Ballads of Antietam

Wherever I am on September 17, I pause to remember the horrific battle that raged in and around Sharpsburg, Maryland, on this day in 1862.

Last year I was fortunate enough to spend the 150th anniversary weekend at Antietam National Battlefield and nearby Harpers Ferry. Several of the guest speakers mentioned that their initial interest in the Civil War was sparked during the war’s Centennial commemorations, 1961-1964. Many of my reenactor friends also began their life-long hobby during that time.

Betty Bauer,  a writer and friend who lives in Kansas, surprised me a year or so ago by sending a book of poems that her mother, Ora Ann Ernst, published in 1960. We’re not related, and until then I had no idea that Betty had Maryland roots.

The poems are lovely, and I was delighted when Betty said I might share some here.

Ora was a teacher, reporter and editor, and historic preservationist who lived on a beautiful farm in Clear Spring, Maryland—not too far from the Antietam Battlefield.

Photo published in Hagerstown’s The Daily Mail, December 24, 1990.

When she died in 1983, her eulogist noted that Ora “used her gifted pen to record little-known facts of history of the county she called home.   . . .The closing achievement of her journalistic career . . .  was in behalf of historic preservation in the Clear Spring area—her legacy to a cause so dear to her heart.”

In honor of her many gifts to her community, a Clear Spring Park and Recreation Area was dedicated to her memory. But as her poems show, her reach extended beyond Clear Spring to the rolling fields around Sharpsburg.

In the many years I spent prowling Washington County archives while researching Too Afraid To Cry:  Maryland Civilians In The Antietam Campaign, I somehow never came across Ora’s booklet of poems.  I love this glimpse into her thoughts and emotions as the 100th anniversary of the battle approached.

Like Ora, I’ve often found myself “with ghost men all around” when walking over the field.

The Children of Antietam

Like most any writer of history, I love the research process. Nothing is more satisfying than unearthing some previously unknown treasure. Most exciting of all are primary documents—diaries letters, reminiscences, or articles left by people who experienced the events I’m studying.

This unidentified couple was photographed in Western Maryland.

I spent twelve years digging through such documents while researching Too Afraid to Cry:  Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign. I got shivers reading the words of people who had lived through the Civil War in Sharpsburg and surrounding communities in Maryland.

The Sharpsburg square, in Washington County, Md. The Civil War’s deadliest single day of fighting happened in and around this village. (Photo courtesy Marian and Sid Gale)

Several of the most detailed accounts of the Battle of Antietam (also called the Battle of Sharpsburg) came from people who had been children during the campaign. After the book was published, a man attending one of my programs politely called me out for including the memories of such young witnesses. Surely, he said, they were unreliable.

We had a respectful conversation, but he didn’t change my mind. Any firsthand account comes through the writer’s personal filters. Also, Too Afraid to Cry doesn’t offer a single viewpoint of the events of September, 1862. Instead, hundreds of accounts were used to present a much larger story.

I can’t imagine any group more likely to remember details than the children who watched everything familiar explode in carnage beyond comprehension. Many of them were haunted forever by the scenes and experiences that had shattered their world.

Meet three of the children of Antietam.

Oliver Thomas Reilly of Keedysville was five years old in September of 1862. As the armies jostled into place, he witnessed an altercation between Union cavalrymen and several Confederate stragglers. He was among the crowds of local civilians who watched the battle from a nearby hill, although he saw little but smoke. The family returned home to find two dead soldiers in their yard and three more in the house.

A newspaper artist captured a family watching the battle.

 Those September days shaped the rest of Oliver’s life.  O.T., as he was known, spent the rest of his life collecting and selling relics, writing about the battle, and giving tours of the battlefield.

Here’s O.T., ready to lead a tour. (Photo courtesy Missy Kretzer and Antietam National Battlefield)

Lucky customers to his store on the Sharpsburg square got to hear him play his Civil War drum. Over the years he escorted hundreds of veterans over the battlefield.

One of the postcards sold by O.T. Reilly.

