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THE BATTLEFIELD
O F
THE STORY OF ANTIETAM
FROM TABLETS ERECTED BY THE BATTLEFIELD COMMISSION
CONFEDERATE TABLETS
September 14-16, 1862. The Army of Northern Virginia was
composed of Longstreet and Jackson's commands, Stuart's cavalry
and the reserve artillery. D. R. Jones', Hood's and Evans'
brigades of Longstreet's command, also D. H. Hill's division of
Jackson's command, were withdrawn from South Mountain during
the night of Sept. 14th and concentrated at Sharpsburg. Early
next day, Sept. 15th, McLaw's, R. H. Andersons's and Walkers'
divisions were detached from Longstreet's command to assist
Jackson in the investment of Harper's Ferry. Jackson's command
having captured Harper's Ferry, reached Sharpsburg on the 16th
and 17th. Stuart's cavalry and a part of the reserve artillery
reached the field on the 15th and 16th, and at nightfall of the 16th
Hood's division occupying a position in the East Woods and in
the field between it and the Hagerstown pike in advance of the
left of the Confederate line, encountered the advance of Meade's
division of Hooker's corps of the Army of the Potomac. The
engagement ended at dark.
September 15 and 16, 1862. D. H. Hill's division led the re-
treat from South Mountain on the night of the 14th. Rodes' and
Colquitt's brigades, both under command of Rodes' were hastened
to Sharpsburg to expel the Union Cavalry which had escaped
from Harper's Ferry, the cavalry having moved on in the direction
of Hagerstown. Rodes marched through the town and halted
near the Potomac. Early on the 15th the three other brigades of
the division halted midway between the Antietam and Sharps-
burg. Geo. B. Andreson's brigade formed line on either side of
the Boonsboro pike near the Bloody Lane, Ripley's brigade formed
on Anderson's left rear with its right near the pike. Rodes' brigade
marched back through the town and formed line in the field east
of the Bloody Lane tower, and Garland's brigade took position
in the adjoining field on Rodes' left, the line facing the Antiteam.
Artillery was put in position on the hills between the Bloody
Lane and Sharpsburg and engaged the Union Artillery bej'ond
the Ant'etam. On the 16th Colquitt's brigade was marched from
its bivouac southeast of the town and went into line on Garland's
left, near the Roulette house and later in the day on advance of
Hooker's corps, Ripley's brigade was moved from the right and
bivouaced south of Mamma's in support of the right of Elwell's
division.
September 17, 1862. Gen. Longstreet's command, including
D. H. Hill's division of Jackson's command, temporarily attached,
occupied the right and center of the Confederate Line, extending
from the Antietam Creek south of Sharpsburg in a northerly di-
rection to Mumma's house. Gen. Jackson's command occupied
the left of the line, extending from Mumma's house to the Hagers-
town pike, north of the Dunkard Church, thence through the West
Woods to the open field south of the Nicodemus house. Gen.
Stuart's cavalry division covered the extreme left of the Confed-
erate army, extending from Jackson's left westerly to the Potomac
River. At about 6 a. m. Jackson became heavily engaged in re-
sisting an attempt of Hooker's Corps of the Army of the Potomac
to turn the left flank of the Confederate army. About 7 a. m. the
attempt was renewed by Gen. Mansfield's corps. About 9 a. m.
a third attempt was made by Gen. Sedwick's division of Sumner's
corps. Between 9.15 and 11 a. m. French and Richardson's di-
visions of Sumner's corps assaulted, and at noon finally carried
the Confederate position in the sunken road. Between 9 a. m. and
noon, several attacks were made on the Confederate right at Burn-
side Bridge, but without success. An attack at 1 p. m. was suc-
cessful and the troops of the Ninth corps obtained a lodgment on
the plateau overlooking the Burnside bridge. From this position
about 3 p. m. an assault was directed against the heights overlook-
ing the town, which was checked by the arrival of A. P. Hill's di-
vision from Harper's Ferry.
September 17, 1862. Early in the morning Ripley fired the
Mumma buildings and passed them in the direction of the south
side of the East Woods, then moving by the left flank crossed the
Smoketown road and engaged the Union troops in Miller's corn
field. Colquitt followed Ripley and formed on his right. Gar-
land's brigade, moving from the field north of the present stone
tower, followed Colquitt. After a severe engagement involving
heavy losses the three brigades were driven by Mansfield's corp,
Ripley retiring to the woods at the Dunkard Church, Colquitt
and Garland in the direction of Sharpsburg. Rodes was about to
join the three brigades north of the Smoketown road, but upon the
appearance of Colquitt in the retreat, filed to the left and formed
line in the Bloody Lane, portions of the retreating brigades rally-
ing on his left. Gen. Geo. B. Anderson, moving from the Boons-
boro pike, passed up the ravine east of the Piper farm buildings,
and formed in the Lane on Rodes' right, near the present tower.
The command was attacked by French's and Richardson's Divis-
ions. Five brigades of R. H. Anderson's division came to Hill's
assistance, forming line in his rear, but after a bloody struggle of
over two hours both Hill and Anderson fell back to Piper's farm lane
and to the cover of the stone walls on either side of the Hagerstown
pike. Late in the day the Confederates repulsed a charge of the
7th Maine of the 6th Corps on the Piper farm buildings.
UNION TABLETS
September 15, 1862. On the morning of September 15th the
Army of the Potomac pursued the retreating Confederates from
South Mountain, Pleasanton's cavalry, the First, Second and
Twelfth Corps by Turner's Pass, Boonsboro, and Keedysville:
Sykes' division of the Fifth Corps, the Reserve Artillery and Ninth
Corps by Fox's and the old Sharpsburg road; the Sixth Corps and
Couch's division, (attached to the Sixth Corps) remained near
Crampton's pass. Pleasanton overtook the Confederate cavalry
rear guard at Boonsboro, attacked and cut it off from the main body
and pursued it in the direction of Hagerstown. Richardson's
division Second Corps in the advance followed closely and skir-
mished with the retreating Confederate infantry until it reached
the ridge bordering the Antietam, behind which it formed line,
north of the Boonsboro pike. Tidball's Battery A, 2nd U. S., and
Pittit's Battery B, 1st N. Y. from the crest of the ridge engaged
the Confederate artillery posted at and south of the first angle at
east end of the sunken and historic part of Bloody Lane. Gens.
French and Sedwick's divisions, Second corps halted on either
side of the pike between McClellan's headquarters and the Middle
Bridge, the First Corps under Gen. Hooker took position between
the Hooker bridge, and Keedysville, the 12th corps halted near
Keedysville, Sykes' division. Porter's Fifth corps between the
Keedysville pike and the Geeting hospital buildings. Late in the
day the 9th corps encamped on Geeting's farm at the west base of
Elk Ridge. Amiy headquarters were established at the Pry house.
September 16, 1862. Early in the morning the 201b. Parrolt
batteries of Taft, Langner, VonKleiser and Wever, 1st N. Y. Ar-
tillery, were in position on the ridge between the Antietam and
McClellan's headquarters; Battery E, (Benjamin's) 2nd U. S. and
Battery I, (Weeds) 5th U. S. on the ridge south of Porlerstown
overlooking the Antietam creek; and all engaged the Confederate
artillery on the hills near Sharpsburg, where the National and Town
cemeteries are now located. About 8 a. m. four Companies of the
4th U. S. infantry crossed the Antietam by the Middle bridge and
late in the day engaged the Confederate infantry between the bridge
and Sharpsburg. About noon Morell's division, 5th corps arrived
from Frederick, Md. and encamped near Keedysville, the Ninth
corps moved to the left on the Miller and Rohrback farms near the
Burnside bridge where they had a commanding position. Between
3 and 4 p. m., Hooker's 1st Corps crossed the upper bridge at Pry's
ford and moved westerly until it reached the Joe Poffenbcrger farm
and lane, then changed direction to the left, moving south and en-
countered the Confederate out position near the Smoketown
road. His line extended from the Hagerstown pike across the
Smoketown road where it entered the East Woods from the north.
During the night Mansfield's 12th corps crossed the Antietam by
the upper bridge and bivouaced about a mile in Hooker's rear.
September 17, 1862. The Battle opened at daybreak between
Hooker's First Corps and the Confederate divisions of Jackson and
Ewell, and raged in the East Woods, Mille.'s (now the Bloody Corn-
field) and on either side of the Hagerstown pike north of the Dunk-
ard Church. Ew-ell's division was relieved by Hood's and Hooker's
corps by Mansfield's. Hood was reinforced by the brigades of
Ripley, Colquitt and Garland, of D. H. Hill's division. After a
sanguinary contest Mansfield's corps forced the entire Confederate
line north of the Bloody Lane to retire west of the Hagerstown pike.
Sumner's Second Corps crossed the Antietam at Pry's ford about
8 a. m., Sedwick's division advancing to and through the East
Woods and across the Hagerstown pike to the western edge of the
West Woods. Making this charge they passed Mansfield's corps
and were checked in part by the artillery and infantry of Jackson's
command, struck on the left by the divisions of McLaws and
Walker and driven north and east beyond D. R. Miller's farm build-
ings and beyond the old Toll Gate Woods. Confederate efforts
to recover ground east of the Hagerstown pike were checked by
Hooker, Mansfield and Sumner's artillery. Green's division of
Mansfield's corps followed the Confederate repulse by a charge and
seized the woods west of the Dunkard Church, which it held until
about noon, when it was dislodged and the Confederates made
another effort to gain ground east but were repulsed by the fire of
the Union artillery and the advance of Franklin's Sixth Corps,
which arrived about noon, closing in around the Dunkard Church,
French's division following Sedwick's across the Antietam, on
reaching the East Woods wheeled to the left, drove the Confederate
outposts from the Roulette farm buildings and about 9.30 a. m. en-
gaged the Brigades of Rodes, Colquitt and Garland, posted in the
west end of the Bloody Lane. Geo. B. Anderson's brigade, on
Rodes' right, endeavored to turn French's left but was forced back
by the advance of Gen. Richardson's division, which formed on
French's left. Five brigades of R. H. Anderson's Confederate
division came to the assistance of the four brigades already engaged.
About noon French and Richardson carried the Bloody Lane and
the high ground immediately south of it, the Confederates re-
treated to and beyond the Henry Piper farm buildings. Meanwhile
Pleasanton's cavalry had crossed the Middle bridge to the west
banks and lay near the old Newcomer mill. They advanced a
short distance, driving in the Confederate skirmishers. Four horse
batteries following the cavalry, were put in position on and across
the pike where the single mounted cannon stands on White Oak hill,
near the east end of the Bloody Lane and engaged the Confederate
artillery on Cemetry Hill. The horse batteries were relieved at
intervals by two batteries of Sykes' division. After noon, portion
of Sykes' regular division crossed the Antietam and in co-operation
with the Ninth Corps compelled the Confederate artillery to aban-
don Cemetry Hill. About 5 p. m. the 7th Maine infantry charged
across the Bloody Lane at a point near the west end and reached the
Piper barn, but were soon driven back with heavy loss. The heaviest
fighting done by French and Richardson's divisions was where the
three lines of fencing now are continued to the stone observation
tower. Gen. Richardson was mortally wounded near the tower
and died at the Pry House. Gen. Geo. B. Anderson, of T. H. Hill's
division, was mortally wounded near the sunken part road of Bloody
Lane in the Piper cornfield.
September 17, 1862. The left of the Union line was held by
Gen. Burnsides' Ninth Corps. The battle opened there about 10
a. m. by an unsuccessful attempt of the 11th Conn. Infantry, sup-
ported by Crook's brigade, to carry the stone bridge over the Antie-
tam. Nagle's brigade repeated the attempt and was repulsed.
About noon the bridge was carried by a charge of Ferrero's brigade,
consisting of the 51st Pa., 51st N. Y., 21st and 35th Mass. About
noon Sturgis' entire division and Cook's brigade of the Kanawha
division crossed and seized the high ground west of the stream. Rod-
man's division and Ewing's brigade of the Kanawha division, moved
down the east bank of the Antietam, crossed at Snavely's ford and
when the bridge was carried ascended the stream and formed on
Sturgis' left. Wilcox's division crossed the bridge and relieved
Sturgis, who was put in reserve. At 3 p. m. Wilcox's, Rodman's
and the Kanawha division advanced on Sharpsburg, and with the
co-operation of portions of the Fifth Corps on the right, had driven
the Confederates from the high ground south and east of the town.
