his troops toward Harpers Ferry Road to cut
off Gen. Lee's line of retreat. But Gen. A.P. Hill arrived with his troops
from Harpers Ferry. Overcome by a destructive crossfire, the Rhode Island
and Connecticut troops fell back toward Burnside Bridge.
The trail uses old farm road beds.
"We wanted to impact the land as little as we can," Mr. Howard said. "It
doesn't damage the archaeological integrity of the trail."
Bullets and other relics of the battle can still be found in the fields at
Antietam. Removal of these relics from the National Park property is
strictly forbidden.
Park rangers and other park officials designed the trail and walked it
during the past couple of winters. Fences were built where fences once
stood. Post and rail fences mark trail openings. Zigzagging log fences,
called worm fences and used at the time of the battle, separate fields.
"The only time we have to do work like this is over the winter," Mr. Howard
said.
Many people, including park rangers, historians, park volunteers and anyone
who could give insight into where the trail should go, walked the fields.
Using park staff, seasonal workers, the Youth Conservation Corps and
hundreds of volunteers, the trail was built for less than $20,000, Mr.
Howard said. That included removal of the cedars and other exotic
vegetation.
"Fences are a lot of the expense," he said.
The 136 acres were purchased for about $350,000.
The Final Attack Trail is the fourth trail to open at Antietam. It joins the
Snavely Ford Trail, a loop trail by Burnside Bridge, the Sherrick Farm
Trail, which leads from Md. 34 to Burnside Bridge, and the Cornfield Trail,
which takes visitors around the Miller cornfield, the site of an intense,
three-hour fight on the morning of the battle. All the trails are less than
two miles long.
Except for the Snavely Ford Trail, all have opened in the last 12 years,
when the park has purchased 60 percent of its land.
"This was a look-but-don't-touch kind of park for a long time," Mr. Baracz
said.
Another trail is in the works. Together the five trails will link the entire
3,288-acre battlefield.
The trails are intended to tell the story of the one-day battle, in which
23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing.