PARK AND CEMETERY. 
253 
NATIONAL CEMETERY, ANTIETAM, MARYLAND. 
The battle of Antietam, which was fought on 
September 17th. 1862, is looked on as one of the 
great battles of the war, and it was a great one, for 
there it was that the confederates received the 
check which stopped their invasion of the North. 
It has not been accorded a place in history com- 
mensurate with its importance and as being one of 
the foremost battles of the war. The field has not 
been dotted with monuments like that of Gettys- 
burg and until recently there was nothing scarcely 
to tell one of the strife which occurred there, save, 
the National Cemetery. But since the government 
has opened roads along the important battle lines 
and placed tablets in positions where the troops of 
both sides fought, it is a very different field from 
what it was, and vastly more interesting. 
The roads are opened much as they are 
at Gettysburg, following the lines where 
troops were massed. 
The tablets are of bronze, with white 
lettering on dark ground, and contain 
the doings of brigades, divisions and 
corps, rarely of regiments. The battle- 
field covers the town and vicinity of 
Sharpsburg and extends to across the 
Potomac at Blackford’s Ford to Shep- 
herdstown, W. Va. The Shepherds- 
town fighting occurred three days later, 
September 20th. and as the whole of it 
on the Union side was borne by the 
1 1 8th. Pa. Vol., and its loss there was 
269 in killed, wounded and missing, the 
tablet placed there by the government 
is devoted altogether to that regiment, 
the only case of a regimental mention that I noticed 
anywhere on the field. 
The cemetery of Antietam is beautifully situ- 
ated on a commanding elevation. It overlooks the 
country in all directions and allows of an unob- 
structed view away across a fine agricultural country 
towards the high peaks of the South Mountain, and 
at the foot of the mountain can be seen Boonsboro, 
through which the Union troops filed on the eve of 
the battle. The line of the Antietam creek can be 
told by the timber fringing its sides, there being 
but little of it in other places. The cemetery covers 
10 acres, but being well filled with trees, shrubs 
and headstones, it does not give the impression of 
being so large. I procured two photographs, one 
showing the National Soldier’s monument by itself, 
the other, a rear view of it, taken from what is the 
West Virginia section. 
The total height of the monument is forty-seven 
and one-half feet, and its cost $30,000 The inscrip- 
tion reads: “Not for Themselves, but for Their 
Country” and nearer the base, “September 17, 1862.” 
In a circle of about 100 feet from the monument 
is a row of rather round headed sugar maples, 
standing 36 feet apart. 
As with all the National cemeteries, the plant- 
ings having been done many years ago, there are 
none of the newer shrubs and trees to be seen. I 
noticed some exceedingly fine Deodar cedars, per- 
haps 25 feet high, their silvery foliage contrasting 
nicely with that of other trees near them. Other 
trees are Himalayan pine, White spruce, White 
pine, Hemlock, Norway spruce and Arbor-Vitse. 
The headstones in this cemetery are about 2 feet 
high by one in width, and contain the name of the 
soldier and his state, as well as his record number, 
but not his regiment. The graves are in continuous 
NATIONAL CEMETERY, ANTIETAM. 
circles, except for the broad paths which here and 
there inte r sect them. Each state has its dead sep- 
arate. The West Virginia section which the pic- 
ture displays, is a type of the whole. The dead 
gathered from some of the surrounding battlefields 
as well as Antietam, give a total number of inter- 
ments of 4737, of which 1865 are “unknown.” 
Passing through the cemetery, and gazing oft 
across the fields where the battle had raged, how it 
carried me back to thirty-five years ago, for I was 
one of the 50,000 Union troops who struggled 
there. Close beside me in the cemetery where I 
stood were the graves of several of my old regiment, 
killed in the battle, two of whom I had known well. 
Most truly could I say with the Poet: 
“Methinks I hear the battle drums 
You heard so long ago: 
Methinks I hear the bugle blasts 
That led you to the foe. 
p'or there before me appeared many of the scenes 
my eyes had beheld in those eventful, by-gone 
days. Joseph Meehan. 
