A cannon sits in the famous Antietam Corn Field. (Compass Points Media / flickr)
I needed something new because the been-there-done-that mentality had gotten the best of me. I had a free Sunday, and I pondered where I should go hiking, but as I looked at my options, I kept saying “nah” to each one of them. Each mountain or section of trail within about a three-hour radius felt worn out to me since I’d been hiking all of them for the last five years.
Something different, that’s what I needed. And I got it in Maryland by hiking a battlefield.
Last year, Backpacker published a Top 3 Hikes about battlefield parks, and that got me to thinking about visiting a Civil War park I’d read about but never visited – Antietam. I considered the possibility of walking the park’s driving tour, an 8.5-mile excursion around the hallowed ground where Sept. 17, 1862, Union forces fought against the invading Confederate army of Gen. Robert E. Lee. The battle ended in stalemate but caused 23,000 casualties, the bloodiest day in American history. And months later, the Antietam results led to President Abraham Lincoln releasing the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in all 11 rebelling states.
A soldier monument stands at Antietam. (Compass Points Media / flickr)
The battlefield sat in parched tones of brown when I arrived, the only green coming from the corn leaves while dried grass crunched underneath my feet. I was undeterred considering the death, carnage and courage that happened there. I walked the roads to Antietam’s landmarks – the famous Corn Field, the Bloody Lane and finally to Burnside’s Bridge, and found that walking a battlefield has more advantages than taking a driving tour. I headed down sidetrails to see places like the Corn Field up close, armed with informative audio podcasts from Civil War Traveler. Walking meant I could stop at every monument that caught my eye, and I wasn’t beholden to traffic jams.
Yeah, I was hot and exposed to the sun for most of the day. And Antietam has brutally steep hills, which made you wonder about why the Union army even bothered charging up the ravine since the Confederates held the high ground. I confess that I might have enjoyed it more on a bike, but walking the hillsides provided a soldiers-eye-view of what happened here.
Another highlight – witness trees. A witness tree is a tree that was around for the battle and remains standing today, like the sycamore alongside Burnside’s Bridge.
So if you have that jaded feeling about hiking the same trails and mountains around your home, think creatively. Look for a battlefield or historical site that has a few trails, and get that up close experience you don’t get in the car.
