Antietam National Battlefield

Antietam National Battlefield lies along Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg, in Washington County, northwestern Maryland. It is protected by the National Park Service and commemorates the Civil War battle fought here on September 17, 1862. The ground sits among the Appalachian foothills near the Potomac River, and today it holds the battlefield itself, a visitor center, a national military cemetery, the stone-arch Burnside's Bridge and a field hospital museum.

The visitor center was built in 1962 and has museum exhibits on the battle and the Civil War, plus an orientation film. A self-guided driving tour of about 8.5 miles links eleven stops across the fields, and rangers give interpretive talks. Check the official park site for current hours, services and fees.

The fighting began at dawn with a Union bombardment of Confederate positions in Miller's Cornfield, and the ground changed hands several times. At midday, four hours of fierce fighting took place at the Sunken Road. In the afternoon, Union troops under Ambrose Burnside, held up for hours at Antietam Creek, finally crossed the stone bridge that now carries his name and advanced toward Sharpsburg, until Confederate reinforcements arriving from Harpers Ferry drove them back to the heights above the bridge.

On the night of September 18, General Robert E. Lee pulled his army back across the Potomac. The combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded or missing makes it the bloodiest day in United States history. The adjoining Antietam National Cemetery holds more than 4,900 burials, 1,836 of them unidentified, and the Pry House, once the Union commander's headquarters, now houses a museum about the care of the wounded. On the first Saturday in December, volunteers light thousands of luminarias across the northern part of the field, each one standing for a soldier killed, injured or missing.