Antietam: People and Places
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Antietam National Battlefield Antietam: People and National Park Service U.S. Department of t e Interior Places The Burnside Bridge in 1862 Procedure Antietam: People and Places is those on the battlefeld tour route At designed to help educators lead each of these stops, the educator can a tour of the Antietam National choose to either read the stories to Battlefeld It is also designed to be the students or to designate students used in conjunction with the ofcial to read aloud at each of the eleven Antietam National Battlefeld Park stops Please be sure to review both Service brochure While the brochure the park brochure and this guide focuses more on the military strategies before beginning your tour The total and tactics of the campaign and tour route is approximately 8 5 miles battle, this guide focuses instead on in length and should take, on average, human-interest stories It tells of local an hour to an hour and a half to inhabitants and several prominent complete soldiers who either endured or participated in the battle There are eleven stops on the Antietam: People and Places tour, each the same as Introduction The Battle of Antietam, fought reunions and to dedicate monuments on September 17, 1862, was the in the late 1800’s The National Park bloodiest single day battle in service continues these eforts today American History with over 23,000 Park rangers, preservation workers, soldiers killed, wounded, or missing and park maintenance employees This battle and its aftermath had a preserve and protect the battlefeld profound impact on the men who and work to restore it to its historic fought here and the local people 1862 appearance This work could not who lived in the town of Sharpsburg be accomplished without the help of and on the surrounding farms volunteer groups such as scout troops, Houses, barns, and churches served history clubs, and school groups who as temporary hospitals flled with visit the battlefeld to learn about the wounded soldiers Farmers’ felds battle and volunteer their time became temporary burial grounds As a result of the Union victory at Antietam, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation Since the Proclamation only freed slaves in states rebelling against the Union, enslaved people in Maryland would not be freed until 1864 when the State Constitution was rewritten This guide will help you learn about some of the soldiers and local people afected by the battle Today, the battlefeld appears much the same as it did in 1862 Preservation eforts started when Civil War veterans returned for Stop 1: The unker Church The Dunker Church is one of the most wind storm In 1962, the Dunker famous landmarks on the Antietam Church was rebuilt, using some of the Battlefeld During the morning of the original bricks and foor boards battle, this small church was the focal point for many attacks The irony Thousands of men were injured was that the Dunkers were pacifsts; and hundreds died on the felds they preached and practiced peace surrounding the Dunker Church, and opposed any kind of violence including Charlie King, one of the and warfare The Dunkers, more youngest soldiers to die during the formally known as German Baptist entire Civil War Charlie King enlisted Brethren, acquired their nickname in 1861 at the age of 12 and served as a “Dunkers” for their practice of full- drummer boy in the 49th Pennsylvania immersion baptisms, locally in the Infantry He was generally kept out of waters of the Antietam Creek Still in harm’s way because of his youth, but existence, they are ofcially known at Antietam King was struck by a shell as the Church of the Brethren today fragment Several of his comrades Historically, Dunkers wore plain, dark carried the grievously wounded boy clothing, and men grew full beards to a feld hospital where he would die They lived modest lives and disagreed of his wound three days later He was strongly with slavery only thirteen years old Immediately following the battle, the Dunker Church was used to shelter and care for the wounded Eventually services resumed and this building was used until 1899, when the congregations moved to their new church in Sharpsburg After years of neglect, the Dunker Church crumbled to the ground in 1921 after a ferce The unker Church Stop 2: Clara Barton The stone monument at this stop Following the battle, Clara Barton was placed here in honor of Clara collapsed in exhaustion She also Barton and in recognition of her became ill with typhoid fever heroic actions during the Battle of Returning to Washington, she soon Antietam Union Surgeon Dr James regained her strength and later Dunn wrote of Barton, “In my feeble returned to other battlefelds where estimation, General McClellan, with she helped care for the wounded and all