Gen. A. P. Hill's division had just come on the field by way of Black-
ford ford on the Potomac, marching from Harper's Ferry, struck
Burnside on the left, near Snavely's ford and Sharpsburg, driving
them back under cover of the hills bordering on the creek near the
bridge. Upon the repulse of the Ninth Corps, Pleasantin's Cavalry,
the horse batteries and the regular infantry, which had advanced
on the Keedysville pike nearly to Sharpsburg, were withdrawn
across the Antietam. Gen. Lee's batteries had in the meantime
been lined up on the hills south and west of Sharpsburg with but
little ammunition, remained in this position all day of the 18th,
after sending in a flag of truce to bury their dead. Under cover of
the night they left the field and by morning of the 19th had crossed
the Potomac at Blackford's fording.
SHARPSBURG
The oldest town in Washington County, Md., was laid out on
the 9th day of July, 1763, by Joseph Chapline, a gentleman from
England, and a lawyer by profession. He first settled in Massa-
chusetts, and some time before the French and Indian War was at
Fort Frederick, Md., as Colonel in command of a regiment. His
muster roll, bearing the seal of England and the date June and
July, 1757, is in possession of the Washington County Historical
Society in Hagerstown, Md. The town was intended for the county
seat but was defeated by Hagerstown by one vote. Historically
Sharpsburg is the foremost town in the county. She furnished a
company of men for the Revolutionary War, one company for the
War of 1812, and from a population of 1300, two full companies
to the Union army during the Civil War. This street scene shows
as an object of special interest the large building to the left in which
General Lee held Council with his ofTicers on the afternoon of Sep-
tember 17, 1862. The town furnished about a dozen soldiers to the
Spanish American War, and about 60 from the town and district in
the World War, and soldiers to all wars.
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THE SOLDIERS' NATIONAL CEMETERY
In iVIarch, I860, the State of Maryland, by Act of Legislature,
appropriated S7,000 and appointed four Trustees to purchase and
inclose a suitable lot of ground on the Antielam battlefield as a final
resting place for the remains of the brave soldiers who fell in that
battle. Appropriations l)y other Northern states whose troops par-
ticipated in the battle, together with an additional $8,000 from
Maryland, placed at the disposal of the Board of Trustees about
$70,000. Under their supervision a lot of ground was purchased
at the edge of Sharpsburg, inclosed by a substantial stone wall and
the interior arranged in the beautiful manner as it now appears.
The work of removing the dead was commenced October 1866 and
finished in August, 1867. The whole number of bodies that are
buried in this cemetry is 4,759, of which 1,848 are unknown. In
the year 1877 the Cemetery was transferred to the United Stales
Government.
THE COMMANDERS' HEADQUARTERS
General McClellan established headquarters in the Philip Pry
house on the pike about two miles northeast of Sharpsburg, and
from there directed the Battle and remained until the 20th of Sep-
tember. It was also used for hosnital purposes. Here the gallant
General Israel B. Richardson, who commanded a division of the
Second Corps was carried after receiving his mortal wound. Gen-
eral Hooker, slightly wounded during the heavy fighting in the
vicinity of East Woods, had his wound dressed here and returned
to his command.
The view showing General Lee's headquarters is of special
interest. It presents a war time view of Main Street, Sharpsburg,
and is taken from a point near the present site of the National
Cemetry. The Confederate Headquarters tents were pitched in
the strip of timber. This street has been changed considerably
by the Commission in the grading and constructuon of substantial
retaining walls while building the macadem roadway through the
town.
THE OLD DUNKARD CHURCH
(Church Destroyed by Windstorm May 23. 1921.)
It Stood one mile from Sharpsburg on the Hagerstown pike. It
was built by the German Baptists in the year 1853, and was used
by them as a regular place of worship. Some of the most severe
fighting of the battle of Antietam occurred about here, and the war-
time photo shows hundreds of marks of shot and shell. The plain
interior with old fashioned pulpit and unpainted pine benches,
made this an interesting stopping place for tourists. The Bible
was taken during the battle by a New York soldier, and after an
absence of 41 years was returned and is now at the Washington
County Historical Society in Hagerslown. The church was used
as a hospital and embalming station after the battle. In the mod-
ern view the church is shown in its present setting, the 45-acre
tract of timber, the West Woods, has nearly all been removed. De-
stroyed by wind storm in 1921.
D. R. MILLER BUILDINGS
Are on the Hagerstown pike, three quarters of a mile north of the
Dunkard Church. The Bloody Cornfield was a part of the Miller
farm. This was the position of Meade's division of Pennsylvania
Reserves of the First Corps, the right of the line extending across
the pike into the Locher woods. From the position beyond the
buildings the Confederates were driven back to the Dunkard Church
woods. Col. Hawley of the 124th Pa., wounded in the Cornfield,
was carried to the Miller house. The present barn was built since
the battle.
CONFEDERATE AVENUE
This view on the Confederate Avenue shows prominently in
the foreground the monument of the 125th Pennsylvania Regiment,
surmounted by the granite figure of the color bearer in the defiant
attitude, drawing his sabre. The massive monument of the 34th
New York Regiment stands to the left, while between them shows
in the background the Maryland State Monument. Showing be-
tween the trees in line with the avenue is the Dunkard Church.
This ground was part of the West Woods, which has since been
removed in this section, except the scattered oaks that show around
the Church.
STARK AVENUE
Showing to the left of the illustration is the monument of the
124th Pa. Regiment. The tall shaft nearer the center was erected
by the State of New Jersey in honor of her sons who fought in the
battle of Antietam. The spirited bronze figure represents Captain
Irish, of the 13th Regiment, who was killed while engaged with the
Regiment near this spot. Showing to the right is the Massachu-
setts State Monument. In the left background is the Miller Bloody
Cornfield and East Woods, and here the men of parts of the First,
Second and Twelfth Corps vied with each other in gallant efforts
to dislodge the Confederates from their position. Operating in
this section were the brigades of Jackson's Command, and the
annals of the Civil War record no more desperate fighting than
occurred here. The depression in the avenue shows the crossing
of the Hagerstown pike, while the continuation is Cornfield Avenue.
BLOODY LANE
This lane, an old roadway connecting the Hagerstown pike
with the Boonsboro pike, was destined to play an important part
in the battle of Antietam. From the point at which this photo-
graph was taken to the tower, which shows over the right hand
tablet, the road, worn by the ravages of time, varies in depth from
three to six feet lower than the fields on the sides. Confederates
occupied this natural breastw^ork as a line of defense and it was
only after tremendous slaughter that they were driven from it.
Dead men lay three or four deep from the point where the man is
standing to the tower. The Roulette lane is on the left from the
low ground. Beyond the tower the high peak of Elk Ridge was
General McClellan's signal station. The 130th Pennsylvania
monument is in the foreground. The Sth Ohio monument is in
the middle and the 132nd Pennsylvania is in the center background.
The observation tower is 75 feet high and was erected by the Govern-
ment. It is substantially built of stone and from the elevation it
affords, one can view all parts of the Battlefield.
BURNSIDE BRIDGE
This bridge, originally called "Rohrback's," is the lower of the
famous stone bridges that spanned the Antietam creek. On the
morning of September 17, 1862, it was defended by the Confederate
General Robert Toombs with the 2d and 20th Georgia Regiments
of his brigade, and the 50th Georgia of Drayton's brigade supported
by one company of Jenkin's S. C. sharpshooters and the batteries
of Richardson and Eubanks. The artillery on Cemetery Hill also
commanded its approaches. It derives its present name from the
desperate efforts of the Ninth Corps, under General Burnside, to
force a passage. Beginning at 9 a. m., a series of unsuccessful
assaults with almost continuous fighting was kept up until 1 p. m.
the bridge was carried by direct assault by Ferrero's brigade con-
sisting of the 51st N. Y., 51st Pa., 21st and 35th Mass. Regiments.
Monuments to the 21st Mass., 35th Mass., 51st Pa. and 2d Md.
Regiments have been erected on the four corners of the bridge.
BRANCH AVENUE
This view is looking north from Sherrick 40-acre cornfield.
The 30th Ohio monument shows in the foreground. The stone
wall has remained unchanged and was used as a breastwork by the
Confederates in resisting the advance of the Ninth Corps, and after
coming into possession of Burnside's men was used by them as a
line of defense. The bit of woods shown to the left marks the posi-
tion of the National Cemetery. The Burnside Bridge is over the
hills to the right where the tree tops show and is the ground over
which the 9th corps moved and nearly reached the town on the left
and the A. P. Hill Confederate division forced the Burnside Corps
back over the hill near the bridge but not across.
McCOMAS AVENUE
The Commission about 1890 built a substantial macadam road-
wav from the Cemetery through the town to the Norfolk and West-
ern Station. This view shows that portion near the Station and
gives some idea of its character. Showing at the left of the picture
are the S. P. Grove farm buildings which were used as headquarters
by General Fitz John Porter and also as a hospital after the battle
This road, running to Shepherdstown, W. Va., was the line of re-
treat of General Lee's army. The Norfolk and Western Railroad,
Antietam Station, is one mile from the town of Sharpsburg.
BLACKFORD'S FORDING
General Lee's army crossed the Potomac, on its retreat from
Antietam, at the Blackford fording, which is slightly farther down
the river than the view shown here, during the night of September
18th and the morning of the 19th. On September 20th the 18th
Pennsylvania Regiment crossed to reconnoiter, and encountering
the Confederates in great force at the top of the bluffs, were, after
a spirited resistance, driven over the bluffs and across the river,
sustaining a very heavy loss. The old cement mill and kilns are
familiar landmarks, and the line of the ruins of the old dam is marked
by a ripple in the water to the right. - •_
SHEPHERDSTOWN
The original bridge that spanned the Potomac at this point
was burned by the Confederates in 1861. The view shown here is
of that portion of the Potomac where, in 1781, James Rumsey, a
resident of Shepherdstown, constructed the first steamboat that
was successfully operated in the United States. The boat attained
a speed of four miles an hour against the current in a trial trip at
Harper's Ferry in December, 1786.
PICTURESQUE HARPER'S FERRY
View No. 1 shows Harper's Ferry from London Heights. The
town nestles at the foot of Bolivar Heights at the junction of the
Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. It as a place of considerable
importance during the Civil War, being a recruiting point for the
Union Army, but derives its chief historical interest from the mem-
orable raid of John Brown in 1859. No. 2 shows the Dr. Kennedy
house in the Valley at the foot of Maryland Heights, where, under
guise of mineral prospectors, .John Brown and his Confederates
prepared for the "slave insurrection." No. 3, the engine house of
the Government arsenal in which Brown and his followers fortified
themselves and in which they were captured. No. 4, the monu-
ment that has been erected to mark the site of the old fort, and
tablets that record military events connected with the Civil War.
National Cemetery
DuNKARD Church
Bloody Lane
PANORAMIC VI
In the upper illustration the National Cemetery shows just abc
town Sharpsburg, and in the center the Piper farm buildings. The
In the lower illustration the view is continued from the right of.
Lane," the Dunkard Church and Woods just to the right of it; at t;
buildings, which were burned, and the Roulette buildings to the rigl
Piper Farm Buildings
IIagerstowx Pike
Miller Corx Field
MuMMA Buildings
Roulette Buildings
W FROM TOWER
the section of Richardson Avenue, farther to the right the
: of the Hagerstown pike shows to the right.
; upper. Prominently in the foreground shows the "Bloody
:center the position of the Miller Cornfield, the Mumma
SHARPSBURG VIEWS
The big Spring is an interesting landmarl^ in Sliarpsburg. In
the center of the group the Memorial Lutheran Church on Main
Street, Sharpsburg, contains a number of memorial windows, do-
nated by various organizations to the memory of their comrades.
The Jacob H. Grove House in Center Square, in which General
Lee held his Council of War, shows the marks of numerous shells
that struck it during the battle.
STORIES OF ANTIETAM
AS TOLD TO MR. KBILLY BY VETERANS AND EYE-WITNESSES OF THE BATTLE
During several visits made by ex-Secretary Herbert ot the
U. S. Navy to the Antielam Battlefield he related a brave, or foolish
act of a soldier, a member of the Irish Brigade of General Richard-
son's Division A, N. Y. After they had forced the Confederates
back across the Piper Cornfield from Bloody Lane where they had
been entrenched in the sunlcen pari of the lane, when they turned
on the Union soldiers and were driving them back, one lone man
lagged behind and as fast as he could load his gun and fire at the
advancing forces he would do so until he fired away his last cart-
ridge. He then patted on the part that is concealed under his
coat tail and walked stoutly away. Mr. Herbert said he felt for
a moment like ordering his entire command to fire at him, but upon
second thought he said he was too brave a man to be killed.
Mrs. Daniel S. Mumma said that, when they returned from the
country where they had gone before the battle began, as a place of
safety, they found at their door one dead Confederate soldier and
several others lying nearby in the street. Mrs. Mumma was
Miss Gussie Bohrback and resided in the stone house now owned
by Mr. John Earley adjoining the New Dunkard Church in Sharps-
burg.
