Antietam National Battlefield

 Antietam National Battlefield is participating in the national Park Day activities meeting at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 2, at Antietam National Battlefield Visitor Center, 5831 Dunker Church Road, Sharpsburg. Work projects will begin at 9 a.m. and continue until noon. Volunteers are needed to plant wildflowers and trees, prepare wildflower planting areas, and help clean up a dump site. Antietam National Battlefield will provide some tools, but is asking volunteers who can, to bring a shovel or trowel (clearly identified as their own tool)

Antietam National Battlefield is recruiting volunteers and school groups to help with environmental and historic restoration projects this spring and summer. Antietam invites volunteers to help plant trees to reforest the historic East Woods and to restore freshwater springs throughout the park and a vegetated riparian buffer along the Antietam Creek. Volunteers are welcome to come Mondays through Saturdays from March 12 to May 14, depending on weather conditions. For more information on these projects or to set up a day to volunteer at Antietam, contact Andrew Landsman at 301-432-2243 or at Andrew_Landsman@nps.

There are no bulldozers turning the earth on old and historic fields, no acreage falling victim to the relentless march of development. Instead, Antietam National Battlefield is a dignified memorial to all who fought there - peaceful and picturesque. Shallow water murmurs below Burnside Bridge and overhanging trees shade narrow winding lanes that edge acres of cornfields. If you listen closely, you might think you hear heroic ghosts whisper of a great and terrible battle that was fought here 150 years ago - the site of the bloodiest day in the nation's wartime history.

During the wee morning hours of Sept. 17, 1862, there were stars still in the sky when the first shots were fired near the creek that would bear the Civil War battle's name. Nearly 12 hours later, 23,110 soldiers would be killed, wounded or missing, making the Battle of Antietam the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. The park will commemorate its 150th anniversary in 2012. On Saturday, Dec. 3, those stars will seem a little closer to the ground as Antietam National Battlefield hosts its annual Memorial Illumination.

It takes little imagination to hear the thunder of cannon and the rattle of musketry, to listen to the cries of young men and to recall the carnage of that day. Spared the fate of some historic sites that are marred with fast-food restaurants and trinket shops, Antietam National Battlefield looks much like it did, when on Sept. 17, 1862, a great and terrible battle was fought across its woods and open fields. It's a serene setting, filled with a sense of personal history - not just of the generals who led their armies, but the 23,110 soldiers who were killed, wounded or missing in action.

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Monday, this county was the scene of the bloodiest single day of the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression. If you are a frequent reader of this column, then you know I am almost as passionate about history as I am about agriculture. As we look back, “The 1860 agricultural census of Washington County portrays pre-war Sharpsburg as a district of prime land, crops, and animal husbandry (the raising of livestock). Typically, wheat, Indian corn, hay, rye oats and Irish potatoes were the crops raised.

Before the sun set Saturday, the thousands of luminarias arrayed across the fields of Antietam National Battlefield were almost invisible from a distance, the paper bags blending into a background of wheat, hay and corn stubble. As day gave way to dusk and dusk to darkness, the 23,110 candles began to glimmer and then glow, their lights following the contours of the land where an equal number of men were killed, wounded or reported missing 150 years ago during the Battle of Antietam.

Antietam National Battlefield recently won Maryland Life Magazine's Best Historic Attraction Award. The Free State's Finest Awards are listed in the magazine's April 2011 issue. The National Park Service's Antietam National Battlefield was notified that the readers of Maryland Life Magazine selected Antietam as the best historic attraction in Western Maryland, and one of the top six selected in the state. Antietam National Battlefield is Western Maryland's most-visited historic attraction, last year seeing more than 900,000 visitors (paid and free)

“Cavalry Operations in the Maryland Campaign” is the topic Antietam National Battlefield Historian Ted Alexander's talk at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the park's visitor center. During the Maryland Campaign of 1862, the mounted arms of Union and Confederate forces were in a period of transition. Although cavalry played a limited tactical role in most Civil War battles, Alexander will point out how mounted troops played an important role in some aspects of the Battle of Antietam. Alexander will also discuss the role of the cavalry in the campaign, including the battles of South Mountain and Shepherdstown, as well as Stuart's Chambersburg Raid.

"Gods and Generals" author Jeff Shaara announced Monday he would match up to $5,000 in contributions to help fund a documentary about the Antietam National Battlefield Memorial Illumination. Former Hagerstown resident Michael Wicklein is producing a feature-length documentary about the annual December illumination and the stories behind the luminarias. During the annual December event, volunteers place 23,000 luminarias at Antietam National Battlefield to represent the casualties from the bloodiest single-day battle on American soil.

