Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show?
[Slideshow]
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.
Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
ANTIUP_060813_016.JPG: "Destroy the Rebel Army":
Before the Battle of Antietam, President Abraham Lincoln sent a telegram to General George B. McClellan, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac: "God bless you and all with you. Destroy the Rebel army if possible."
Major General George B. McClellan, with an army nearly twice the size of Lee's, thought that he was outnumbered. "One battle lost, and almost all would have been lost. Lee's army might have marched as it pleased on Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York."
General Robert E. Lee knew that he was outnumbered, but he had brought this Army of Northern Virginia north of the Potomac River to win a great victory. "We will make our stand."
The evening before the battle, combat artist Edwin Forbes sketched the soldiers of the Union First Corps as they waded across Antietam Creek. The crossing was well to the north of the town of Sharpsburg, so the Southerners knew that the first attack would fall on Major General "Stonewall" Jackson's Corps waiting at the Dunker Church.
Major General Joseph Hooker commanded the First Corps, and he was ready: "If they had let us start earlier, we might have finished tonight."
ANTIUP_060813_019.JPG: Dunker Church - "Symbol of Peace and Brotherhood"
E. Russel Hicks was a historian of Washington County, Md., and a member of the Church of the Brethren. A century after the battle he wrote:
"I am the Church of the bloodiest battlefield in all American history. I had my conception in the minds of a group of pious, zealous folks, who were among the first settlers to make their homes on the banks of the Antietam.
"They called themselves Brethren because brotherhood was the main objective of their devotion. Their associates in the neighborhood called them Dunkers or Dunkards, a corruption of the German word tunker which means plunger or the word tunken, to dip. Immersion was their form of baptism.
"Early before daylight, on the 17th of September 1862, the bloodiest single day battle of all American history began. I was the objective of the Federal forces.
"I was pierced with cannon balls and bullets - my rafters studded with metal. I was used first as a bulwark for both armies. Then I became a hospital. I heard shrieks, moans, groans, and cries that stayed with me all my life. My furniture was all splattered with blood.
"I still exist as the little white church of the Antietam Battlefield. I live in the hearts of all who ever knew me. I am still a symbol of peace and brotherhood. Antietam was the battle that emancipated the slaves; I am a symbol of spiritual emancipation. I represent unity, the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of a loving, kind God."
The day after the battle the armies faced each other, and there was a truce. A Southern soldier wrote:
"It seamed very curious to see the men on both sides come together and talk to each other when the day before were were firing at each other."
ANTIUP_060813_278.JPG: "A House Was Burning"
Union soldiers described the fighting at the Mumma farm:
"I do not see how any of us got out alive. The shot and shell fell about us thick and fast, I can tell you, but I did not think much about getting shot after the first volley."
"Just in front of us a house was burning, and the fire and smoke, flashing of muskets and whizzing of bullets, yells of men, etc., were perfectly horrible."
The burning house was the Mumma farmhouse. Fearful that Union sharpshooters would use the farm buildings as a strongpoint, Confederates had set fire to them. The column of fire and smoke was visible all morning above the battle. This fire was the only deliberate destruction of civilian property.
Alexander Gardner photographed the burned out farm buildings two or three days after the battle. The photograph was taken from the far side of the farmstead. The white springhouse was the only salvageable structure and it still stands. The Mumma family lost almost everything. The spent the winter of 1862-63 with the Sherrick family near Lower Bridge and were able to rebuild in 1863. The Federal Government compensated residents for battle damages. The Mummas received no compensation because the damage was done by Confederates.
ANTIUP_060813_282.JPG: The Mumma family cemetery
ANTIUP_060813_317.JPG: The springhouse in the center of the photo is the only original surviving structure here from before the battle.
ANTIUP_060813_327.JPG: "A Thrilling Spectacle":
Second Corps, with 15,000 soldiers, was the largest corps in the Union Army of the Potomac. Its lead division went into the West Woods alone. The other two divisions strayed to the south and passed in front of this point, marching from left to right [on their way to the Sunken Road].
Confederate Colonel John B. Gordon watched them:
"The men in blue formed in my front, an assaulting column four lines deep. The front line came to a 'charge bayonets,' the other lines to a 'right shoulder shift.' The brave Union commander, superbly mounted, placed himself in front, while his band in the rear cheered them with martial music. It was a thrilling spectacle. The banners above them had apparently never been discolored by the smoke and dust of battle. Their gleaming bayonets flashed like burnished silver in the sunlight."
Antietam was the first battle for the 132nd Pennsylvania Regiment.
"An occasional shell whizzed by or over, reminding us that we were rapidly approaching the 'debatable ground.' The compressed lip and set teeth showed that nerve and resolution had been summoned to the discharge of duty."
Then a shell smashed through some beehives on the Roulette farm. Shells and bullets and now angry bees were too much for the rookies. The officers had their hands full getting the regiment formed and moving again.
ANTIUP_060813_332.JPG: The Mumma farm down the road
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (MD -- Antietam Natl Battlefield -- Upper Bridge (Woods, Cornfield, Dunker Church, Mumma)) directly related to this one:
[Display ALL photos on one page]:
2006 photos: Equipment this year: I was using all six Fuji cameras at various times -- an S602Zoom, two S7000s,a S5200, an S9000, and an S9100. The majority of pictures this year were taken with the S9000. I have to say, the S7000s was the best camera I've used up to this point..
Trips this year: Florida (two separate trips including Lotusphere and taking care of mom), three weeks out west (including Yellowstone), Williamsburg, San Diego (comic book convention), and Georgia.
Number of photos taken this year: 183,000.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Limiting Text: You can turn off all of this text by clicking this link:
[Thumbnails Only]