BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Antietam Natl Battlefield -- Visitor Center

MD -- Antietam Natl Battlefield -- Visitor Center:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. ANTIVC_111224_001.JPG: Witness to Battle: The story of September 17, 1862, as told through the paintings of James Hope and objects from the battle. The soldiers who fought here, these witnesses to battle, recorded for posterity their impressions of Antietam. Captain James Hope, 2nd Vermont Infantry, sketched much of the Battle of Antietam as it unfolded before him. After the war, Hope rendered a series of panoramic paintings based on his sketches and interviews with veterans. Each painting illustrates a major phase of the day's struggle. Other soldiers left diaries, letters, weapons, equipment, and bits of clothing as tangible reminders of moments of fear, valor, and everyday soldier life. Such bits and pieces of individual memories help historians piece together the mosaic of our past. These remnants bear witness to just one terrible day in a four-year struggle to define a nation.
2. ANTIVC_111224_042.JPG: Instruments of War: Music and the Civil War are inseparable. Thousands of musicians served in both armies. Buglers and drummers led men into battle. Soldiers sang around the campfires, and patriotic music boosted morale in the army and on the home front. The youngest soldier known to have been killed during the battle was Charles "Charley" King, drummer for Company F, 49th Pennsylvania Infantry. Wounded by an artillery shell, Charley would die three agonizing days later at age 13.
3. ANTIVC_111224_049.JPG: Hand-sewn, one-sided flag made by Union commander Gen. George McClellan's niece Elizabeth for him to carry during the war.
4. ANTIVC_111224_067.JPG: Confederate soldiers were positioned on high ground overlooking the bridge.
5. ANTIVC_111224_072.JPG: Confederate troops being led to the rear
6. ANTIVC_111224_077.JPG: Union Gen. Burnside and his staff.
7. ANTIVC_111224_114.JPG: The Mumma farm buildings were set ablaze by Confederates early in the morning to prevent their use by Union sharpshooters.
8. ANTIVC_111224_185.JPG: The Maryland Campaign of 1862 "...we are driven to protect our own country by transferring the seat of war to that of an enemy who pursues us with a relentless and apparently aimless hostility." President Jefferson Davis September 7, 1862 "The present seems to be the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate army to enter Maryland." General R.E. Lee September 2, 1862 "God bless you and all with you. Destroy the rebel army if possible." President Abraham Lincoln September 15, 1862 "...if we defeat the army arrayed before us, the rebellion is crushed, for I do not believe they can organize another army. But if we should be so unfortunate as to meet with defeat, our country is at their mercy." Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan September 11, 1862 "...exposed to the fire of slavery and freedom" That is how Pvt. Julius Rabardy described the chaos at Antietam as he lay on the battlefield, caught between the lines, his leg shattered by the musketry of both armies. The Battle of Antietam was the culmination of the Maryland Campaign of 1862, the first invasion of the North by Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Southern armies were also advancing in Kentucky and Missouri as the tide of war flowed north. After Lee's dramatic victory at the Second Battle of Manassas during the last two days of August, he wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis that "we cannot afford to be idle." Lee wanted to keep the offensive and secure Southern independence through victory in the North; influence the fall mid-term elections; obtain much needed supplies; move the war out of Virginia, possibly into Pennsylvania; and to liberate Maryland, a Union state, but a slave-holding border state divided in its sympathies. After splashing across the Potomac River and arriving in Frederick, Maryland, Lee boldly divided his army to capture the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). The 12,000 Union soldiers there threatened Lee's vital link south. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and about half of the army were sent to capture the Union garrison. The rest of the Confederates moved north and west toward South Mountain and Hagerstown, Maryland. In Washington, D.C., President Abraham Lincoln turned to Major General George B. McClellan to protect the capital and respond to the invasion. McClellan quickly reorganized the demoralized Army of the Potomac and advanced toward Lee. The armies first clashed on South Mountain where on September 14 the Confederates tried unsuccessfully to block the Federals at three mountain passes - Turners, Fox, and Crampton Gaps. Following the Confederate retreat from South Mountain, Lee considered returning to Virginia. However, with word of Jackson's capture of Harpers Ferry on September 15, Lee decided to make a stand at Sharpsburg. The twelve hour battle began at dawn on September 17. Savage, incomparable combat raged across the Cornfield, East Woods, West Woods, the Sunken Road, and Burnside Bridge as Lee shifted his men to withstand each of the Union thrusts. Despite more than 23,000 casualties of the nearly 100,000 engaged, both armies stubbornly held their ground as the sun set on the devastated landscape. The next day, September 18, the opposing armies gathered their wounded and buried their dead. That night Lee's army withdrew back across the Potomac to Virginia, ending Lee's first invasion of the North. Lee's retreat provided President Lincoln the opportunity he had been waiting for to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Now the war had a dual purpose of preserving the Union and ending slavery.
9. ANTIVC_111224_194.JPG: Battlefield Namesake: One of the most unique ways that the Battle of Antietam has been commemorated is the naming of U.S. Navy ships after the battle. Ships have been named for Gettysburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and there have been at least three ships named Antietam. This ship's bell is from the U.S.S. Antietam, CV-36, a Navy Aircraft Carrier. Commissioned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in January 1945, the carrier weighed over 27,000 tons and was over 880 feet long. The ship had a crew of about 2,800 sailors and was America's first angled-deck aircraft carrier. This U.S.S. Antietam served until retirement in 1963, seeing its most active service during the Korean Conflict. Even after retirement, the steel from the ship still serves America. Over 500 tons of armor plating was removed and is used for peaceful atomic research. A sword of the Navy's fleet was turned into the plowshares of nuclear science.
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (MD -- Antietam Natl Battlefield -- Visitor Center) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2016_MD_AntietamVC: MD -- Antietam Natl Battlefield -- Visitor Center (196 photos from 2016)
- 2013_MD_AntietamVC: MD -- Antietam Natl Battlefield -- Visitor Center (11 photos from 2013)
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [(NPS) Antietam Natl Battlefield] [Display ALL (NPS) Antietam Natl Battlefield photos] [Civil War] [Park (National Park Service)]
2011 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used the Fuji S100fs camera as well as two Nikon models -- the D90 and the new D7000. Mostly a toy, I also purchased a Fuji Real 3-D W3 camera, to try out 3-D photographs. I found it interesting although I don't see any real use for 3-D stills now. Given that many of the photos from the 1860s were in 3-D (including some of the more famous Civil War shots), it's odd to see it coming back. Trips this year: Civil War Trust conferences (Savannah, GA, Chattanooga, TN), New Jersey over Memorial Day for my birthday (people never seem to visit New Jersey -- it's always just a pit stop on the way to New York. I thought I might as well spend a few days there. Despite some nice places, it still ended up a pit stop for me -- New York City was infinitely more interesting), my 6th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco). Ego strokes: Author photos that I took were used on two book jackets this year: Jason Emerson's book "The Dark Days of Abraham Lincoln's Widow As Revealed by Her Own Letters" and Dennis L. Noble's "The U.S. Coast Guard's War on Human Smuggling." I also had a photo of Jason Stelter published in the Washington Examiner and a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. Number of photos taken this year: just over 390,000.
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