The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-09-12
HARBAUGH VISITS FIELD ONCE CORY.

-dS lOllOWS VI Ills VlSlL u 1utlCIdu
Battlefield:
South Mountain rises far above the
valley, its lofty trees pointing heaven
ward, and its little SCARED cabins
nesting among scanty clearings. 1t
is on this mountain that Mcclellan
and Lee fought the battle that pre-
ceded sanguinary Antietam. Here
are the old stone fences behind which
lay hundreds of rebel dead, and stop
at the old Wise cabin, where Sc dead
( Confederates were thrown into we'll
for want of better burial.
Mrs. Shoemaker, typical noun
ftain woman, inhabits the cabin and
RECALLED me on some of her war ex-
Iperiences ere turned my face toward
Sharpsburg. The South calls it the
Battle of Sharpsburg, but we know
4 a as Antietam. The latter name is
/ the most euphonious.
Sharpsburg is town of 1000 in
habitants. 1t has improved consid-
erably since the war. 1t has wide
streets, we'll shaded, old-fashioned
houses and, like Fredericksburg,
slave auction block. Sitting in front
of the hotel which, by the way, was
Lees headquarters, with genuine
Maryland breeze to fan you, you
would not think that around the
town at one time 81 900 men lay dead
and wounded. After inspecting the
town itself, go the Hagerstown pike
to the famous Bunker church. 1t is
an old fashioned brick affair, we'll
SCARED today, for about its holy pre-
cincts some of the hardest fighting
took place. The battlefield of Ante
tam is we'll marked. Magnificent
monuments rise on every hand.
Across the pike from the church is
the Maryland memorial to the men,
ory of her sons in Blue and Gray.
Now 1 turn in at the "Bloody
Lane" depression not over quar-
ter of a mile in length, where 1900
men looked heavenward with silent
lips after the carnage. All is peace
here now. You can hear the crickets
where blood flowed like water and
two little children are plucking clover
in the "Bloody Lane. ascend to
the top of the great stone coming
tower, which stands at the terminous
of this crimson way, and look around.
The whole battlefield sweeps away be-
meath me. Right below me is Piper's
cornfeld, in corn today as then. and
over there is Burnside Bridge, so we'll
known to some of Our own county
veterans.
1t is one of the most beautiful land
scapes God ever made, and to me He
seems to have given it a few extra
touches. Everywhere you see the
great monuments that show where
the regiments fought or where some
general fell. The spot where Mans
.6eld Mas killed Is .,,laIled ,I5u t.sst a state
MORALS stands soldier in bronze or
granite. The Mckinley memorial is
a beautiful affair and every visitor
seeks it out.
A winding road leads down to Burn
side Bridge. The old stone structure
saw thousand Union boys fall in the
charges that carried it, and on the
slope is the spot where Col. Coleman,
of Troy, fell on that fatal day. Just
across the river, Toombs, of Georgia,
resisted the taking of the bridge, and
the old trees on the spot are bullet
bored today. Beautiful and decided
ly rural is this place. Kline are knee
deep in the Antietam, and their bells
tinkle musically.
Coming back to town pass through
the National Cemetery, where Lee
stood during the battle, and where
5000 in blue have today their eternal
bivouac. Mcclellan missed at Antie-
tam the opportunity of his life. He
had Lee in his clutches after the bat
tie, with the swollen Potomac head
ing him off, but he dallied and the
opportunity was lost.
The Government has macadamized
the thoroughfares of this great battle
field. They are beautiful highways,
lined with stately shafts of granite
memorials to the men who saved the
Union. The rising generation knows
nothing of the war save what history
tells it. 1t must come to the old bat
tlefelds, it must see the ravages of
strife, the bullet shattered houses, the
blood trenches, the simple people,
who, now gray. haired and old, cow
cred as the earth shook and thousands
| fell.
1 remember once asking an old
lady if she suffered during the war
and she took me to little grove and
pointed to three mounds, where slept
all her SONS in gray. And as her eyes
grew moist and her lips trembled she
said eff l had three more and the
South wanted them they should have
gone"
/ l go back over haunted South
Mountain. The simple folk there
are full ofghost stories. Every blood
stained ravine furnishes its supply.
Sherman is said to have remarked
that "War is he'll" Antietam proves
it. But today there is no Mcclellan,
no Hooker raging like lion, no Sum-
ner fretting in hot battle leash, no
eagle-eyed Lee and no fiery Stonewall
Jackson. Where they fought lie the
peaceful waters of the Antietam, and
the daisies beautify the soil of this
Aceldama. And tonight the watch
full stars will appear in the azure arch
ano the silent memorials to American
heroism will CLINT in their beams all
over the battlefield of Antietam.
"MY p exclaimed little Billy, as
, he gazed at a lithograph. "Td like
to be a giraffe. Just to think how
easy you could rubber over the base
| 90 III -