Ada Mumma was also a young child, living near Antietam Creek, when the armies descended. Her parents and grandparents initially planned to stay in their home during the battle, and Ada thought the novelty of hauling mattresses to the basement was quite exciting. However, when a general spotted her peeking up the steps, he insisted that some  members of the household take her to safety. Ada wrote later:

We had the orchard to cross first.  the bullets were whistling all around us. One went through my father’s hat and several went through the curtains on the carriage. . . Then I heard a terrible whistling and an explosion which sent the earth and stones in every direction, which I was told was a shell exploding.

After the battle, surgeons turned Ada’s home into a hospital. Her grandmother returned first and found the farmhouse so crammed with wounded that she had to crawl in a window. Ada returned to the terrifying scene the next day:

I could not sleep. I could hear those poor men calling for “water. . . for God’s sake, give me a drop of water.” 

Many civilians lived with injured and dying soldiers in their homes, barns, and yards—sometimes for months. The children helped provide food, water, and comfort to the patients. This photo shows an Indiana surgeon among makeshift shelters at a field hospital. (Photo by Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress)

Ada’s mother Jane was pregnant when she was forced to flee her home.  On October 10 she delivered a baby girl, who died. Jane died herself a month later.  Ada wrote later, “My mother, due to the great amount of excitement, was taken ill and died.”

Ada had not yet turned four that September.  While her memories may have been augmented by stories, some of the personal details she included in her reminiscence feel too childlike to be second-hand.  She spent her life collecting relics and accounts of the campaign.

The third story also depicts the battle’s aftermath.

A little girl named Margaret lived on the edge of Sharpsburg. She spent the day of the battle in her cellar with several siblings and their mother, who was pregnant. They spent much of that interminable day tearing their clothes and bedding into strips, and packing lard and goose grease into shards of crockery. Jugs and gourds were filled with water.

When the fighting subsided, the little group ventured onto the battlefield, lugging baskets and quilts. The world the children knew was replaced by a smoldering landscape. Smoke stained the sunset eerie shades of red, and flames from burning buildings writhed against the sky.

(Antietam National Battlefield photo.)

Much later Margaret wrote:

There was a red haze from the sunset…the brick of the church was red, and as far as I could see were suffering, crying, or dead men. . . red, red, red. It was a red stew. I can remember my mother laboring with three big baskets and I holding her pettiskirts. . . pulling a large bundle along the ground. . . and all of us, my brothers and sisters, too afraid to cry.

The children in this portrait are unidentified, but the photograph was taken in Hagerstown, MD—not far from Sharpsburg. I imagine this little girl was about the age of Margaret, whose description provided the title for my book.

No, I don’t find it difficult to believe that four, five, and six-year olds might well remember details of those horrific days for the rest of their lives.

I wrote Too Afraid To Cry in large part to honor them—and all of the civilians who endured so much.

The Bravest Girl In Sharpsburg

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

I’m often asked where my interest in the American Civil War comes from. I grew up in Maryland, so I had lots of opportunities to visit Civil War battlefields. Since Maryland was a border state, I also had plenty of opportunities to consider the experiences of people on both sides of the conflict. And in addition to learning about the soldiers’ lives, I always tried to imagine what it was like for civilians who found themselves in the midst of fighting.

I wandered over the Antietam National Battlefield for years, always wondering what happened at the historic homes still standing. This is the Pry Farm. (Antietam National Battlefield photo)

I spent about ten years collecting stories about the civilians who lived in Western Maryland during the Civil War. All that research eventually led to my only nonfiction book, Too Afraid to Cry:  Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign. Several of the stories I discovered involved young people and would, I thought, make great novels. I was particularly fascinated by what I learned about Teresa Kretzer and Savilla Miller.

These two young women were both from big, established German-American families in Sharpsburg. They grew up on the same block in a small village.  And yet, when the war came, their politics and loyalties were different. The Kretzers supported the Union; the Millers, the Confederacy. And both Savilla and Teresa took risks while actively supporting their beliefs.

After I decided to fictionalize their stories, I dug into more detailed research. Teresa is remembered for hanging a huge American flag over Main Street, much to the consternation of her Secessionist neighbors. When the Southern army arrived she saved the flag from destruction by hiding it in the smokehouse. Several people  left accounts of Teresa and her flag, and Teresa was interviewed as well.