Mr. Emory Thomas, a retired farmer who resided near Porters
Town, Md., said that several days after the battle he with others
visited the Ijattlefield. The dead not yet being buried, they made
a very close examination of a dead Confederate that hung across
the fence in the Bloody Lane and that they counted 17 bullet wounds
and holes in him.
Several hundred persons took shelter for several days at and
in Killinsburg Cave, about two miles west of this town, on the day
of the battle, and the day after some were on very short rations
and when they returned they found most of their homes had been
entered and edibles had been taken by the hungry soldiers.
Mr. Chas. G. Biggs, now deceased, said he and some others
with him saw a cannon ball come bounding up Main Street by the
public Square and hit a Confederate soldier, disabling him, and he
made a feeble outcry from pain and another round 12-lb. solid
shot came bounding up the street and hit the sill of the cellar door
of Dr. A. A. Biggs, imbedding itself and it was cut out by Chas.
and Edward Biggs and was in the doctor's collection of shot and
shell sold at the sale after his death, the axe marks showing plainly.
It was bought from 0. T. Reilly by an ex-governor of Ohio some
years after.
Mrs. Emory Smith, who lived in the frame house on the south-
west corner of the alley on Main Street, opposite the old Lutheran
graveyard, said when they came to their home after the battle
tw'o Confederate soldiers la>' in their kitchen where they w'ere killed
by an exploding shell that came through the building. The shell
killed one at the well near by while in the act of drawing a bucket
of water. One of the men in the kitchen was holding in one of his
hands a bunch of onions and was literally torn to pieces. There
have been Union soldiers who visited the battlefield since the
battle who remembered seeing the sight just mentioned.
Many of the houses in this town were hit by the shot and shell
from the Union cannon during the battle, the Jacob H. Grove
building, the Antietam Hotel, now known in history as the General
Lee Council of War Building. The writer counted years ago
eleven shell holes in this building, five of them remaining in the
walls yet, as they were then; one in the Dr. Biggs stone house
nearly opposite, and the old Mr. John Hill house on the northwest
corner of Antietam and Mechanic Streets opposite the old Antietam
Hotel has a piece of shell and eight bullet and shell holes in it yet
and is one of the historic houses pointed out by the guide to the
many visitors.
Colonel Eshelman, who had command of one of the batteries
that stood on the site now used as the National Cemetery Hill,
said when they were forced to vacate, they by a special order from
General Lee, were lined up in the fields southwest of the Harper's
Ferry road. Colonel Eshelman said to General Lee that it was
almost useless to do this, as they were nearly out of ammunition.
General Lee said to line us and leave the Yanks under the impres-
sion that we were ready for them and as the Union forces had
their General Signal Station on top of Elk Ridge, east of the Burn-
side Bridge, they could see all of the movements of both armies
and acted accordingly. This was about the state of affairs on the
18th, giving a bluff "getting ready to leave the battlefield, which
they did on the night of the 18th, and by noon of the 19th every-
thing except their wounded was across the Potomac river. A flag
of truce was sent up at the Dunkard Church by the Confederates
asking for time to bury their dead and care for their wounded, but
trusted them to the Union soldiers to care for and bury.
When the Antietam Battlefield Commission were locating the
different positions of both armies and marking them, among the
many who were brought from nearly every state from North and
South (as each State that was represented in the battle sent a Com-
mittee of from three to eight or ten) was Gen. James Longstreet,
and the writer asked the General what his men on the left of their
line in the rear of the Dunkard Church were doing on the 18th, the
next day after the battle. His answer was they were cooking coffee
and getting something to eat, unconcerned about anything. He
was asked where he and others of their officers were when his horse
was shot from under him and he said, by a board fence near the town.
Tell me where that was and I can tell you in the writing of some
history, they speak of this as being Gen. D. H. Hill, but when the
question was asked of General Longstreet he didn't say it wasn't
him. Where this occurred was on the hill near the Citizens' Ceme-
tery. A number of the officers were riding up looking across the
Antietam when one said to the General that he was exposing himself
and they would make a target of him. This was hardly spoken
when a shell hit near him and the next minute one hit his horse's
front legs, and the General went over the horse's head. One other
question was asked, if he and the other commanding officers con-
sidered this a forced fight and he laughed and said, "My young man,
we had more time to get away before the battle than we did after it."
Col. Henry Hebb, an early war officer of this town who lived
in what is now" known as the McGraw Hotel House at the Public
Square, was standing at the cellar door at the rear of his house
when a 12-pound solid shot came and went through the door near-by
and if he had been a few seconds later in moving he would have
been hit by it. It went through the building and lodged on the
inside and is now in Reilly's War Museum.
Where the Iron Bridge now stands over the Antietam was a
stone bridge. This bridge was called the Lee or Middle Bridge
after the battle and by the piers getting undermined by washes,
it went to the bottom in 1891. The water was a depth that the
entire structure was hidden. The Rev. B. R. Carnaham, of Keedys-
ville had just crossed a few minutes before and heard the crash and
looking back he realized what he had just escaped. He was on his
way to this place to preach. Near by stood the old mill erected
by the Orndorfs in 1768. This was just five years after the town
of Sharpsburg was laid out. This mill had been and is known by
many as the Orndorf, Mumma, Newcomer, and the Jacob A. Myers
Mill, and to reach this mill in the early days the Old Bloody Lane
road w'as made and its depth at places was caused by its many years
of usage. From the Hagerstown Pike to the Observation Tower a
good portion of it remains nearly the same and from the tower to
the left is Richardson Avenue. It follows the ravine from the
east end of the Piper Farm lane to the pike. The Hagerstown
Pike was built about the year 1856 and was nearly a new pike when
the battle of Antietam was fought. The immense army going
backward and forward over it nearly ruined it, but the Company
received pay for its damages from the Government.
Where the National Cemetery now stands was a large rock
on the south side near where Mrs. Bryant's monument stands.
This rock was called General Lee's rock and it is said he stood on
this rock and gave orders on the day of the battle, but when the
Cemetery was established in 1866 it was partly taken out and
graded over; if it had been left it would have been one of the his-
toric marks for visitors, for many would take pride in saying they
stood on Lee's Rock at Antietam.
Mr. Elias Spong, a Civil War veteran and father-in-law of
the writer, said after the battle he was one of the burial corps mem-
bers who assisted in taking up the dead Union soldiers in 1866, and
near the East Woods on the David R. Miller farm he unearthed
one soldier that he thought was rather heavy for his size and when
he turned him over a 12-pound shot was in him. It had just force
enough to go in but not through him.
Mr. John Shay, an old resident of this place now dead, said
where he lived at the edge of the town as you go out the Harper's
Ferry Road, when the eleven hundred Union Cavalry were retreat-
ing from Harper's Ferry where they had refused to surrender when
Colonel Miles was captured, that when they were entering the town
at night they would ask for water and he carried many buckets
full to them. Finally the bucket was let fall and the next morning
he found it at the Public Square w'here the horses had kicked it.
This cavalry went by way of Williamsport, Md., and were then in
the rear of the Confederate lines, which were along South Moun-
tain and captured near Williamsport a part of General Longstreet's
wagon train.
Mr. Samuel Poffenberger, who owns the Poffenberger farm
buildings in the rear of the East Woods, had his eight horses hidden
in his large cellar to keep them from being stolen during the battle.
Wm. Unger on the Kennedy farm near the Antietam had his
in his cellar and those who didn't do this lost theirs. The horses'
feet were muffed to keep them from making a noise.
All of the churches of this town, many of the private dwellings,
barns, and all buildings for miles around were used to shelter the
many wounded of both North and South. For some weeks after
the battle many persons came from the North, and some from the
South, to look after and care for their friends. Many of the
wounded remained here until they recovered, but many of them died.
Some were taken to the regular established hospitals, and at many
of the hospitals arms and legs that had been amputated were piled
several feet high. At the Michael Miller farm near the East Woods,
Mr. Wilham Miller, a son, told the writer that on the porch where
the amputating tables were the blood was thick against the walls for
weeks after. This building was known in history as the General
Franklin Hospital and hundreds were taken there to be cared for
until they could be taken elsewhere.
Mr. Henry F. Neikirk's farm buildings were just a short dis-
tance east of Bloody Lane. Quite a number of the wounded from
the Bloody Lane engagement were taken there and among the
number was a member of the 14th Indiana Regiment. One of his
legs were taken off in the barnyard, where with others he lay on the
straw. On a recent visit here he told 0. T. Reilly that while he lay
in the barnyard a Confederate soldier lay badly wounded, and he
was swearing and cursing the Union doctors, saving thev were caring
for all the Union soldiers and neglecting him, but the 'Indiana man
said that he was treated as others when his turn came.
Many years ago a Capt. A. H. Vandusean, a member of the
97th N. Y. Volunteers, paid a visit to the battlefield and was in
search of a certain spring which he said was south of the town. He
was first taken to the Belinda Springs at Snavely's Ford, but this
he said was not the one. He was taken to all of the springs on the
battlefield by the guide, but he could not recognize any of them, so
the guide told him there was but one more and that was nearly
five miles away, so he was driven to the David Coffman farm
spring and as soon as he saw this one he said, "This is the place
I am looking for. Now up on that hill while encamped here I cut
in an oak tree the letters 'N. Y. S. Vols.' " We went there and found
the tree with the letters cut in it and this oak tree is standing yet.
The Captain said they were encamped there for six weeks after
the battle and would almost daily go to the canal for bathing and
to wash some clothes.
A member of the 53rd Pennsylvania Regiment, who fought
at Bloody Lane September 17th and was doing picket duty on the
18th near the Observation Tower in Bloody Lane, said they were
so much exposed to the Confederate sharp-shooters that they
gathered together the dead soldiers and piled them four and five
high and used them as breastworks. This misled many persons who
visited the battlefield before they were buried and said they were
shot where they lay, to that depth, but there were a few places
where they lay a couple deep.
Mrs. Mary Carter and sister, who resided near the battlefield,
told the writer that several weeks after the battle as they were
coming up from the Roulette farm they would slip at places in
Bloody Lane where the blood was the thickest from the dead and
wounded. This story is vouched for by many other residents and
soldiers, for at the time of the battle there was blood that pushed
its way through the dust for some distance.
Mr. John W. Fisher, a Civil War veteran and resident of this
town, picked up after the battle a large shell and put in it the snout
of a soldier's cap with the brains on and sealed it up and put it in
the relic room or cabinet at the National Cemetery, but by a recent
order issued by the War Department, the cabinet was taken out
of the room and stored in the garret. The important relics should
be returned to the doners.
0. T. Reilly got one rail from the fence at the Sunken road
that had 23 bullet holes and marks in, some years after the battle.
This, with many other rails from parts of the battlefield, was
burned when his stable burned down. Dr. S. F. McFarland
of the 78th N. Y. Regiment on a visit to the battlefield purchased
from Reilly one rail that had several bullets in it and about a dozen
marks, that came from the post fence that stood on the Hagerstown
Pike near the Bloody Cornfield.
On the day of the battle, during the hardest fighting at Bloody
Lane, a man with a two-horse spring wagon came to the Roulette
farm and drove nearly to where the tower stands and gave to a
number of the Union soldiers bread, ham, cakes, and pies that had
been sent by some good ladies, but no one today knows who he was
or where he came from. In 1910 the War Department made an
effort, through Gen. Ezra A. Carman, who was at the head of the
Antietam Battlefield Commission, to locate him; the county papers
were used to find out who he was, but with no success. The War
Department's aim was to reward him with a medal for his bravery
in coming on the field when the bullets were flying fast.
During the summer of 1911 a party of Confederate veterans
came here to visit the field and among them were several who had
been detailed by Gen. Stonewall Jackson to deliver a message from
him at the Dunkard Church to Gen. A. P. Hill, who was approach-
ing the Confederate right from the Blackford Ford by way of the
Miller sawmill road south of the town. The man said that before
he left General Jackson he gave him a drink of milk out of his can-
teen that he had just a short time before milked from a cow back of
the Dunkard Church woods. He also said there had been five
detailed to go through with the message and of the five who started
one was killed, two were wounded and only two got through.
When they reached the General he was eating green corn from the
cob which he had just gotten in a field near by.
About the year 1895 Major Parker, who commanded a bat-
tery, one of the five that belonged to Gen. S. D. Lee's command,
posted near the big walnut trees east of the Dunkard Church on
the Mumma farm, at daybreak with four others, one a Captain
Brown of the Wise Virginia Battery, visited the battlefield and when
they came down the main street from Antietam Station on the
Norfolk and Western Railroad they spied the old rough casted
house that belonged to Mr. Moses Poffenberger, now the property
of Mrs. Jennie Benner, Major Parker remarked to Captain Brown,
"Look, Brown, there is the house where we got the white bread and
apple butter." When this party reached the Dunkard Church
they went to where their batteries were located, all knelt down in
the shade of the big walnut trees and had prayer, and this is the
only time the like was done by any parties during the guide's 35
year's experience.