his laurels, sinks into insignifcance dying beside the true heroine of the age, the angel of the battlefeld ” Arriving Miss Barton’s work extended far near the North Woods at about noon beyond the felds of battle At the on September 17, Barton watched conclusion of the war, Miss Barton as surgeons wrapped soldiers’ helped establish a National Cemetery wounds with corn husks, they being at Andersonville, Georgia This completely out of proper bandages experience launched a nationwide She delivered wagons loaded with campaign to locate the fnal resting bandages and other medical supplies, place for thousands of missing including lanterns, which enabled the soldiers In 1870, she traveled to army’s medical personnel to work Europe, there Miss Barton learned through the night of the International Association of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent As bullets whizzed overhead and Societies She returned to the artillery boomed in the distance, United States and began her most Barton cradled the heads of sufering enduring work, the efort to establish soldiers, prepared food, and brought the American Association of the water to the wounded men As she International Red Cross knelt down to give a wounded man a drink, she felt her sleeve quiver She noticed a bullet hole in her sleeve and discovered that the bullet killed the man for whom she was caring Clara Barton Stop 3: General Joseph Mansfield At age 59, General Joseph Mansfeld Twelfth Corps had never before was one of the oldest generals in the been in battle, Mansfeld wanted to Union army A West Point graduate make sure they would hold up well and career army man, Mansfeld had during their frst fght Entering more than forty years of experience the East Woods around 7:30 that by the outbreak of Civil War He morning, Mansfeld rode to the front spent most of his prewar years as an of his lines, personally directing the engineer, designing fortifcations, placement of his regiments Seeing his improving roadways, and performing men open fre, Mansfeld mistakenly other important military and civil believed they were fring into their tasks He served with great distinction own men, the retreating soldiers in the Mexican-American War, being of the Union First Corps He soon severely wounded and receiving three discovered his error; there was a brevet, or honorary promotions, for strong line of Confederate infantry gallantry in action Yet, despite his advancing The Confederates opened experience, when the Civil War began, fre before Mansfeld was able to Mansfeld found himself assigned gallop away, suddenly the old fghter to desk and garrison duties, where slumped from the saddle, shot in the he was far removed from the action chest, mortally wounded He died Wanting to return to the front lines, he the next day at a feld hospital on lobbied for an active feld command the George Line Farm, just over one for well over a year before, fnally, mile to the north His remains were in early September 1862, General transported to his native Connecticut George McClellan named Mansfeld for burial Today, a monument in commander of the Twelfth Army honor of Mansfeld stands at Tour Corps Stop 3, with his Mortuary Cannon, to mark the place where he fell, only The grizzled warrior took command a few yards away Mansfeld was the of this unit on September 15, only two highest ranking of the six generals to days before the Battle of Antietam give their lives at Antietam Because many of the soldiers in the Gen. Joseph K. F. Mansfield Stop 4: Johnny Cook Johnny Cook enlisted as a bugler with For his bravery at Antietam, Johnny Battery B, 4th United States Artillery Cook became one of the youngest During the Battle of Antietam, 15 year- soldiers ever to receive the Medal of old Johnny served as a messenger He Honor His ofcial Medal of Honor and the other men in his unit came citation reads: “Volunteered at the age under heavy fre from Confederate of 15 years to act as a cannoneer, and soldiers along the Hagerstown Pike as such volunteer served a gun under a near the infamous Cornfeld When terrifc fre of the enemy ” The Medal Johnny returned from helping his of Honor is our Nation’s highest wounded commander to safety, he recognition for bravery Johnny went discovered that the other men serving on to serve at Gettysburg and several on the cannon had been killed other battles After the war, he moved Johnny began to load the cannon by back to his hometown of Cincinnati, himself until General Gibbon rode by, Ohio He died in 1915 and is buried in saw what was happening, jumped of Arlington National Cemetery his horse, and began to help the brave young cannoneer The Confederate soldiers came dangerously close, but Johnny and General Gibbon were able to man the cannon and push them back towards the West Woods Johnny Cook and the Medal of Honor Stop 5: General O.