Marcy Fleeharty had no idea her great aunt had multiple sclerosis until only days before Saturday's Walk MS Hagerstown at Antietam National Battlefield. Fleeharty, of Berkeley Springs, W.Va., said she already had decided to take part in Saturday's walk for her friend's mother, who was diagnosed with the chronic, often disabling disease. “Two days ago, talking to my mother, I found out my grandmother's sister had MS. I had no clue,” Fleeharty said. “The fact that the walks are designed to bring awareness works,” Fleeharty said as she and her friend, Lindsay Unger, finished the last several yards of the walk.

Battlefield superintendent thanks volunteers To the editor: On Saturday, April 6, Antietam National Battlefield participated in both the Civil War Preservation Trust's Park Day and the Alice Ferguson Foundation's Potomac Watershed Cleanup. These annual events call for volunteers to take part in a variety of conservation and preservation work projects at Civil War sites across the country as well as removing the trash from our waterways, roadsides and trail within the greater Potomac River watershed.

A boom bellowed and black smoke poured from the barrel's mouth, but the caliber of sound the cannon made was only narrowly louder than the subsequent shrieks and gasps from the 12-and-younger crowd on Saturday at Antietam National Battlefield. Junior Ranger Day, which was divvied into sections aimed at Civil War education as well as teaching those in attendance to be “stewards of the park,” drew about 150 children plus their families, park Ranger Christie Stanczak said. Sam Cool of Hagerstown brought two of his daughters to the battlefield on what he termed a “staycation.” “She studied the Civil War in school and this is firsthand experience - can't beat it,” Cool, 47, said of his 9-year-old daughter, Molly, who described the day as “awesome.” Park volunteers Tracey McIntire and Audrey Scanlan, outfitted in uniforms representing the Iron Brigade - regimes from Wisconsin and Indiana that fought in the cornfield at Antietam - demonstrated how soldiers fired artillery using black powder blanks.

The Washington County Rural Heritage Museum will hold a grand opening celebration of the Rural Heritage Transportation Museum and 13th annual spring open house. The events will occur at the museum at 7313 Sharpsburg Pike Saturday, April 6, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, April 7, from 1 to 4 p.m. The museum will host a one-of-a-kind transportation artifact display, including two surviving, Hagerstown-built Dagmar automobiles and Crawford bicycles, Dahlgren Carriages, Pope Tribune automobiles and an Astor Taxi-Cab.

The Potomac Valley Audubon Society will sponsor a birding trip in the Snavely Ford section of the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, on Saturday, April 13. The trip will begin at 8 a.m. and last about three hours. It is free and open to anyone with an interest, regardless of their birding skills. Children will be welcome. Registration is not required. Snavely Ford is on Antietam Creek in the southern part of the battlefield, near the Burnside Bridge. Trip participants should meet in the Burnside Bridge parking lot. The trip will involve moderate hiking, mostly on level ground.

Officials at Antietam National Battlefield probably will cut back on park ranger-led tours, programs for school students, regular maintenance of monuments and historical buildings and mowing due to the federal budget cuts known as sequestration, the superintendent of the park said. Also, park officials probably will not extend the hours of operation for the park's visitor center during the summer this year, said Susan Trail. The visitor's center closing time is usually extended from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the summer months, Trail said.

Special focus ran from July to September 1976 to include the birth of the nation and the founding of the county. Speaker at the historical society's annual meeting in February 1972 was U.S. Sen. Charles "Mac" Mathias, who lauded the historical society for its major contributions to Burnside Bridge and Dunker Church, to Antietam National Battlefield. He noted that federal intentions to enlarge Antietam and embark on the C&O Canal project, which was also being developed under the National Park System, would bring great impact to Washington County.

Scouts of Troop 412 and Pack 34 participated in a hike Jan. 19 at Antietam National Battlefield. The Scouts hiked to Georgians' Overlook, then hiked Snavely Ford and Final Attack Trail. It was a joint hike with Pack 34 so the Webelo Scouts could meet the requirement of participating in an activity with a Boy Scout troop. Troop 412 is sponsored by Paramount Baptist Church and Pack 34 is sponsored by Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The Maryland Office of Tourism Development and the Maryland Tourism Development Board have presented the 2012 Maryland Tourism Awards.   The Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau, through a partnership with Antietam National Battlefield and the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area, was recognized with a Cultural Heritage Tourism Award. The Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area is a state-certified heritage area made up of Washington, Frederick and Carroll counties.