A one-armed veteran, a member of one of the Pennsylvania
Reserve Regiments, his wife and daughter, all from Harrisburg,
Pa. — the veteran said he way a toll collector at a bridge at that
city about the year 1885 and after going over the battlefield he
was taken to Keedysville, by way of the Hooker Bridge and Pry's
mill, and when they reached the wagon shed the party stopped and
went to the shed. The veteran remarked that he was the first
soldier to have a limb amputated and Mr. Thomas Hickman, the
aged barrel maker, stood near by and he said to the veteran, "If
you are the first one to be operated on I can show you where your
arm is buried," and they went across the road near the old Pry
stable and showed him the place.
The day of the battle a solid shot was fired that went into the
house on Antietam Street, then owned by Mr. Aaron Fry, now
owned by his son Samuel Fry. This shell came through the build-
ing, passed through a door and into a chest of bed clothes and among
the articles was a bed sheet and when it was unfolded a hole was
through every fold. It was given to a Western man, but the door
still hangs there.
During the summer of 1911 Mr. A. H. Osborne and a friend, of
Anderson, S. C, visited the battlefield. As they came in sight
of the little mill and house he remarked that during a lull in the
battle he and a comrade went to the house to get something to eat
and when they entered it they discovered the house to be on fire
from a bursting shell. He remarked that it wasn't the General's
rules to try to save burning property, but being very hungry they
got water and put the fire out, hunted and found something to eat.
Later in the day they were sent in the neighborhood of the Burn-
side bridge and after being forced back they discovered that water
had been running but nearly dried up, so they started to follow
this up, and when nearing Caleb Michael spring the grape shot
and shell pieces from the Union batteries were dropping around
them. The comrade with him, getting scared, made this remark:
"Say, John, I don't believe I want a drink," and they pulled for
shelter. Mr. Osborne belongs to the 1st S. C. Sharpshooters of
Jenkins' Brigade.
During a visit to the battlefield by Gen. Jos. Hooker, 1st Corps
Commander at this battle, he located the place where he was slightly
wounded in the heel, near where the big walnut trees stood, about
75 yards from the Smith house that now stands along the Smoketown
Road. The East Woods extended at the time of the battle near
where the 1st N. J. Brigade Monument now stands. General
Hooker was taken back to the Philip Pry house where General Mc-
Clellan's headquarters were and his wound was dressed. Mrs. Pry
said to the writer many years after, that they sent an ambulance to
the headquarters twice for General Hooker to take him back to the
field before General McClellan had eaten his breakfast. He then
ordered an ambulance to take Mrs. Pry and her children to Mr.
Jacob Keedy's farm near Keedysville and that was the last she
saw of him that day. Some time after the war Mr. and Mrs. Pry
sold their farm, etc., and moved by wagon to Johnson City, E.
Tenn. Before the war they were in good circumstances, but for
some reasons forgotten by the writer they lost nearly all they had.
They both died in Tennessee, but were brought back and buried
in the cemetery at Keedysville.
The Federal soldiers call this the Antietam Battle, naming it
after the Antietam Creek, and the Confederates after the town of
Sharpsburg. The creek was first called by an Indian name, Antie-
a-tam. The Battle of South Mountain by the Confederates was
named after the town of Boonsboro.
This immediate section of the county has been made very
historic for nearly 200 years when it was inhabited by the Delaware
Indian tribe. They had many fights and during the Revolution-
ary War and the War of 1812 it was in an uproar, also during the
John Brown raid, thence the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. There
isn't a crossroad for many miles around that isn't credited with an
engagement of some kind.
Dr. A. A. Biggs informed the writer many years ago that about
50 yards beyond the northwest corner of the National Cemetery
and about 25 yards from the Keedysville pike, he after the battle
scraped up the remains of a Confederate soldier who had been lit-
erally torn to pieces and buried him in a hole about two feet deep
and that he was never taken up.
The stone house on the northeast corner of the Public Square
Sharpsburg, now owned by the writer, was built by Col. Joseph
Chapline, the founder of the town and it has Indian portholes in it.
It was an Indian trading post, and is one of the first large build-
ings erected at that time.
The now famous bridge called the Burnside Bridge, since the
battle, was built during the years 1836 and 1837, and was known as
the Rohrback's Bridge. It was built by money furnished by Wash-
ington County. The cost of this bridge by contract was S2,300 and
was contracted for and built by Mr. John Howard.
Mr. Martin E. Snavely of the John Snavely Belinda Springs
Farm said that after the battle he hauled a six-horse load of coffins
containing dead soldiers to Hagerstown, all of which had been
embalmed at the Old Dunkard Church, to be shipped home by
friends who had come to look after them. Hagerstown was then
the nearest railroad station for the North. Mr. Snavely said that
arms and legs were piled up several feet high at the Dunkard Church
window where the amputating tables sat. A visiting veteran since
the war said that he was passing by the church and an officer hailed
him to assist a man in loading them on a cart to haul them away
and bury them.
The writer, who lived nearby the old stone schoolhouse in
Keedysville, Md., remembers well of the wounded soldiers being in
the German Reformed Church only a short distance away, of hearing
the moaning of the wounded, of the arms and legs piled outside of
one of the windows, of carrying meals to some that lay in the school-
house and of covering some who were buried in their garden with
flat stones to keep the chickens from them, they being buried so
shallow.
While working near Mr. George Poffenberger's farm build-
ings when the Government was building the avenues, six Confed-
erates were dug up near by; five of them lay side by side and the
sixth one was laid across the others. Several had bullets in them
and one had a large-size grape shot in his skull. One was dug up
when the Massachusetts State Monument was put up, besides
many others in different places since, which is proof that manj'
others of the unaccounted for lie buried in the fields, some never to
be found.
Chas. Smith, who resided at the East Woods, was digging some
dirt along the Smoketown road in June, 1910, and he dug out the
remains of a Union soldier supposed to be a member of the 12th or
13th Massachusetts Regiment, on the east side of the hill north of
the Mansfield monument. The man had fallen against the bank
with out-stretched arms and that is the way he was found, and on
the finger bone was found a ladies 'gold ring, and old daguerreotype,
brass picture frame, a padlock, and some Massachusetts State coat
of arms buttons were with the bones. Mr. Smith reported to the
Superintendent of the National Cemetery and the body was taken
there and buried as unknown.
The Antietam National Cemetery was established in 1866
and 1867 by money donated by the different loyal states. It con-
tains ten acres of land and was kept up by these States until about
1880, the States being anxious to have the Government take charge
of it, therefore was purposely neglected, and before the United
States Government took charge the grass and weeds grew up high
in it. Then a superintendent was given charge of it by the Govern-
ment and it w'as properly cared for. Old Simon, the big "soldier"
on the monument in the center, was given his name by an unknown
lady of this town when he was being rolled in from the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal, on heavy planks, and was erected about 1878. It
was designed and made at James G. Batterson's quarries near
Providence, R. I. It was first sent to the Centennial in 1876 at
Philadelphia and stood to the right of the main entrance. After
the close of the Centennial it was taken down and sent to Washing-
ton, D. C. It was then loaded on a canal boat and brought to
Snyder's landing and rolled on planks for a distance of nearly two
miles on small rollers, the rollers running on oak planks, through
the town and erected. The entire monument stands 47 feet high,
the man is 21 feet 6 inches high, composed of two pieces, being put
together at the belt. Entire monument contains 28 pieces and
weighs 250 tons and cost 530,000.
The Geeting farm buildings that stand at the foot of Red Hill,
or known in history as Elk Ridge south of Keedysville, Md., were
used as a hospital for months after the battle, many soldiers were
cared for there and so many died that they formed a graveyard
across the road from the big spring; this hospital was known to
the soldiers as the Geeting, Russell and Locust Spring. The writer
has heard many sad messages related by some of the doctors and
nurses who helped care for the dying boys; sad messages to be sent
to their homes, people they would never see again.
The Smoketown Hospital was built north of the Hoffman farm
buildings at the edge of the woods on the south side of the road
and was there for months after the battle in charge of Dr. Vander-
kief. During the fall of 1911 a couple of veterans who had been
in the Antietam Battle and were wounded and carried to the Hoff-
man farm and then to this hospital later, said after they got well
enough to hobble to the place where they were burying the dead,
that he went nearly every day and sang over the graves of those
being buried. Some of the wounded lay in the Hoffman yard
under the trees for a week after the battle, the doctors going their
daily rounds caring for the wounded. Mr. Edward S. Past, a Gov-
ernment National Cemetery Superintendent, being one of those who
died. He was a member of the first Minnesota Regiment.
Mr. Jeptha Taylor, w'ho resided in the Stone Mill House in
Keedysville, told the writer that on the evening of Sept. 16, 1862,
while the Union Army was near Keedysville, Gen. Geo. B. Mc-
Clellan gave Mr. Taylor orders to have supper gotten for him-
self and his staff officers, and for this he gave Mr. Taylor a two dol-
lar and a half gold piece.
Gen. Jesse B. Reno, who commanded the 9th army corps Union
at the South Mountain Battle, was killed near the old Wise house
Sunday, Sept. 14, 1862, and General Garland of the Confederate
army was killed near by. General Garland's remains were taken
charge of by Mr. John C. Brining, an undertaker at Boonsboro,
Md., and embalmed and sent home. Ex-President Rutherford
B. Hays, who was a member of the 23rd Ohio of the "Kanawha
Division" was badly wounded near the Wise house, and carried
back to the Koogle house at the foot of the mountain, where he
was cared for. This 23rd Ohio Regiment had some noted men in
it, ex-President Wm. McKinley and Gov. J. B. Foraker of Ohio
since the war.
Brig. -Gen. Israel B. Richardson, who commanded the 1st divis-
ion of the 2nd corps under Gen. E. V. Sumner, was mortally wound-
ed by a minnie ball, northeast of the Observation Tower east end
Bloody Lane and was carried back to the Pry house. General Mc-
Clellans' headquarters, where he died November 3rd. Mrs. Pry
said that his sisters, who were with him wanted to be too kind and
gave him things to eat against the doctor's orders and caused his
death.
Gen. Jos. K. F. Mansfield, who commanded the 12th corps,
Union, came onto the Line farm about midnight of the 16th, and at
daybreak on the morning of the 17th, before his men had time to
get something to eat, a message was sent to come to the relief of
General Hooker, then hotly engaged in and near the East Woods.
Just as General Mansfield "was entering the woods near where his
monument stands he received his mortal wound, in the breast, by
a minnie ball. He was carried back to the George Line house, where
they had advanced from and died the same day. The house that
General Mansfield died in isn't the house standing there now. Mr.
Line sold the old house which was log, rough-casted, to Mr. Daniel
R. Bovey, who removed it and rebuilt it for his dwelling on the
hill near the Hooker Bridge and it is now cased with brick.
Brig. -Gen. Isaac P. Rodman, whose division crossed at Snave-
ly's Ford, belonged to the 9th corps under Gen. Ambrose Burnside,
and a portion ot them advanced to where the 9th N. Y. Hawkins
Zouave Regiment monument stands overlooking the town from
the south. General Rodman received his mortal wound nearby
and was taken back to the Rohrback farmhouse, where he died
early in November. Colonel Kingsbury of the llth Com., 9th corps,
received his mortal wound while making a charge with his command
across the Antietam Creek near the Burnside Bridge. He was car-
ried to the Rohrback house, where he died. Mrs. Ada Thomas in
Sharpsburg has the large couch that General Rodman died on,
also a table with bullet holes in it that was used for an amputating
table.
Mr. Nathan Gilpin ot Philadelphia, Pa., a member of the 118th
Penn., Com., Exchange Regiment, who belonged to Gen. Fitz John
Porter's 5th Corps and after General Lee's army retreated across
the Potomac River at Blackford's Ford, and the 5th Corps was
ordered to cross at the Ford, the 118th Penn., was doing picket duty
on the Maryland side on the night of the 19th of September, he
. heard something that sounded like zip-zip-zip going through the
bushes and he asked the Captain what it was and he told him, bul-
lets from the Confederate sharp-shooters on the opposite side of
the river. Mr. Gilpin said he thought they were some kind of bugs
and when he was told this he said he imagined his hair was raising
his hat up. Mr. Gilpin, before he died, was a member of the
City Council of Philadelphia, and with that body of councilmen
came here on a visit.
