MD Antietam National Battlefield - Ground Is All

As an environmental historian it is easy to come up with good reasons to hike in cold, blustery winds that scream hard across barren fields and knife through leafless forests. One reason is that a hike is good for you no matter the weather. Another is that you can see the lay of the land otherwise hidden under the lushness of a Mid-Atlantic spring, summer, and fall. Now is when you can see the ground and for interpreting the course of events on this battlefield, ground is all there is. 

The Cornfield - limestone underlays this flat farming landscape

Part 1 of our history hike to Antietam was on this blustery March Sunday, the day after we walked 13 miles on the C&O Canal Towpath from Harpers Ferry to Shepherdstown (on the Maryland side of the Potomac). What's another three miles of hiking to study military geology of the battlefield? It was crazy fun but boy, did that super warm visitor center feel great afterwards! Come the fall, we'll make a 10 mile circuit hike of the battlefield for Part 2 of this exploration, the time of year when the battle occurred, to search for witness trees. Stay tuned for that. 

Ranger Bruce and the South Mountain Complex beyond

So yes, military geology is a thing and its part of an environmental historian's toolkit towards understanding how environment and human conflicts interrelate. I couldn't help but think that at this time, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine grinds on, how environmental conditions and lay of land can make all the difference in military operations. I don't think Russia consulted with a military geologist, however, because mud. The famous American Civil War battle that occurred here, however, near the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, was determined by the topography and underlying geology and, minus mud, had everything to do with valley and ridge and two different bedrock types. 

Slightly rolling terrain of the West Woods offered just enough cover to stage a brutal attack.

Shag-bark look of a young Black Cherry in the West Woods

The Battle of Antietam resulted in over 26,000 American casualties in the span of a day.  Over 4,000 dead and nearly 20,000 wounded were the result of fighting on and for topography. Early pre-dawn light brought concentrated cannon fire into the West Woods where Confederate soldiers sheltering among rolling hills and trees were tending their cook fires. They ran to the protection of ridges and laid flat on their bellies just below the crest of low hills. When Union forces advanced from the flat limestone cornfield, the sheltering ridges allowed Confederate forces to surprise them with fire at close range directed straight into the oncoming lines. The result of this first phase of battle accounted for over 14,0000 casualties, killed and wounded, early in the morning of September 17. 

A temporary grave on a bluff of dolostone bedrock. 

The bedrock here is both limestone and more resistant dolostone. Due to differences in chemical composition, dolostone ridges stand slightly higher that the gentle flat limestone fields or slight valleys. From our view across the bare fields there was little ground shelter for the Union forces other than the green-gold stalks of harvest corn. The next phase of battle occurred from mid-morning until early afternoon that day, and we moved with the landscape east across exposed flat fields and began to encounter rolling ridges and valleys. By the time we reached the final phase of battle, we were tucked inside a deep ravine where Antietam Creek flowed south to the Potomac. We had crossed this creek the day before on the Antietam Aqueduct at its mouth on the river that divided North from South. 

The view of the same rocky bluff today. 

By mid-day on Sept 17, both armies were literally on top of each other in close quarters. The fighting in many places was at point blank range as each sought the high ground just yards from and protected positions within eroded wagon roads that followed limestone swales. Confederate troops trapped in the Sunken Road suffered debilitating losses as Union troops pushed them southward across a washboard of ridges and gullies. The second phase of battle that day claimed over 5,500 soldiers. 

The Lower Crossing (Burnside Bridge) over Antietam Creek

1862 photograph 

We hopped in the warm truck and headed south to the Lower Crossing or Burnside Bridge across Antietam Creek where the final phase of battle occurred. Almost 4,000 casualties happened here, almost evenly split at 2,200 and 2,600 between Union and Confederate. The back and forth assault and retreat of both sides to capture and/or hold the valuable creek crossing eventually pushed the Confederates from the bluffs. Against field stone walls that bordered the creek, the bodies of Union soldiers were buried. A giant American Sycamore tree still survives here, witness to the battle in 1862. 

Witness tree - American Sycamore

I do not see the national flag flying from the staff of the sycamore,

Or any decree of the government written on the leaves of the walnut,

Nor has the elm bowed before monuments or sworn the oath of allegiance.

They have not declared to whom they stand in welcome.

Wendell Berry

 

View of the Sunken Road from above.

View from inside the Sunken Road

To really understand historic events one must walk the land on which they occurred. A colleague who works at the crossroads of ecology and landscape history calls her walking work "embodied research" and she says it is an essential aspect in her conservation work. The bare landscape all around us spoke volumes about how troops on both sides experienced the horrors of that day whether on flat fields, from the vantage points, or fighting vulnerable in ravines and valleys of eroded limestone. 

 

As we climbed the bluff back to the truck,  we were approached by an angry old man in a red baseball cap.  "I am so disappointed" he hissed "that there was no memorials to the brave actions of the Confederate Army in this spot." He was trying to either get sympathy or an argument from us. We didn't give him the satisfaction of either so off he went down the hill spouting what-ifs and what-abouts. I didn't make any videos of our walk but this video (1 in a series of 3 by Dana Shoaf) is a good substitute. He even stresses that y'all get our of your cars and walk! 

Though Union forces did finally force Lee's Confederate Army off the bluffs and into retreat back across the Potomac, the war continued. Another bloody battle over three days would happen a year later, forty miles northeast within the same Valley and Ridge geological province. Confederate General Lee would claim high ground along Seminary Ridge to face Union General Meade who occupied high ground along Cemetery Ridge with mile-wide low, flat fields between them. 

Ground is all. 

Notes:

Military geology and the American Civil War from the Smithsonian (2009). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-geology-123489220/

A Savage Day on NPR (listen/read) https://www.npr.org/2012/09/17/161248814/antietam-a-savage-day-in-american-history