Teresa described the long day she and many of her neighbors enduring in the Kretzer cellar during the Battle of Antietam. (Period sketch by Frank Schell)

Then the project came to a halt. I knew much less about Savilla. A young Maryland officer serving with Stonewall Jackson left a wonderful description of Savilla standing on her front steps while Confederate soldiers retreated through Sharpsburg, dispensing water amidst falling shells. But I had nothing else.

Then something…well, interesting happened. I made one final research trip to Western Maryland, without turning up anything new about the Miller family. My last stop was the Antietam National Battlefield—just to say hi, since I had long since worked through their archives. As I was getting ready to leave, I mentioned to one of the historians my frustration about the lack of more detailed information about Savilla Miller and her family.

“Well,” he said, “a collection of letters from the family was just donated to us. Want to see them?” As I recall now, someone had found the letters at a garage sale years earlier, and had always intended to donate them to the National Battlefield. The donation didn’t happen until right before I gave up on finding personal insights about the family.

The letters gave me shivers, particularly one that I think was written by Savilla. It talked about how the war had made old friends feel like enemies—the theme I wanted to explore in my novel.

Unfortunately, Savilla Miller’s house is no longer standing. It was torn down years ago, and replaced with a gas station. The postcard below provides only a hint of what the street looked like before the Miller home was demolished. The big stone house on the right is the Kretzer House. Beyond it is the large side yard, then a frame house…and beyond that, you can just see the edge of another stone house. That was the Miller house. These two families, with such differing points of view during the Civil War, lived very close to each other.

The Kretzer House is still standing, on Main Street in Sharpsburg.  It is a private home, but if you visit Sharpsburg, you can stand on the sidewalk and imagine Teresa hanging her flag from her bedroom window. The smokehouse where she hid the flag is visible from the sidewalk.

The smokehouse is the small white building behind the fence.

Historical photographs provide a good sense of what Sharpsburg looked like during the Civil War years. It was a rural village, with rutted dirt roads; a place where many people kept cows and chickens in their back lots, and tended big gardens.

If you want to learn more about what civilians experienced during the Battle of Antietam Creek—or The Battle of Sharpsburg, as the Confederates called it—try Too Afraid to Cry. And if you have the opportunity to visit the Antietam National Battlefield, be sure to stop in Sharpsburg, too. Take a walk down Main Street. Look for the still-visible signs of shell damage on some of the old homes. And try to imagine yourself back to the war years in this small border town.

23,000 Candles

A powerful and poignant tribute to Civil War soldiers takes place each December on the rolling hills near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Antietam National Battlefield Memorial Illumination honors those men who fell during the battle of Antietam in 1862.

As many as 1,400 volunteers prepare a candle for each man who fell during the Battle of Antietam in 1862, and arrange them over the field.

All photos on this page are from Antietam National Battlefield, 2012.

As dusk falls, candles begin to glow.

A five-mile driving tour takes visitors winding through the battlefield.

Around each bend, over each rise—more candles. There are 23,000 candles, one for each missing, wounded, or killed soldier.

I spent many years wandering the field and reading about the battle while researching Too Afraid To Cry:  Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign.  I know the numbers by heart. And yet, the Illumination brings a more visceral kind of understanding. The sheer volume of luminaries is overwhelming.

At the same time, each fragile flame is precious.  Every candle represents not just one life lost or changed forever, but a cascade of grief that included family and other loved ones.  Every candle represents dreams unfulfilled, accomplishments undone, children unborn.

Last September, on the 150th anniversary of the battle, I had the enormous honor of speaking at the battlefield. My presentation focused on local civilians, but the greater message was the same:  In this place, good people suffered and died. I did my best to convey what I know of those events in 1862, but I’m sure  that the impact of hearing my words pales against the experience of seeing the Memorial Illumination .

I write this on one of the shortest, darkest days of the calendar year, as our nation mourns the tragedy in Newtown, CT.  I share these photos in the spirit of faith and hope to all those who have lost loved ones, recently or long ago.  They are not forgotten.  They will never be forgotten.

The Antietam National Battlefield Memorial Illumination is held in cooperation with the American Business Women’s Association and the Washington County Convention and Visitors’ Bureau.  For more information, visit the Antietam National Battlefield website.