Squire Miller's family had a poll parrot that hung in a cage on
the back porch and on the day of the battle a shell burst in the air
near by and one of the pieces cut the strap that held the cage, and
when she went down she said, "0-Poor-PolIyl" This parrot lived
to be nearly 100 years old.
Brigadier-General Woffood's Brigade of Hood's Division
C. S. A. Longstreet's Command, while engaged in the 50-acre
field on the David R. Miller farm between the East Woods and
Hagerstow'n turnpike, numbered 550 and of this number they lost
323. Brigadier-General Hays' Brigade of Ewell's Division, C. S.
A., numbered 854 and of this number they lost 560. The 1st Texas
Regiment of this brigade numbered 226 and their loss in this charge
into Bloody Cornfield was 186 and was rarely equalled in warfare.
The Bloody Cornfield was a portion of the 50-acre field and con-
tained about 12 acres. Nearly every charge made struck this
field either in going in or returning and the corn was fully matured,
but when night came it was nearly trampled to pieces, nothing but
the stubs of the stalks standing. Wheat had been in the middle
and clover in the south side of this 50-acre field, with no fencing
between. This ground was about the hardest fought over of any
on the battlefield; the dead lay so thick from the Dunkard Church
to the East Woods that one could have stepped from man to man
without stepping on the ground. Between 1200 and 1500 were
buried in this one field.
The 15th Mass. Regiment numbering 606 men, lost 330 in 20
minutes, 255 killed, 75 wounded and 43 died of wounds when this
regiment left camp on the morning of the battle. The order was
given first for 40 rounds of ammunition, second order 60 and so
on until they had 120 rounds in their cartridge boxes and pockets.
This regiment belonged to Sumner's 2nd Corps, Sedgwick's Divi-
sion, composed of the 1st Minn. Reg., their loss being 90, the
34th N. Y. losing 225 and the 82nd N. Y. 2nd Militia 140. 1st
Com. Mass., Sharpshooters loss was 26, 2nd Minn. Sharpshooters
loss 24; this brigade lost nearly 900 and advanced the farthest
through the West Woods of any Union troops and was commanded
by Brig. -Gen. John W. Kimball and fought Semmes, Early and
Barkdale's Confederate Brigades, who were concealed behind the
trees and rocky ledges, they losing very heavily. Sedgwick's Divi-
sion was composed of Gorman, Danna, and Gen. 0. 0. Howard's
brigades. After their very heavy losses they were obliged to re-
treat. General Howard's, the Phil. Brigade 3rd line lost 545 and
were not actively engaged, they waiting to relieve the 1st and 2nd
lines.
The 12th Mass. Reg. troops numbered 334 and while engaged
at the Bloody Cornfield lost 224 out of this 334. The brigade they
belonged to numbered 1200 and they lost over 600 of this number.
The 35th Mass. Reg. known here as Col. Albert A. Pope's,
while crossing the Burnside Bridge and advancing up the hills to
the Otto Lane lost 214 of their officers and men. The Colonel
erected a monument on one corner of the Burnside Bridge to the
memory of his dead comrades. Mr. Pope was a private at the
time of the Antietam Battle, but was made Colonel later in the war.
Colonel Pope is known as the bicycle man and at one time owned
and operated a large factory at Hagerstown, Md.
Mr. Elias Spong, who was a veteran and assisted in taking up
the Union dead to be interred in the Antietam National Cemetery,
said that they unearthed one man among the dead that was buried
near the Burnside Bridge, this being about four years after the
battle. One man's beard had grown to be nearly a foot long and
his hair was down over his shoulders and he looked almost as when
he was buried, while the others were only bones. They had all
been buried in their blankets.
Doubleday's, Mead's and Rickett's Divisions of General Hook-
er's 1st Corps were encamped for weeks after the battle on the
Jacob C. Grove, Lafayette Miller, Rowe and Hebb farms and Presi-
dent Lincoln visited the battlefield and reviewed about 25,000
of the soldiers on the Moses Cox farm, near the Norfolk and 'ft'es-
tern Railroad now, on the hills northwest of the Roulette crossing.
The President failed to get here the day he had first arranged for.
He reviewed the whole army in this section. Dr. S. F. McFarland
of the 78th N. Y. Regt. informed the writer of the above. The
doctor was a frequent visitor to this field after the battle and re-
sided at Binghamlon, N. Y.
Some weeks after the battle a man came from the North trying
to find his brother whom he received word had been killed and
buried by his comrades near the Burnside Bridge with his sword
in the grave with him. Mr. Aaron Fry, an old resident who assisted
in locating many dead ones for friends, overheard the Northern
man describe who his brother was and how he was buried. The
man said he would give ten dollars to anyone who would find him
and Mr. Fry happened to hear the offer and as he had seen the man
when they were burying him, he took them to the place and dug him
up and they sent him home like hundreds of others did their friends.
Mr. Mayberry Beeler, a former resident of this town, told
of Maj. Jos. C. Ashbrook, 118th Penn. Regt., Corn Exchange man
of Philadelphia, the Major being wounded on the cliffs below Shep-
herdstown on September 20th, after Lee retreated. Mr. Ashbrook
was wounded four times and was brought to the home of Dr. G.
Finley -Smith, a former dru.^gist of our town, where he lay for
some time and then Mr. Beeler was hired to take him in a wagon
to Hagerstown. Some time after this Mr. Ashbrook was passing
through this town with a number of convalescent soldiers and at
night he remembering Mr. Beeler, went to his house and asked per-
mission to sleep in Mr. Beeler's barn that stood in the rear of the
Methodist Church and Mr. Beeler said, "No, you cannot stay in
my barn, but you can stay in my house." But Major Ashbrook
said, "No, 1 have a number of soldiers with me and we want to lie
in your barn," and while they were in the barn at night some men
residents of the town knocked on the barn door and said they
were going to burn the barn, that Beeler was a rebel sympathizer,
but the Major said to them, "A man that does for the Union soldier
as Mr. Beeler has done for me is no rebel," and interceded for Mr.
Beeler and saved his barn.
Mr. James DeLauney said to the writer in 1914 that Mrs.
Cramer, the mother of Martin Cramer, Sr., was living in the brick
house at the extreme west end of Sharpsburg and on the day of the
battle was asked to leave and go to a place of safety. So they started
for the Miller sawmill near the Blackford Ford, and they had hardly
left the house when a shell went into the building and exploded,
tearing things to pieces. This building is now owned and occu-
pied by Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Grove.
Mr. Chas. Rohrer of Columbus, Ohio, a former resident of
the battlefield, said when he was a boy he with a penknife dug into
a hole in the big tree in front of the Dunkard Church and came
to a shell that was imbedded in the tree, was left there and the
wood grew over it completely hiding it. It is there yet. Many
bullet and shell marks show in the few remaining trees that stancl
near the church, one of the number has the entire top cut off by
a shell. The few remaining trees that stand on the Antietam Battle-
field can easily be pointed out, the limljs being very short and stubby
caused by the ends being cut off by the shells and missies of various
kinds during the battle.
A shell is imbedded in the north side of the Burnside Bridge
and is pointed out by many persons. This shell was not fired in
here on the day of the battle, but was ploughed out of a field near
by, by Mr. Chas. Dorsey, and placed in this hole that had been
made by a shell or solid shot on the day of the battle, by Mr. Josiah
Hill and Mr. Benjamin Painter, while repointing the stone work
During a raid made by Confederate scouts through this sec-
tion about the tiine of the Antietam Battle, an effort was made to
get Mr. Henry F. Neikirk's eleven head of horses which he had
hidden away along the Antietam Creek, behind some large rock
cliffs. Mr. Neikirk was taken, after an attempt was made to burn
his barn to compel him to tell where his horses were and this fail-
ing they then followed him to the house to get his money. They
got a small amount of silver, but a purse containing severel hun-
dred dollars was concealed by Miss Lizzie, his daughter. Finally
Mr. Neikirk was taken by them and hung up by a leather halter
until he was black, trying to force him to tell, but he would not tell.
His son George cut him down just in time to save his life. The
horses were taken on another occasion.
The publisher of this book remembers well of the retreat of
the Confederate Army from the South Mountain Battle, he being
then a resident of Keedysville, Md., then known by some soldiers
as Centerville. At the age of five and one-half years he stood for
hours looking at the Confederates passing through and before they
all got by some of the officers rode through the village and tolS
the women and children that they had better leave, as it looked
like a battle would be fought over the town, so the mothers and
children left, some going to the Samuel Pry mill and while there
seven Confederates forded the creek near the mill and asked Mrs.
Pry to give them something to eat. A dinner was put on a table
on the little porch in front of the house, six sat down and one was
lying in the corn crib sick. A small number of the Union Cavalry-
men came riding down the road and ordered them to surrender.
Five walked out, but the sixth one refused to surrender; one man
walked in with revolver in hand and said, "Come out or I will
shoot you down." Mrs. Pry threw up her hands and said, "For
God's sake don't kill him on the porch!" The Confederate, who
was sitting in front of the writer, crossed his knife and fork, picked
up his slouch hat and walked out. They were ordered ahead of
the horsemen and that was the last seen of them. After the Con-
federates had fallen back across the Middle Bridge on the Boons-
boro and Sharpsburg Pike the Union soldiers advanced and when
the mothers and children were returning they met the Union sol-
diers at the pike and General McClellan and staff were just passing.
The writer remembers well the little brown horse of General Mc-
Clellan's, Dan, as he was called. The women and children had to
make way for the horsemen and the road was completely blocked
with soldiers, some lying down, some sitting down, others resting
on their guns, cheering little Mack, as he was called. All seemed
as though they were awaiting orders to move. When the writer
reached their home, near the stone school house, the soldiers were
digging the potatoes with their bayonets on their guns, and not a
grape was left on the arbor that had been laden with delicious fruit
when they left home. The father of the writer, Edward Reilly,
and one son, George W. Reilly, who was an enlisted Union soldier,
but home on a furlough, was hidden during that day in their cellar,
the son under the potato bin. This is about the condition of the
town's populace; they were hidden and sheltered in many ways be-
fore and during the battle. The day of the battle, September 17th,
many persons went to the top of Elk Ridge where the Union Signal
Station was, and a good view of the entire battle lines could be had.
The writer was one of that number, with his brother, and remembers
well of the Sedgwick charge near the Dunkard Church, but only
the great columns of smoke and dust could be seen as they advanced
and then retreated. Days after the battle was over the writer,
with his father, went to the battlefield and remembers of the dead
soldiers that had crawled into the bushes died there and had not
been buried yet. Some of those that were buried had their feet out,
some their hands, and some were buried so shallow that their heads
could be seen.
Mr. C. M. Keedy, a well-known man of Keedysville, said
weeks after the battle he and friends visited the battlefield, and
remembers the soldiers that had been laid together on top of the
ground, rails put around and dirt thrown over them, and the hogs
had rooted the shoes off with the feet in them and it was a common
thing to see human bones lying loose in gutters and fence corners
tor several years, and frequently hogs would be seen with limbs in
their mouths.
The old Lutheran Church that stood in their old graveyard
with a square cupola on was used by General Lee's army as their
signal station. It was built in the year 1768, was badly knocked
to pieces and used as a hospital and afterwards sold, torn down and
rebuilt as a dwelling near the little stone mill east of town.
The writer remembers well of raids made by Confederate sol-
diers, taking horses, breaking into the John Cost store in Keedys-
ville, loading the store goods into wagons, knocking the heads of
the molasses and oil barrels in and running it over the floor. Mr.
Aaron Cost was ordered and did lead his five horses out of his stable,
at the point of a pistol and handed them over either to Confederate
soldiers or sympathizers. This all came under the writer's notice
and is well remembered by him.
Mr. John Cost's gray horse, old Sam, was taken by a Union
soldier and ridden to Frederick city. Mr. Cost found out where
the horse was and got an order from Union headquarters to get
him back and to prove that it was his horse when he was returned
he told the man to take the bridle off in front of his store and if he
did not go to his stable he could take him again; old Sam ran direct
to his stable, kicking up his heels.
Mr. Millard F. Rohrer of Council Bluffs, Iowa, says his father,
Mr. George C. Rohrer, who lived in Keedysville during the battle
of Antietam, was called on by Gen. George B. McClellan to act as
guide. A horse with saddle and bridle on was sent to Mr. Rohrer's
home and he accompanied the rider to General McClellan's quarters,
in a tent at that time. A large map was shown Mr. Rohrer and
whenever they would see puffs of smoke Mr. Rohrer would locate
them on the map for the General; after they were through Mr.
