The Antietam Battlefield is by Sharpsburg, in western Maryland. This combat zone might be the best preserved of all of the theaters of the Civil War that have been chosen to be a National Park Battlefield. It looks much as it did at the time of the horrendous 1862 battle. When a gentle breeze is blowing and clouds fill the sky, some people feel as if they’re transported back into the time of the War Between the States.
Antietam’s Civil War Skirmish
The Haunted Antietam Battlefield combat occurred on September 17, 1862 when it appeared that the Confederacy might win the war. It was bloodiest day of the war, having 23,100 men wounded, missing and dead. The battle was considered a draw, but the effect on both sides was overwhelming.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee was moving north after the successful Manassas battle. Something strange happened. Copies of Special Order # 191, Lee’s plan for the northern invasion, were sent to all of his generals. Stonewall Jackson received his copy, duplicated it and sent it to his brother-in-law, Harvey Hill who had received his own copy. The Jackson copy, apparently, was lost until Union soldiers found it, wrapped around several cigars.
Bloody Lane of Antietam Battlefield
This aptly named sunken road is one of the most uncanny sites in the battlefield. Witnesses report hearing sounds of phantom gunfire and the smelling spectral smoke and gunpowder. A visitor saw several men in Confederate uniforms walking down the road and assumed they were re-enactors, but they suddenly vanished before his eyes.
Several boys from Baltimore’s McDonna School who walked down Bloody Lane where the Irish Brigade charged the Confederates heard strange noises that sounded like a chant or voices singing a Christmas Carol, resembling Deck the Halls in a foreign language.
Antietam Battlefield’s Haunted Phillip Pry House
General George McClellan used this building as his headquarters during the battle. General Joseph Hooker was brought there with wounds he received during the fray. General Israel B. Richardson died there. The house, owned by the National Park Service and used for storage, isn’t open to visitors.
In 1976, it caught fire and was restored. A woman saw a ghost of a female dressed in old fashioned clothing walk down the staircase. Workers saw the phantom woman standing in an upper window in the room where Richardson died. It’s thought she’s the ghost of his wife who tended to him. Sounds of phantom footsteps that have been heard pacing on the staircase.
Ghosts of Antietam Battlefield’s Burnside Bridge
Rangers, visitors and Civil War Re-enactors have reported bizarre events in the area of what was, then, named Rohrback Bridge where General Ambrose Burnside repelled Confederate soldiers Many of the fallen soldiers of the battle were quickly buried in unknown locations near the bridge. Witnesses have seen blue balls of light moving around at night and heard the sounds of a phantom drum beating a cadence, then fading away.
Haunted Antietam Piper House and Saint Paul Episcopal Church
Confederate General Longstreet used the house as his headquarters and its barn was used as a field hospital. Three soldiers died under the piano in the parlor. People have heard mysterious sounds and have seen strange inexplicable ghostly forms that appear and vanish from both armies.
The heavily damaged church was used as a Confederate field hospital after the battle. Experients have claimed they heard the screams of the dying and injured coming from inside of the building and have seen unexplained lights flickering in its spire.
Antietam Battlefield Today
President Abraham Lincoln visited McClellan and the wounded soldiers of both sides at the combat zone two weeks after the foray. Today, the grounds are overseen by the National Park Service.The area, situated on land in the Appalachian foothills near the Potomac River, features the battlefield itself, a visitors’ center, a national military cemetery and the Pry House Field Hospital Museum.
The battlefield was transferred from the Department of War and established as Antietam National Battlefield Site. The Antietam National Cemetery which adjoins the park has 5,032 graves. The Visitors’ Center contains exhibits about the battle and the Civil War. Park rangers give talks. People can go on self-guided driving tours of the grounds and, possibly, experience ghostly activity.
Articles Related to Haunted Antietam Battlefield
People who enjoyed this article might want to read Haunted Chickamauga Battlefield, along with Ghosts of Fort Mifflin and Ghosts of Haunted Fort Pulaski.
Jill Stefko - I'd rather deal with the paranormal than human abnormal - having dealt extensively with both.
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