Antietam National Cemetery

This drawing illustrates the ceremony described in this text. The ladies sat in the left of the stand. The President and his party were met by a miliary escort at the Sharpsburg station, and the public arrived on foot or by coach.

The cornerstone was laid for the monument which was itself not dedicated until 1880. This text describes it as a "Colossal Statue of an American Soldier standing guard over the loyal dead."

Robert Wood & Company were responsible for construction of the fence and gates, which were in place in 1866. The wrought iron fence cost six dollars a foot, and a gateway cost $880. "It is substantial as well as ornamental, and its entire length is six hundred and six feet, eight inches without the gateway, which latter is twenty-six feet in width—-sufficiently capacious to admit vehicles to pass each other in their ingress and egress."

"Near the entrance to the Cemetery, and within the enclosure, has been erected a neat and commodious Lodge House, designed for the occupancy of the keeper of the grounds, and the comfort and convenience of visitors."

History of Antietam National Cemetery

The budget for the Cemetery included:
173 perches stone, delivered for keeper's lodge, at $1.20 per perch, $207.60
Labor - For keeper's lodge, $1,500.00

In comparison, the budget for the removal, boxing, and burial of 6,000 dead, at $5 each, $30,000.00

View of Sharpsburg from Cemetery Hill

Map of Antietam National Cemetery as designed by A. A. Biggs, M. D., President & Genl. Supt., Sharpsburg, 1866. 

"Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1867 by the Board of Trustees of the 'Antietam National Cemetery' in the Clerks Office of the U.S. District Court for Maryland."

Clarysville Inn and Old National Road Bridge - 1875.

The Clarysville Inn was built in 1805 and was most popular with travellers along the National Road.

During the Civil War it formed the nucleus of a hospital, as conditions in the hospitals in Cumberland in the summer were unbearable. Constructing a hospital in the mountains 1000 feet higher than Cumberland was intended to provide a more hygienic situation. Brigade Surgeon Carpenter reported that the hospitals at Clarysville:

"Combine 80 tents, an oak grove, and two dilapidated cabins, and you have the Smoketown Hospital, perhaps the most well known of all the Antietam hospitals and the longest-lasting."
...John Nelson, As the grain falls

Our great feature is the assistance of Miss Hall... she has two large tents under her charge, and two good cooks to assist her... The number of patients now in the hospital is one hundred and ninety-eight. This number will be increased, with patients from other hospitals, in a few days to about three hundred.

W.R. Mosely, Assistant Medical Inspector, visited Smoketown in November 1862. He found there were 479 patients under treatment, 232 were wounded soldiers, 247 were sick: typhoid fever, dysentery, and diarrhea the most prevalent illnesses. Eleven doctors staffed the hospital, including: B. A. Vanderkieft of the 102 New York Volunteers, Edward Donelly, of the 2 Pennsylvania Reserves, G. W. Metcalf, of the 76th New York Volunteers, Wm. B. Chambers of the 60th New York Volunteers, Wilson Peterson, John Aiken of the 71st Pennsylvania Reserves, W. S.

Caption from negative sleeve: Straw huts erected on Smith's farm, and used as a hospital after the battle of Antietam. Sept. 1862.

Keedysville, Md., vicinity. Smith's barn, used as a hospital after the battle of Antietam.

Title from Civil War photographs, 1861-1865 compiled by Hirst D. Milhollen and Donald H. Mugridge, Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1977. No. 0136