Rohrer was taken back to his home. He was also sent for by Gen-
eral Meade when they were on their way to Gettysburg, Pa., in
1863. Mr. M. F. Rohrer was aged 12 years at the time of the battle.
He said on Sunday, September 14th, in the evening a long line of
wagons were in Keedysville and about one o'clock a. m. of the loth
Mr. Rohrer heard the wagons ratthng. He looked out of the window
and saw they were retreating and he knew McClellan had been
victorious in the mountain fight. George C. and Capt. J. \V. Rohrer
were in the mercantile business in Keedysville before going west
40 years ago.
The F. Wyand store building in Keedysville was a new one
when the Antietam battle was fought and Mr. Wyand had just
moved his stock of goods into it. the shutters show the bayonet
marks on them yet where they were pried open by the Confed-
erates after the Battle of South Mountain and the stock of goods
taken, and after the Battle of Antietam the store building was com-
verted into a hospital, the entire house being used, and in the rear
of the lot many boxes containing amputated limbs are buried yet.
Mr. Frisby Smith, a resident of our town and a son of Judge
David Smith, who resided at the time of the battle in the stone
house now owned by Lawrence Easterday, said that while his
mother and three sisters and brother, Mr. M. F. Smith, were in
the basement on the day of the battle a shell exploded in front of
their house, a portion passed through the front door, hit the floor,
on through the back door, into a closet, broke a jar of honey, struck
the side of the closet, and lay on the shelf and he has it in his pos-
session yet. A 20-pound parrot shell strruck in their yard and
lodged there and his sister Sue went out, got it and carried it into
the basement. A Confederate soldier told them that it might
explode and kill them and they carried it out and poured water
on it. One Confederate soldier was killed near by in the street.
Other soldiers were killed on the streets and also some horses. The
horses were burned where they fell. Mr. Smith said he and other
boys, while hunting in the ruins of the David Reel barn, found
lumps of lead of several pounds where bullets had been melted
that were carried by soldiers who were supposed to have been
burned in the barn. They also found portions of bones of human
beings in the ashes.
Mr. William Roulette, owner of the Roulette farm at Bloody
Lane, during the battle September 17th was hiding in his cellar
and Capt. Samuel Wright of a Company of the 29th Mass. saw
Mr. Roulette come out of the cellar and for a short while stand and
look at them. Mr. Roulette and Captain Wright made frequent
visits to each other's homes until their last call was made. Mr.
Wright resided in Boston, Mass. He was awarded a medal of honor
by the War Department for bravery while charging up the hill to-
ward the Bloody Lane. Captain Wright lost one eye during the
war and carried the bullet on his watch chain as a fob encased in
a frame.
The Old Reformed Church in Keedysville that was remodeled
was used as a hospital after the battle. On every seat in the church
a wounded soldier lay for a time and arms and legs were piled up
outside of the windows. The writer remembers of hearing the
moans of the wounded some distance away where he lived at the
time.
Mr. Samuel Mumma, Jr., a son of Samuel Mumma, Sr., re-
sided in the Mumma buildings near the Dunkard Church that were
burned by the Confederates after they had been driven from them
to keep the Union sharp-shooters from using them. Mr. Mumma
said everything except a few small trinkets they took with them
was burned. Some of the daughters, Mrs. Lizzie Grove of this
place and Miss Allie Mumma, said when they were told to leave, a
Confederate soldier that wanted to be gallant offered his assistance
in helping them over the fence, but they were too angry because
they had to leave and refused his assistance. They went to the
Hoffman farm and then near the Manor Church. A report was
circulated that the Confederates put salt in the spring at the
farm, but Mr. Mumma said his father had been to Hagerstown
the day before and brought several sacks of salt home and put
them on a floor above the spring and when the building burned
the salt fell into the spring. Mr. Mumma's family went to the
Sherrick farm after the battle to live, Mr. Sherrick moving to Boons-
boro. Md.
Judge Clark of the State of North Carolina, who was a member
of the 36th N. C. Regiment of Ransome Brigade, Hood's Division,
Jackson's Command, during a visit here in 1913 related a little
occurence of the day of the Antietam Battle while Stonewall Jack-
son's Command was in the Dunkard Church woods. General
Jackson asked General Hood to select a good climber to go up a
tree and ascertain the strength of the Union Army by the North
and East Woods. The man went up the tree, looked down and
said there were oceans of them. General Jackson said, "Never
mind the oceans, count the battle flags." He began to count and
when he got to 37 the General said, "That will do; come down
and we will get out of here." Judge Clark said he was only 16
years old and as his parents were in fairly good circumstances he
had been given a horse to ride and when night came, after the battle
he fastened his horse to a bush on the south side of the Dunkard
Church woods and lay down to sleep. He awoke several times
during the night, and he thought the odor was not very pleasant
and when he got up the next morning he found he had been lying
near an old hog that had been dead for a week or so. While
he was walking to his horse he found a five dollar gold piece. He
held up his hand and said, "Here it is." It was on his finger, hav-
ing been made into a wedding ring. He said, "My wife lias been
dead for some time, but 1 am wearing the ring." The Judge in
company with Reilly the guide was going over the field and when
nearing the Harper's Ferrv road the guide, in speaking of A. P.
Hill's division crossing at Blackford's Ford, the Judge said, "Hold
on, you're wrong there; he crossed at Harper's Ferry." The guide
said, "All right. Judge," and drove to the Harper's Ferry road.
"Now, Judge, I have occasion to drive to the Snavelv or Belinda
lane where one of the three A. P. Hill's Division tablets stands."
The guide said, "Now Judge, read this one." He read it and said
nothing, then lie read the second one, he began to scratch his
head. The guide said, "What's the matter, judge, one moreto
read," and he read that one. He looked up and said, "Reilly,
you're right and I am wrong, and I have been telling this to my
people for over fifty years." The guide said, "Now Judge, after
fifty years of arguing in this case you must decide in favor of Reilly."
As to the many makes of Civil War cartridges, there are but
few persons that know the true history of the one called the Con-
federate Poison Bullet. This one was long and no rings on it, and
a cork plug in the end and a deep cavity in it that contained a
poisonous grease or like a salve. These bullets, we are informed
by one who claims to know, were made in London, England and,
instead of the point being foremost in the cartridge the big end was
foremost; this was done so that the poison would scatter through
the wound. There were a good many of them used at the Antietam
Battle. It's an old saying that the North used the three-ring and
the South the two-ring, but the two-ring was used by the South
and the bulk of the three-ring was used by the North. On opening
a package containing ten cartridges and ten gun caps that had
been made and stamped Richmond, Va., Arsenal, three-ring bul-
lets were found in them, so that knocks out the three-ring business.
The largest ammunition used at the Battle of Antietam was
the 20-pound long parrot shell and the smallest was the buckshot,
the size of a cherry seed. Three buckshot and a 1-ounce round
ball made the buck and ball cartridge, .\bout .35 different shaped
bullets or minnie balls and about 30 different makes and weights
of shell and solid shot were used at this battle, .\bout .500 cannon
were used liy the two armies, about equally divided. The cavalry
were not engaged, only a few as escort and reconnoitering. About
1860 when the war fever was coming, a large flag pole was planted
in the Public Square and a flag was put up; some of the town citi-
zens who were not in sympathy with the Stars and Stripes took the
rope from it, and an arrest was made, but no proof was furnished
and another was put up on it. It stood for some time, but fianllv
the pole was bored full of holes with an auger and sawed off. It
had been planted in a hole seven feet deep and from the decaying
of that portion left in the ground the depression can be seen from
the solid road sinking yet. The Big Spring of our town became
noted after the battle and while the thousands of Union soldiers
were encamped near-by there was almost a continuous line of
men, horses and mules going to the spring for water. It's an old
saying among the townspeople that if you drink of this spring
once you are sure to come back again.
Mr. Jos. Sherrick, who owned and lived on the Sherrick farm
near Burnside Bridge, said that when the Confederates came into
Maryland he had S.3000 in gold in his house and fearing it would
be taken he hid it in the stone wall around his yard and saved it.
Mr. Jacob C. Grove, who lived on the Grove farm at the now Snyde
landing, hid his money at the time of the battle and forgot the
hiding place and never did find it.
A Mr. Davis of Gardner, Mass., after the battle, received a
message that his brother, Mr. Geo. W. Davis, who belonged to the
21st Aiass. Regt. and fought with Ferrero's brigade of the 9th corps
at Burnside Bridge, was mortallv wounded on the 17th, and he came
here at once and went to the Burnside Bridge on the hunt for his
brother. Sitting up against the big oak tree below the bridge at
the mouth of the Rohrback lane he found his brother. He walked
up and spoke to him, but received no answer, for he was dead. Mr.
Davis on his first visit with the guide related this. He visited
the battlefield every year after being at the National G. A. R. en-
campment for a number of years, but he has made his last visit,
going with the others never to return.
The 16th Conn. Regt. of infantrv that belonged to Rodman's
Division of the 9th Corns and forded the creek at Snavely's Ford
was a new regiment. They had been enlisted in the service just
three weeks and had their guns only three days; they fought in
the Sherrick 40-acre cornfield and lost 226 of their members. They
were all college boys and of the best families of Hartford, Conn.,
and near by. A member who made a recent visit here said when
the news reached Hartford of the loss it cast a gloom over the city;
the flags were put at half-mast and all of the bells in the city were
rung in memoriam of the sad news.
The old Antietam Iron Works is now all gone nearly a hun-
dred years. Several hundred men were at one time working at
the furnace, sheet-iron mill, nail mill, grist mill, ore mines and stone
quarries, the shipments then being all made via Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal. It is known by older persons as the John Brin Fur-
nace. Quite a number of the old log and a few of the other build-
ings are standing, some of the old race and building walls and the
ruins of the broken dam. The furnace was better known to the
younger people as the John S. All Furnace.
The Belinda Springs or John Suavely farm buildings near
Snavely's Ford were used nearly a hundred years ago as a summer
resort.' The sulphur water from the spring \vas known in a number
of cities as being very beneficial to one's health. Many guests
came there during the summer in stage coaches, as there were no
railroads near. History says in those days pleasure boats were
used between Harper's Ferry and Belinda Springs by way of the
Potomac River and Antietam Creek. Capt. Wm. M. Cronise,
an old resident of Sharpsburg, Md., said when he was a boy his
parents would send him to the hotel to sell fruit and vegetables to
the proprietor and guests. Many kegs and jugs of the sulphur
water were sent away to persons for drinking purposes.
The Stephen P." Grove buildings near .Antietam Station was
Gen. Fitz John Porter's headquarters for some time after the battle
and the buildings were used as a hospital. The Capt. David
Smith farm buildings, near the new railroad station, northwest
were used as a Confederate hospital.
Mr. Jacob Lair, a member of the 20th N. Y. Turner Rifle
Regiment, who was a member of Gen. Wm. B. Franklin's 6th
Corps, "Baldy" Wm. Smith's Division, while engaged near the
Dunkard Church had one of his arras shot off by a grape shot and
was taken back the the Hoffman barn where he lay for several weeks.
He said the barn fioor had two rows of men and daily one or more
would be taken out and buried. Mr. Lair, on a recent visit here,
said he remembered well of the good ladies of the Hoffman family
bringing fruits, cakes, pies, etc., to the wounded. Mr. Lair shed
many tears while on his visits here since the war. During one
visit he found a large grape shot near where he lost his arm; Mr.
Lair said it might be the one that hit him.
While the wounded soldiers were being hauled in ambulances
after the battle to Keedysville by way of the Sam'l Pry rnill, near
the dam was a steep hill in the road and while going up it with a
load of wounded soldiers the horses or mules refused to pull, and
the wagon and team backed down over a steep wall. Eye wit-
nesses said it was a terrible sight to witness.
Some of the Confederate ofTicers were trying to find the dif-
ferent fords or crossing along the Potomac River before the An-
tietam battle; they ordered Mr. John Hebb, Mr. Joe Hoffmaster
and Mr. Moses Cox to assist them. Mr. W'm. Logan, who resided
in a small house that stood near Confederate Avenue south of the
Locher farm buildin.gs, was in his house when the Confederates
came in and to hide himself his wife stood in a corner of the room
and Mr. Logan hid under her skirts and wasn't found.
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Uouser lived in the old Houser buildings
near Mrs. John D. Roulette's farm buildings. Now the old Houser
buildings are all torn down. The day before the l)attle they
were ordered to vacate their buildings, as there was going to be a
battle next day. They started for the Timothy Coin Lock, now
known as Kerfoot's. Mr. Wm. Houser, who keeps the toll gate
on the Hagerstown pike, was one of the children, he lieing aged
about 9 years, and remembered of a shell hilling the fence near
by and bullets flying close to them. Mr. Jacol) Houser, the father,
remained at home and on the day of the battle was hidden in his
cellar and with him were eight Confederates who were sheltering
there, and a shell came in, burst and killed four of them wounding
the others. A number of shells and solid shot hit the buildings.
