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_090201_18.JPG: West: The troops on the bottom left -- Burnside Bridge, originally known as Rohrbach Bridge, was built around 1836. It was renamed after Union General Ambrose Burnside, who launched a series of assaults against the bridge. The troops crossing the bridge -- Union reinforcements crossed Antietam Creek in preparation for the final advance. The Confederate firing from upper left -- Confederate soldiers were positioned on high ground overlooking the bridge. The tree on the right of the bridge on this side of the river -- This remarkable sycamore, called a "witness tree," survived the battle and may still be seen today. The men on horseback in the front center -- Union Gen. Burnside and his staff. The road itself -- Road to Sharpsburg. The river -- The Northerners named the battle after Antietam Creek. Southerners called it the Battle of Sharpsburg. The troops in the right front -- Confederate prisoners were led to the rear. A Crucial Delay: With only a small force, but holding higher ground, Lee's men were able to defend this crucial Antietam crossing for nearly three hours. Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside's men launched a series of attacks to break the bottleneck at the bridge. About 1pm, the Confederates, outflanked, outnumbered and running low on ammunition, began to retreat. The Yankees stormed the bridge, finally crossing Antietam Creek. This painting shows Union reinforcements crossing the bridge in preparation for the final advance. However, the time taken to cross and resupply the troops provided Lee with the opportunity to bring his final reserves onto the field and turn back Burnside's attack, thus ending the bloody day.
2. ANTIVC_090201_21.JPG: Eastward view: On the far left -- The East Woods are the continuation of the woods seen in the painting to your left. The burning structure to the right of it -- The Mumma Farm buildings were set ablaze by Confederates early in the morning to prevent their use by Union sharpshooters. The horses riding to the left of center -- Gen. George McClellan, Union commander, made his only visit to the battlefield that day at about 2:00 pm. The mountain range in the shadows in the middle rear -- South Mountain was the scene of heavy fighting three days before the battle of Antietam. The houses in the middle -- In the fields of the Roulette Farm more than 700 soldiers were buried after the battle. The horizontal line leading away from the Roulette Farm -- Gen. Richardson's Division was the second Union division to attack Bloody Lane. The hill on the far right -- On Red Hill, the Union Army had a signal station. The spread out troops on the far right -- Confederates took position in Bloody Lane, and held it against repeated attacks for nearly three hours. The Union line on the far right, forward -- Gen. French's Division, in line of battle, was the first Union division to advance on Bloody Lane. A Fateful Turn: Amid the smoke, noise and confusion on the northern end of the field, Union troops turned south toward an old sunken farm lane. The rolling terrain helped hide the Southern troops until the Northerners were almost on top of them. Suddenly, the Confederates unleashed a withering fire, leading to a desperate three-hour struggle for control of what came to be known as Bloody Lane. This painting and the one to the left form a continuous panorama of the northern and eastern portions of the battlefield.
3. ANTIVC_090201_28.JPG: McClellan
4. ANTIVC_090201_32.JPG: Gen. French's division attacks the Confederates.
5. ANTIVC_090201_39.JPG: Dunker Church with the Confederate artillery near it
6. ANTIVC_090201_42.JPG: Sedgwick's Divisions advance
7. ANTIVC_090201_46.JPG: North: The road on the far left -- Hagerstown Turnpike The Confederates in the left front -- Confederate artillery batteries were positioned near where the Visitor Center is today. These guns resisted numerous Union advances early that morning, and were instrumental in helping the Army of Northern Virginia hold this vital ground. The Confederates near the white building on the left -- Confederate infantry defended the high ground around the Church. The white building on the left -- The Dunker Church, a battlefield landmark then and now, became a focal point for repeated Union attacks. The woods behind the Dunker Church -- The West Woods provided cover for Confederate troops. Behind the rise in the middle of the picture -- Just beyond this high ground lies the famous Cornfield, scene of the worst fighting that morning. The trees just to the right of the middle -- Earlier that morning, Union troops launched the first attack from the North Woods. The trees on the right -- The East Woods provided cover for Union soldiers. Artillery in the East Woods -- Union artillery fired over the heads of their own infantry. The lines of troops on the right front -- Approximately 5,000 men from Sedgwick's Division of Union Gen. Edwin V. Sumner's 2nd Corps advanced toward the West Woods at about 9:00 am. Artillery Hell: The intensity of artillery fire at Antietam led Colonel Stephen D. Lee, commander of the Confederate cannons shown here, to describe the battle as "Artillery Hell." This painting depicts the earliest part of the battle. The artist's perspective is close to the present-day location of the Visitor Center. This painting, like the others seen here, does not represent a moment in time or one event, but a series of events. For example, when the Union infantry on the right side of this painting advanced, the Confederate artillery on the left had already retreated.
