History of Antietam National Cemetery

their inestimable services in this behalf, to which the merit of their work so justly entitles them. The signal services rendered by them were of such a character as to relieve this portion of the work of a great insurmountable burden under a different state of circumstances. The difficulties besetting them in the discovery of the names of the deceased were frequently solved by letters, receipts, diaries, memorandum books, photographs, or marks on the belts or cartridge boxes.

tees, held their first meeting on the 25th day of May, A. D. 1865, in Hagerstown, Maryland, and at once proceeded to organize by the election of Dr. A. A. BIGGS, as President, and THOMAS A. BOULLT, as Secretary and Treasurer. On the day following its organization, the Board, in its official capacity, visited the grounds and personally inspected them.

factorily for the delay unavoidably occasioned in the enclosure of the grounds and the removal of the dead.

site where the National Cemetery is now located. At the same time they obtained from the proprietor of the land a positive offer of sale on favorable terms.

Upon their return to Annapolis, in their report to the General Assembly, they recommended the purchase of ten acres of the ground for the uses and purposes of a State and National Cemetery.

with a retreating enemy in front, the bodies had in many instances been hurried into a shallow trench, and a few shovelfuls of earth, hastily heaped over them, served the purposes of interment, while the carcasses of horses partly consumed, or charred by the fire, were profusely scattered over the field.

this section of the country was first known, and they so continued for a long period subsequent. This event, to which we here make reference, occurred sometime between the years 1730 and 1736. The evidences of this conflict are still apparent in the skeletons which from time to time are exhumed.

ONE of the striking indications of civilization and refinement among a people, is the tenderness and care manifested by them towards their dead, in the location and erection of suitable resting places for their remains, and their embellishment and ornamentation in an appropriate and becoming manner, thus robbing the grave of its' terrors and death of its repulsiveness, by appealing to the sense with all that is beautiful in Nature and Art.