We quickly went through the battlefield again. The only place Corrie really wanted to see was the sunken road. It really is cool if you don't think about all the dead bodies that were there. Afterwards we went to the Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg. I was disappointed on several fronts. 1) I found out only the Union are buried there. For some reason I am sympathetic to the confederates. Maybe because of the book on Stonewall Jackson I just read, Maybe it is the fact I do live in a Southern State. But probably the real reason is these men gave up everything, under the most horrible conditions to fight for something they truly believed in. Some witness accounts I have read said when the confederates marched from Manassas to Federick most did not even have shoes. The blood from their feet marked their path. When they fought they stole clothes, shoes, ammunition but most importantly food from their enemies. Sometimes they couldn't eat for days in a row. In fact on the morning of Sept 17 (they day of the Antietam battle) the men finally were able to have a meal. They were just cooking their breakfast when the battle started. Starving they had to get up from their food and defend their beliefs. 2) The Cemetery was not just for those who died at Antietam. It is for all the Union who fought in the Civil War in that area. So the Battle at South Mountain, The Battle at Antietam, The Battle of Monocacy(in Frederick. It is next on my list to see), and I guess there was even a battle in Shepherdstown. Shepherdstown is just a couple of miles down the road where Ashlie is thinking about going to college. 3) The cemetery isn't even just for the Civil War. About 250 are buried here who fought in the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, or the Korean Conflict. The cemetery closed in 1953, but in 2000 they made an exception for a young man who was killed by terrorist on the USS Cole that lived in the area 4) You can hardly read the tombstones and 5) the nats were really bad and we were getting eaten alive.
At any rate I am glad I went. The battle of Antietam happened Sept 17 1962. The war ended in April 1865. Usually after a battle the burial crew would come in and bury the dead where they lay. Sometimes in shallow graves, sometimes in one big pile. What I have seen so far is most the dead were then reburied someplace else after the war. They reburied them for several reason. The reason this cemetery was built in 1867 was because the battle of Antietam happened on farms. The farmers needed their land for their livelihood and they couldn't do that with dead bodies all over the place.
In the center of the cemetery is a Union Soldier statue facing North. The tombstones are arranged by state with all the names facing the statue.
There are about 4700 Union buried. 1800 are unknown. The unknown are buried with a flat tomstone. Some of them are among the states which means they knew enough about the person to know who they served with but not the name. The ones they could not even determine the state are buried in their own section.
If the name on the tombstone faces away from the statue then that person did not serve in the Civil war, but the other wars I mentioned earlier.
Sorry if this post was a little morbid for some, but the dead are a big part of the Civil War. Any war for that fact. I am finding it very interesting on how we took care of them.
I actually found a really good summary of the battle on Wikipedia. The link is to the side. Make sure to look at the map. It is a great map of the area to get a perspective on all the places I have been talking about. Baltimore is on the right where we used to live. Winchester is on the left. Harpers Ferry and Frederick in the middle. Shepherdstown is next to Sharpsburg which is where Ashlie is looking to go to college. The map even shows Gettysburg at the top. That is about 1 hour and 15 minutes from our house.
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