8. ANTIVC_090201_53.JPG: Burnside Bridge
9. ANTIVC_090201_58.JPG: Confederate prisoners being led to the rear
10. ANTIVC_090201_66.JPG: South. The mountain in the distance on the left -- South Mountain. The troops in the left front -- Maj. Hyde's 7th Maine Infantry marched across Bloody Lane, through Piper cornfield and into a deadly crossfire. The hill in the middle left -- After retreating from Bloody Lane, the Confederate infantry and artillery rallied at Piper farm and fired on Maj. Hyde's advancing infantry. The farm in the middle -- The Piper Farm was the headquarters of Confederate Gen. James Longstreet. The line of troops on the hill by the house on the right ridge -- Confederate soldiers. The town in the right rear -- In 1862, Sharpsburg was a small farming community of about 1,300 people. The line of troops on the far right -- Confederate infantry along the Hagerstown Turnpike fired on the advancing 7th Maine. The dead folks in the right front -- Confederate dead lined Bloody Lane. Wasted Gallantry: This painting shows a gallant but futile charge by the 7th Maine Infantry. Several hours after the fighting had ended at Bloody Lane, a Union officer ordered Major Thomas Hyde to advance his men through the Pipe cornfield and attack. The men from Maine faced a galling fire from the Confederate infantry and artillery. Major Hyde, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, said all of the color guard was "shot down by one, who brought off our flag riddled with balls." In 20 minutes, this regiment suffered more than 50 percent casualties, yet the charge did nothing to advance the Union plan of attack. This was not the first or last time in the Civil War that misguided officers squandered the lives of brave men.
11. ANTIVC_090201_75.JPG: Hope Restored. This remnant is all that could be preserved of James Hope's dramatic view of the aftermath of Blood Lane. Hope was a professional artist who first rendered a series of portrait size paintings and then created these large panoramic works. The photograph surrounding the painting was taken from one of Hope's smaller versions of the same work. The paintings were first exhibited in his gallery in Watkins Glen, New York. After Hope's death in 1892, the gallery was closed and fell into disrepair. A flood in the 1930s destroyed much of his work and severely damaged the battle panoramas. The Antietam scenes were purchased by an art collector and stored in a church for many years where the paintings were further damaged by birds and rodents. In 1979, the National Park Service purchased the paintings and began a rescue effort. Now painstakingly restored, the four complete painting and this fragment provide us one veteran's vision of the Battle of Antietam.
12. ANTIVC_090201_80.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.
13. ANTIVC_090201_83.JPG: The 7th Maine as it approaches the Confederate troops by the Piper farm. Sharpsburg's in the rear right.
14. ANTIVC_090201_89.JPG: Mumma Farm burns
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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)]
2009 photos: Overnight trips this year: Niagara Falls, NY, New York City, Civil War Trust conferences in Gettysburg, PA and Springfield, IL, and my 4th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles, Yosemite, Death Valley, Kings Canyon, Joshua Tree, etc). Ego strokes: I had a picture of a Lincoln-Obama cupcake sculpture published in Civil War Times and WUSA-9, the local CBS affiliate, ran a quick piece on me. A picture that I took at the annual Abraham Lincoln Symposium appeared in the National Archives' "Prologue" magazine. I became a volunteer with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Equipment this year: I mostly used the Fuji S100fs. I've also got a Nikon D90 and a newer Fuji -- the S200EHX -- both of which are nice but I still prefer the flexibility of the Fuji. Number of photos taken this year: 417,000.
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