Antietam Battlefield

 Wyatt has four whole days off of school for a summer break and since Wyatt has a summer break Mommy thought she would have a little summer break too. 
One thing Wyatt requested was to get to spend a day with Pappy.  Mommy and Pappy took Wyatt to one of their old haunts (no pun intended)- Antietam Battlefield. 

First we all stopped off for lunch at The Red Bird- a place where Mommy and Pappy would always stop in to get lunch before heading out to the battlefield for the tour.

Then we headed the rest of the way into Antietam.  It is a nice battlefield to visit on a super hot day because you can see everything fairly well from your car so you can do a nice road tour and enjoy the AC.  We drove around the battlefield and talked about the early stages in the battle.  We drove in on the North side so we could get a clear view of where the South had entrenched themselves while waiting for the North to make their move.

Then we decided to get out and stretch our legs a little.  This church was used as a hospital during the battle at Antietam.  Antietam was the bloodiest battle in the war where in a matter of minute thousands of soldiers lost their lives so you can imagine that this tiny little church was filled with lots of chaos.  

Wyatt playing around the pews.  He asked Pappy all about the woodstove inside the church

Then we headed over toward the South's headquarters.  Wyatt wanted to go in the Military Overlook tower so Mommy braved all the heat and headed up with him.  There were a lot of stairs but it gave a great view of the battle and had great markers pointed the direction for the woods, cornfield, sunken road, etc.  It was a great way to get an overall view from one vantage point. 

 Here is a view from the top, Pappy is down on the ground reading the signs.  After looking down a little too much to explain where everyone in the battle is at different times Mommy was thinking that maybe reading the signs on the ground might be a little less dizzy than the tower so we headed back down.  I would really recommend going up the tower and taking a look as an arial view is always a good way to put the whole battle in perspective. 

 Then we headed past Sunken road where the South really lost a lot of men (since the North now occupied the high ground) and then over to Burnside Bridge. 
Burnside Bridge is a lovely walk down to a nicely shaded part of Antietam Creek and is also the site of a pretty amazing part of the battle.  McClellan's plans were to try to attack Lee's left and right flanks so that they could then concentrate more of their forces into Lee's center.  General Burnside and his crew sat tight on the bridge and were unable to go anywhere since there were about 500 Georgians perched on top of the giant hill with a clear shot down on Burnside's men.

This is the view as you cross over Burnside Bridge:

 This is a monument honoring the second Maryland who was stationed there and had the bullets raining down on them from the Georgians.

It is such a blessing to be able to share all of this history and knowledge with Wyatt and to be able to visit these historical places so easily.  Pappy knows all about the battles and did a great job sharing all of it with Mommy and Wyatt.  Wyatt had a blast getting to explore and loved seeing all of the monuments and getting to spend the whole day with his Pappy!