Mr. Houser said nothing has been disturbed by the soldiers during
the battle, but when the Union soldiers got possession they were
told by a near-by farmer that Mr. Houser had gone in the Con-
federate Army. They destroyed lots of their household goods
and what was left was hauled away by their neighbors and kept.
Mrs. Houser was taken suddenly ill from fright and could not be
moved for weeks after the battle. Their home had to be remodeled
before they could return and they lost everything in the eating
line — about 800 bushels of wheat, threshed and lying on the barn
floor. This the soldiers while in camp fed to their horses and mules.
They put a drove of fat cattle in the cornfield and cleaned up all
their ha>' and corn. Mr. Houser said the only thing the parents
had left was five hungry children. Mr. Jacob Houser was a Union
man. His property loss was estiinated at nearly S3, 000 and the
Government after many years of litigation paid him a little over
$800. Mr. Wm. Houser remembers well of the soldiers being buried
very shallow, often were ploughed into, and of others in gutters
being covered with brush and leaves, on the farm where they resided.
Mr. Solomon Lumm, a former resident of the town and who
operated the little mill near Sharpsburg, was at his home or in the
mill on the day of the battle. He was taken in charge by some
members of the 45th Penn. Regt. as assisting the Confederate
sharpshooters in the mdl at the time. They were going to use
rough means with him, but several of the citizens of this town
interceded in his behalf and he was let go free again.
Mr. Chas. Lakin, a saddler by trade and a son of Mr. Jacob
Lakin, said his mother and Mrs. Eliza Bowers with their children
went to the Canal Company's boarding house where Aunt Polly
Moore, Mr. Wm. Moore and Mr. Frank Moore's mother lived,
for shelter. The Confederate soldiers were all around them and
one had hung a fine brass mounted revolver on the fence and Mr.
Moore got it and one Confederate came after it and accused the
boys of taking it and said if they didn't tell where it was that he
would cut their d — heads off, and William soon returned it badly
frightened.
At the time of the battle and for some time after, the post-
office was kept in the Mrs. Kuhn house near the Big Spring, by
Mr. Jeremiah Kuhn, and many a sad letter was sent and received
by the soldiers who were encamped in this vicinity for months
after the battle. The mail was then carried by stage coach from
Kearneysville, W. Va., the nearset railroad station, by Mr. James
Snyder of Sharpsburg, Md.
About 1885 William B. Mades of Keedysville, Md., now of
Polo, 111., and 0. T. Reilly of Keedysville, now of Sharpsburg,
went to the home of Mr. Joseph Thomas. Mr. Mades 'uncle, near
Porterstown, Md., and took several shells from Mr. Thomas' spring
that had been in the water for 18 years and went to the rear of the
farm where they built a fire in a stump and placed the shells in and
just twenty minutes after, one exploded and the pieces went buzzing
over the heads of both and one didn't explode and the fence took
fire and the danger was that the other might explode while they
were so near putting out the fire.
Prof. William J. McDermot, of Baltimore, Md., resided at
Porterstown, Md., a number of years ago and one morning before
his mother was out of bed he placed a shell in their cook stove and
the result was an explosion blowing the stove to pieces and the doors
and windows out of the building. His eye was torn out, one arm
off and all the fingers off the other hand, with the exception of one
finger and the thumb, and his body was bruised all over. Dr.
A. A. Biggs fixed him up as best he could. The young man started
to peddling small articles and made good use of his money by at-
tending college and received a good education. He is now residing
in Baltimore, Md. He married one of Mrs. Mdlard Snavely's
daughters of Sharpsburg, Md.
Mr. John Keplinger, who resided in a house that stood near
the east end of the Bloody Lane, had gathered after the battle
quite a number of shells and had broken 99 without any serious
damage, but the 100th one exploded and tore him up so badly that
he died from it. A Miss Newcomer, who resided with her parents
at the mdl near-by, now in the West, on a recent visit said she
assisted Dr. Biggs in dressing his wounds at the time and he was
terribly torn from the explosion.
After the battle of Antietam, George W. Reilly of Keedysville
put a round shell in some wood and set fire to it, along the creek
near the old stone schoolhouse in Keedysville, Md. Mr. Samuel
Cost, Sr., Mr. Joseph Cresswell, the old broom-maker, and the
Rev. Robert Douglass, who was the minister who preached in the
Reformed Church, w^ere standing near the Big Spring of Mr. Cost
when this shell exploded; one large piece passed between them,
but touched niether one. Rev. Mr. Douglass resided at the Douglas
farm near Shepherdstown, W. Va., and was the father of Gen.
Henry Kyd Douglass of General Lee's staff during the Civil War.
After the battle Mr. Samuel Mumma said his father had
dragged 55 dead horses from their farm to the East woods, where
they burned them. One battery alone had 26 horses killed near
the Dundard Church.
Near where the old Nicodemus farm buildings stood was an
unused well and Mr. Alex Davis said that after the battle they
hauled cartloads of all kinds of old relics consisting of broken guns,
swords, cartridge boxes, shells, old canteens, etc., and threw them
into this well and they are there yet, the well being filled with dirt
and stones.
All of the stone walls that were left standing along the Govern-
ment Avenues were used at the time of the battle as breastworks
by both armies as the grounds were taken by both armies by dif-
ferent divisions.
Mr. and Mrs. .John Kretzer and the following children: Mrs,
Jacob McGraw, Mrs. Chas. \V. Adams, Miss Theressa Kretzer
and Stephen Kretzer, were among the number that were sheltered
in the basement and cellar of the old Kretzer building on the day
of the battle. About 200 citizens were sheltered in this cellar.
Mrs. Jacob McGraw said that Mrs. Henry Ward, the mother of a
newly born babe, was placed in the basement, but they all thought
it was too damp for her in her delicate health or condition, so she
and the babe were taken up into the kitchen and she had been
there but a short time when a shell came into the building, nearly
blinding her with dust and smoke. She became badly frightened
and wanted to be taken back to the basement or cellar, so they
put her in a big arm chair and carried her back down. They didn't
want to take her back, but she said she would rather take her chances
on taking cold and dying than to be killed wdth a shell or cannon
ball. Mrs. McGraw said while they were in the cellar a Confed-
erate officer came in and asked if he could stay there with them,
for he was wounded. The ladies offered to assist him, but he said
all had been done that could l)e done at present, as his wound
had been dressed. After being there for a short time he asked
some of the citizens to look if their men were not retreating, as he
thought he heard walking. After remaining for a couple of hours
he finally left.
Mrs. Maggie Hoffmaster, a resident of Sharpsburg, Md., and
who, during the war, resided near the Lutheran graveyard on the
west side, said that the day before the battle there was a short,
stout man with curly hair who came up the main street telling all
the people that they should vacate their homes, as there would be
fighting going on around the town the next day. Therefore they
packed up some provisions and put them on old Logan, a faithful
family horse, and they went to Killingsburg Cave, along the Chesa-
peake and Ohio Canal. After their return from the cave after the
battle the faithful old horse was stolen five different times — several
times by residents to get money for his return — each time having
to pay to get him back. Once it cost Miss Hoffmaster's father thir-
ty dollars to get him back, and the last time that they got him
back Mrs. Hoffmaster put him in the building formerly used as
a wagon-maker's shop and put carpet under his feet to prevent
him from making any noise. A Confederate by the name of Green-
wood, who carried messages from Bedington, W. Va., to Mary
Grice, for her brother, Jacob Carnie, who was in Ashby's Cavalry,
when the Union soldiers came so close to Greenwood, was hid in a
pile of threshed wheat so that he would not be captured. When
coming home from the cave after the battle with old Logan the
horse, the dead lay so thick that old Logan would be very careful
not to step on any of the dead. This sight was so terrible that
Miss Hoffmaster, said her father would faint and fall off the horse,
but her mother, a thoroughbred Irish woman of pluck, would
shake her father and cause him to recover, and make fun of him
and tell him to get back on the horse and continue the trip. The
donner of this item who was young during the battle was carried
from the cave to her home by Robert Lakins, a colored barber
for many years, known by every citizen of the town. At this time
there were only three horses left in the town; one was old Logan,
the second one was a little sorrel named Ben and owned by Uncle
David Myers, and which was hid in the cellar of the Kennedy
property, the third one was owned by Uncle Henry Piper. His
name was Diamond a pet horse, and when the soldier was about
to take the horse Mrs. Piper pled with the soldier to let the horse
go, as he was a pet, and the soldier, politely tipped his hat and
with the horse bid her adieu. After the battle there were on
our return from the cave three soldiers lying dead in the hou.se and
two in the yard. My mother had set a hen whose time to hatch
had expired on our return home and when she went to the haymow
to see about the hen she stepped on a man lying under the hay,
and she called to us and said that there was a dead man in the hay-
mow, but the man raised up and said, "For God's sake don't make
this known, as I have a wife and eight children which I surely want
to see." Now my mother, who was a good provider, and who had
the cupboard always full of jellies, preserves, butters and every-
thing we children wanted to eat, but upon our return home all that
we had to eat was bread, and to put on this all we had was beef
tallow, like we used to make candles with, but finally along came
an old friend who was a Union man by the name of Levin Benton,
with a basket full of provisions. On the site now occupied by the
Myers heirs on the Cemetery hill, north side, during the battle
stood a little log cabin owned by Peter Marrow, and then used for
temporary quarters for hospital and while standing here there
were brought from the field somewhere two soldiers, who told us
their names were Yankee Blue and Johnny Reb. These are the
names that they gave to us children, and while they were in this
house and being treated there was a shell came along and went
straight through the body of both of them and they were buried
by John Grice, John Spong and John Davis in the Lutheran grave-
yard, under the old locust tree near the old Lutheran Church,
which was practically destroyed by shells, etc. A peculiar incident
which occurred after services — upon leaving this church you had
to go down several steps, and at this time it was the fashion for
women to wear hoops and the larger they were the better, so one
young man and his sweetheart while coming down these steps
happened to make a misstep and stepped in his lady friend's hoop,
and to conceal the accident they walked almost two blocks before
he had a chance to clear himself of the disadvantage fearing the
sneers of the younger set. The lady and gentleman are both living
yet and well remember the incident, taking a hearty laugh about it.
When Gen. Robert E. Lee's army retreated from South Moun-
tain to Sharpsburg, Md., Generals James Longstreet and D. H.
Hill took possession of the Henry Piper farm dwelling near the
Bloody Lane and established their headquarters there. The young
daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Piper being Union ladies and badly
frightened wanted to show their kindness to the officers so they
offered them some wine they had in the house. Gen. Longstreet
being very cautious and fearing it might be a bait for them refused,
but Gen. Hill accepted and drank some. So Gen. Longstreet after
seeing that it didn't kill Gen. Hill said, "Ladies, I will thank you
for a little of that wine." Mrs. Sue Miller, who resides in Washing-
ton, D. C, says she remembers the occurrence well.
HISTORY OF SHARPSBURG
BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF SHARPSBURG, WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND. SHARPSBURG LAID OUT BY JOSEPH CHAPLINE, JULY 9, 1763
By John P. Smith
Joseph Chapline, born Sept. 5, 1707, in Prince George's County,
Md. He married Ruhamah Williams in 1742. Died in 1769. Is
now buried in Mountain View Cemetery. Sharpsburg was laid
out by him and named in honor of Governor Horatio Sharpe. The
public square was personally laid out by Joseph Chapline and
Sharpsburg was designed to be the county seat, but in a vote
iHagerstown beat Ijy one vote.
1 Joseph Chapline served as Justice of the Peace from 1748 to
1749. Fleeted to the General Assembly 13 times in succession.
He served as Colonel of a regiment of the French and Indian War
and stationed at Fort Frederick in June and July, 1757. Children
of Joseph Chapline and his wife Ruhamah Williams were William
Williams Chapline, born 1743, died single; Joseph and Deborah,
twins, born 1746, Joseph died August 31, 1821, Deborah died 1799;
Ruhamah, born 1752, married a Mr, Thompson; Sarah Chapline,
born 1754, died 1834, single; Jeremiah Chapline, born 17.56, mar-
ried Elizalieth Nourse; Jane Chapline, born 1758, died single 1837;
Theodosia, born 1760 and married Dr. Nathan Hays and died in
1844. Deborah Chapline married Capt. Alexander Thompson,
of the Revolutionary War and died in 1797. Joseph Chapline's
three sons, Joseph, James and Jeremiah, all served in the Revolu-
tionary War with honor and are buried in the old Lutheran grave-
yard and Mountain View Cemetery. Joseph Chapline, Sr., died
in the fall of 1769.
Edgar H. Chapline, son of James Nourse Chapline and Cath-
erine Hebb Chaphne, was born October, 1831, died October 26,
1913. He was a grandson of Col. Joseph Chapline, the founder
of Sharpsburg. He married Hannah E. Boyd, daughter of Henry
Boyd, she dying many years ago. Mr. Chapline was the last sur-
viving one of the Chapline name. He was a highly respected
citizen and always resided in Sharpsburg, Md., and is interred in
Mountain View Cemetery beside his wife.
A site for a Lutheran Church and Burial Ground was deeded
by Joseph Chapline to Dr. Christopher Cruss, Mathias Need,
Nicholas Sam, and William Hawker, vestrymen of the Lutheran
Church, March 5, 1768. Deed for Reformed Burial Ground given
by Joseph Chapline. Bell on St. Paul's Episcopal Church presented
to the Church by Mary Ann Christian Abigail Ferguson, wife of
Joseph Chapline, Jr., who had it brought from England in the year
1821. Ground rents on Sharpsburg land still in force. 39 cents
on every quarter of an acre, 78 cents on every half acre to limits
of Sharpsburg as first laid out. On Chapline land outlying the
town SI. 10 on every five acres, ground rents, due July 9th of every
year.
Removed from the old Chapline Burial Ground in the year
1889 to Mountain View Cemetery are the following who no doubt
were relatives of the Chaplines:
To the memory of the Rev. Samuel Thompson, born 1687
and died April 29th, 1787, aged 100 years; his wife, Mary Thomp-
son, born, A. D. 1724, died March 6th, 1801, aged 77 years. Their
son. Captain Alexander Thompson, an officer of the Revolution,
born A. D. 1753, departed this life Dec. 24th, 1815, aged 62 years.
The Reverend Samuel Thompson was a Presbyterian minister
who preached at Emmittsburg, Md., in the months of April, June,
September, and October 1763. These liodies were removed by
Messrs. Henry Burgan, Noah Kretzer and John P. Smith.
Agreement between Samuel Beall, David Ross, Richard Hen-
derson and Joseph Chapline for Antietam Iron Works, October 31,
1765. Deed for Lutheran Burial Grounds and site for church
March 5, 1768. One grain of "pepper corn" was to be paid ever
year on the 9th day of July as ground rent on both lots.
Deed for Reformed Burial Ground and site for a church March
16, 1769. Both lots presented by Col. Joseph Chapline. The
two oldest church organizations in Sharpsburg, Md.
Battle fought between the Catawba and Delaware Indians at
the mouth of Antietam Creek in the year 1736. Bones, arrow
points and fragments of pottery still to be found.
German Lutheran Church at Sharpsburg in 1768. The ex-
cavation of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was begun in 1828,
it was built to dam No. 6 and work was stopped for some years.
In 1850 it was completed to Cumberland, Md.
The site on which Sharpsburg was built was called "Absalom's
Forest" and was a dense woods, inhabited by the Delaware tribe
of Indians, who were always at war w^ith neighboring tribes.
James Rumsey, the inventor of the steamboat, once lived in
Sharpsburg and had some parts of his vessel made at Catoctin
Furnace and Antietam Iron Works. In September of the year
1781 he removed to Shepherdstown, W. Va., Dr. Christopher
Cruss, a vestryman of the Lutheran Church of Sharpsburg, furnished
the funds. Among the number who witnessed the first trial of the
steamboat on the Potomac River at Shepherdstown, were the in-
ventor, James Rumsey, Gen. George Washington, General Gates,
Henry Bedinger, Dr. Alexander of Baltimore, and Mrs. Ann Baker,
mother-in-law of Governor Gilmer, and Mr. Fitch Rumsey, who
died in 1793.
' Indian outrages on the people of Sharpsburg. In 1758 Col.
Joseph Chapline was ordered with his regiment to defend them,
and Colonel Dagwurthy was placed on command at Fort Frederick.
Capt. Evans Shelby of Colonel Chapline's Regiment killed one of
the leading Indian chiefs with his own hand. This was in the year
1758.
In 1756 Fort Frederick was built by order of Gov. Horatio
Sharpe. During the war 1812-1814 Captain John Miller marched
to Baltimore with 73 men who had enlisted from the town of Sharps-
burg. Captain Miller was afterward promoted to the rank of
Colonel for gallant conduct. Captain Miller's Company was part
of the regiment commanded by Lieut. -Col. Richard K. Heath
which was attached to Gen. Henry Miller's Brigade. Captain
Miller's Company entered the service on the 28th of April, 1813,
and was discharged July 3, 1813, of same year. Officers of Captain
Miller's Company were John Miller, Captain; Ignatius Drury and
Jacob Rohrbaek, lieutenants; William Rohrback, ensign; Nalhat
Williams Hays, William Carr, T. Nicholson and John Beckley,
sergeants; J. Clayton, drummer. Attached to this brigade was
an Artillery Company consisting of two guns, one a 12 and the other
a 24 pounder, commanded by Capt. David Smith, father of our
former druggist, Dr. G. Finley Smith. Potomac Dragoons of
Sharpsburg commanded by Capt. Thomas G. Harris in 1840.
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, October 16, 1859. At
the time of the raid John Brown was living on Mrs. R. F. Kennedy's
farm, near Samples Manor, Md. Early in the month of July, 1859,
Capt. John Brown rented the farm anci moved there with the pre-
tended idea of prospecting for minerals, and at the same time was
gathering together arms for the raid — pikes, arms, etc., to arm the
negroes whom he expected to come to his aid. Brown formerly
resided in Kansas. Few persons know that he had out private
subscriptions soliciting funds to help sustain the cause of Free-
dom. Capt. John Brown was hanged at Charles Town, W. Va.,
December 2, 1859. He was buried at North Elba, N. Y., with
imposing ceremonies. John E. Cook and Coppee and two negroes.
Green and Copeland, accomplices, were hanged December 16,
1859, and Stevens and Haslett, March 16, 1860.
Battle of Antietam fought Wednesday, September 17, 1862,
between the Federal and Confederate Armies, under the leader-
ship of Mai .-Gen. George B. McClellan and Maj.-Gen. Robert
E. Lee. When Lee entered Maryland his intentions were a raid
into Pennsylvania, but at the Battle of South Mountain he was
defeated and retreated to Sharpsburg or Antietam.
Strength of Federal forces at the Battle of Antietam, accord-
ing to General McClellan's report, 87,164. Strength of Confederate
forces at Antietam 60,000. Killed, wounded and missing, Federal
troops Battle of Antietam: Killed, 2,010; wounded, 9,416; missing,
1,043; total loss, 12,469. Sedwick's division of the second corps
were the principal sufferers in his army, their total loss being
2,255, of whom 355 were killed. The Confederate loss was not
known with accuracy. McClellan reported that 2,700 of their
dead were counted and buried by his ofTicers, and that a portion
had been previously buried by their comrades. Their loss there-
fore must have equaled the Federal loss in the Battle of Antietam.
McClellan captured a good many prisioners and colors and a few
guns. General McClellan decided not to renew the attack on the
18th. Orders were given by McClellan for a renewal of the attack
at daylight on the 19th, but at daylight on the 19th Lee was gone.
On the 19th the Fifth Corps was ordered to support the cavalry.
The Confederates beyond the river at Reynolds dam had artil-
lery well posted to cover the fords. Porter determined to clear
the fords and try to capture some guns. He lined the eastern
bank of the Potomac with skirmishers and sharpshooters, supported
them by the divisions of Morell and Sykes and by guns so posted
as to command the opposite bank. Volunteres from the fourth
Michigan, 118th Pennsylvania (Corn Exchange Regiment). It
lost in all 282 out of 800 of whom 64 were killed; it had been in
the service just three weeks. It was known as the Corn Exchange
Regiment and was composed mostly of clerks and college students.
The 18th and 22nd Massachusetts crossed the river under the
charge of Gen. GrifTin Sykes, who was ordered to advance a similar
party, but by some misunderstanding the orders did not reach
him seasonably. Our troops were attacked sharply and driven
back across the river with considerable loss, the loss falhng prin-
cipally upon the 118th Pennsylvania. Nine or ten Confederate
brigades took part in this affair. Colonel Jackson said, "Then
commenced the most terrible slaughter that this war has yet wit-
nessed. The broad surface of the Potomac was blue with the
floating bodies of our foe. But few escaped to tell the tale. By
their own account they lost many men killed and drowned."
Many of the inhabitants of Sharpsburg during the Battle of
Antietam took refuge in their cellars, one cellar under the house
of the late John Kretzer afforded a shelter for 200 inhabitants.
Two hundred or more of the citizens wended their way to a place
known as "Kilhngsburg Cave," two miles west of town on the cliff
bordering the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and there remained
during the battle. It was a fearful time; the streets were strewn
with debris and dead and wounded men and horses were found all
through the town. The houses and barns were riddled with shot
and shell. The churches and many private houses were filled with
wounded and sick of both armies and the entire neighborhood wore
a gloomy aspect.
The points of interest to be seen are the Dunkard Church,
Bloody Lane, Burnside Bridge, Antietam Creek, ten miles of Govern-
ment Avenues, Antietam National Cemetery, where over 4,768 of
our brave boys in Blue are buried, McKinley monument, Mans-
field monument. Memorial Lutheran Church, Memorial Reformed
Church, The Grove house, where Lee held a Council of War, and
nearly 100 other monuments, an Observation Tower, 85 feet high,
where you can see the entire battlefield of Antietam, a portion of
South Mountain battlefield, Boonsboro, and four states, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The panoramic view
from the tower is classed by tourists as the finest view they ever
saw and a historic country around.
When the New Jersey State monument was being erected
Charles Crowl of Sharpsburg was assisting and while he was climb-
ing up on a derrick he and the derrick fell, injuring Mr. Crowl so
that he died from it, and a short time after this Mr. and Mrs. Aaron
K. McGraw were driving over the battlefield and they had just
driven past the monument when Mrs. McGraw asked her husband
where it was that Mr. Crowl was killed, and just as they turned
around the horse they were driving shied at a couple of tablets on
Starke Avenue near the pike, throwing Mrs. McGraw and her
little babe out and breaking Mrs. McGraw's neck. She was quickly
taken to the house near by and a doctor sent for, but death had
been instantaneous. Another sad death occurred at the entrance to
the Observation Tower. One workman was on the top putting
on the bronze coping and one of the bronze plates above the main
entrance. This man was standing on a swinging scaffold and he
must have gotten overbalanced and fell down on the big step
breaking his neck. The man on the top wasn't aware of the man
below being dead until Mr. Henry Smith, a farmer, called him down.
The Neighing Troop, the flashing blade,
The Bugles stirring blast;
The Charge, the dreadful Cannonade,
The dim and shout are past.
The muffled drums sad roll has beat,
The Soldiers last tattoo.
No more on lifes parade shall meet,
That brave and fallen few.
On fames Eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread;
And glory guards with solemn round
The Bivouac of the dead.
Rest on Embalmed and Sainted dead,
Dear as the Blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread.
The Herbage of your grave.
Your own proud lands heroic Soil,
Must be your bitter grave;
She claims from war his richest soil,
The ashes of the brave.
No rumor of the foes advance.
Now sweeps upon the wind;
No troubled thought at midnight haunts,
Of loved ones left behind.
No vision of the morrows strife.
The warriors dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife.
At dawn shall call to arms.
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN AT THE DEDICATION
OF THE GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY
November 19th, 1863.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers Ijrought forth on
this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
nation, or anv nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long en-
dure.' We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have
come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place of
those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot conse-
crate— we cannot 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 re-
member what we sav 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. (An
accurate version of the Gettysburg Address as revised by Mr.
Lincoln and printed in "Autographs of Our Country's Authors,"
Baltimore, 1864.)
Mr. 0. T. Reilly is the official guide for Antietam and South
Mountain battlefields, having 50 years' experience. Residence
and souvenir store, northwest corner Public Square, Sharpsburg,
Md. Persons desirous of any information concerning the battle-
field, hotel or boarding house, carriage or auto line, train service
or any arrangements for excursion parties, write, telegraph or tele-
phone and a prompt answer will be given. Services as guide,
.SI. 50 to .S2.00 for an auto or carriage load making a ten-mile run
that takes in about all of the historic points of interest; about
one hour and a quarter time, to autos.
PUBLISHED BY
OLIVER T. REILLY
sharpsburg, iid.
2nd corner public square
COPYRIGHTKD 1906
By R. C. MILLER
Transferred to 0. T. Reilly
PHESS
HAGEllSTOWN BOOKBINDING i PHINTI.NG CO.
HAGERSTOWN, MD.
2M-a-15-30
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