My Antietam Blog

When my book Rare Images of Antietam came out I went through the usual period of anxiety when I expected a crowd of people with torches and pikes to come to my door and drive me out of town for writing such a huge tome of lies and misinformation. Well, it seems I got most of the facts correct, so far at least, exclusive of a few typos. But there was one thing that I got a bit wrong.

On page 12 I included a picture of the building on the "NE Corner Public Square in Hagerstown" that I represented in the book as where E.M. Recher had his studio, starting in the 1850s. It turns out that a few decades ago the original building was torn down and this one was put in its place. It is a great copy of the original, but not the original. Oh, well.

To rub salt on the would, John Frye, an incredible historian whom I have the pleasure of chatting with on many of my lunch hours, recently went through the files of his Western Maryland Room and put together an entire folder of images of the original building. I will be posting those soon once I organize and edit them.

In the mean time I found this image in the archives of the Baltimore Sun. It is from 1982 and is the best close-up I have seen that shows the dilapidated state of the building. It depresses me to think that I probably drove by this building years ago and did not stop. But at least I can see what it looked like and I can correct the record.

This is a side view of the Owes Creek Bridge looking east. There is a marking on the back of a similar view that says 8-6-79, which I assume means that it was taken on my birthday in the year 1879. This would fit nicely with my deduction that Recher bought his stereo camera in 1878 and that Pen Mar opened in 1877, making this rail line of interest to photographers, due to the tourists that it brought out to Western Maryland. I have not had a chance to check the handwriting to see if it is Recher's, but the fact is that Recher probably handled all of his images before they went out which is why you so often see his writing on the back.

In preparation for my talk later this month at the Smithsburg Historical Society, I have been delving into my old Western Maryland Railroad stereoviews. My talk is about Rare Images of Antietam, but there is enough of a tie, and there will be enough interest that I want to bring them out. Curiously, even the folks at the Western Maryland Railroad Museum, an amazingly well-researched facility in Union Bridge, have never seen any of the 1870-80 stereoviews of the WMRR! So i want to show them off and hear what they have to tell me about them.

To that end I got out this Chase view of the Mechanicstown Bridge, the same view that Recher took. The hard part about this one, though, is dating it. It is on the same mount that Chase used for the Bloody lane view I have in my book that I dated 1866-67. But the line to Sabillasville was not completed until 1871, so, while this is a Chase, the photo was not taken by David Bachrach, who took many (if not all) of his early Antietam images between 1866-7.

Maybe one of my new train buddies can date that engine for me. Interestingly, you can even see the engineer.

I recently spent a really fun afternoon in the West Woods at Antietam with Nick Picerno and Tom Clemens at the request of Larry Freiheit, who is writing a biography of General Joseph King Fenno Mansfield. Larry isn't sure that I got it right in my book when I included the above image and stated that Mansfield spent night of September 15th at Nicodemus Mills, a few miles east of Keedysville. (The also book has a really cool letter in it about there night at the location.)

Recently I had a chance to get back to reading Tom's latest volume of Carman's Maryland Campaign, and it mentions the slumber in question, so I thought I would quickly jot the notes down here, for the benefit of my memory as much as for Larry.

On page 24 of Carman/Clemens (hereafter CC) it reads, "During the afternoon and night of the 15th McClellan's forces moved to the positions assigned to them...Mansfield's (Twelfth) Corps was at Nicodemus Mills or Springvale." Here is the great clue. There are a few Nicodemus houses on the old maps up near the town of Boonsboro. And the Twelfth Corps did come down off of Turner's Gap. But I imagine Mansfield probably turned down what is now Rt. 67 to the Old Sharpsburg Road in order to relieve congestion. But it is Springvale that dials us in.

If you Google Springvale (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=springvale+md+map)...Voila! Case closed. I was nervous there for a minute.

Postscript: On page 24 of CC, talking about the morning of September 16th, it reads, "During the forenoon the Twelfth Corps advanced from its bivouac near Nicodemus' Mill and massed in a field west of Keedysville..."

Thoughts...? If anyone knows of his movements here, I would love to hear about it. I think Alpheus Williams probably wrote about this march.

Yesterday morning I took my usual Saturday walk along the old tracks of the Western Maryland Railroad. I have a bunch of old stereoviews taken along that line by E.M. Recher and B.W.T. Phreaner and have been trying to find where they were taken. Also, it is just simply beautiful on the run from my home in Smithsburg up to the top of South Mountain at Pen Mar. On this day I started up at Pen Mar and walked north. Lo and behold within a mile I found what I believe is a large cut in a view I have.

I was going to post about that today, but on the way home I saw a woman standing in the street with an old photograph of Smithsburg. She was standing right outside the Smithsburg Historical Society so I stopped to chat with her and went inside to donate a copy of my book. As I had hoped, local historian John Jakes was in there and we had a really great chat. John is an interesting guy who owns a huge peach farm where Jeb Stuart's artillery had six guns during the Battle of Smithsburg. But that's a story for another day...or two.

Anyway, he was showing me an old photo album that had been donated by the Bell family about a year ago, or should I say, since I had been back to see what photos they have. In this book was a photograph of E.C. Bell taking photographs up at the Devil's Race course, which is right off the tracks close to where I had just been walking. I was so excited that I grabbed a quick glare-filled photo with my phone and that is what you see here.

When E.M. Recher died in 1887, Bell took over his photo studio for about a year. In fact, I recently bought a stereoview on a Recher mount with Bell's stamp on the back. As John Jakes told me, BelMar is the Bell family home and it sits right across the street from the Smithsburg Historical Society. This is a lot of fresh information to explore.

I just made an exciting find. The building in Massachusetts where the 21st Massachusetts monument (that sits by Burnside Bridge) was made is being torn down. The sculptor's papers and photographs made it into my collection this week and I am very gratified and excited at the find. It even comes complete with O.T. Reilly graffiti, which is especially timely because I think I have decided to call my next book "Rare Images of Antietam Through the Eyes of O.T. Reilly."

Anyway, when I was trying to date these new photographs, I got to thinking about the dates the monuments on the bridge were dedicated. The first monument on the bridge was put there in October 1887. For some reason the park, on their website, has it being dedicated in 1906. Well, they can't be perfect.

The 21st MA monument was dedicated on Massachusetts Day in 1898, the same day as the Massachusetts State Monument was dedicated near the Cornfield. But the strange one is the 35th MA monument. All the sources I see simply say dedicated in 1898 with no date. John Shildt goes the farthest in his book Monuments at Antietam and says that it was probably dedicated on the same day, but does not give a cite.

I want to put the story about this sculptor in my next book, the O.T. hook being that his photos were taken when O.T. had graffiti on the bridge (I know, a tenuous link, but if you don't like it, write you own dern book.) So I think I will try to solve this mystery. If anyone has any info I would love to hear it. It is not a big, compelling mystery, but maybe I can use the hunt as an excuse to go to Massachusetts and get my portrait taken by David Bachrach's grandson. I spoke to him on the phone while getting permission to use some images and he is not only a really nice guy but he had some very interesting things to say about the Civil War.

I sure do lead a blessed life. Here I am with my good friend Tom Clemens as we show off our new books, both of which made it to the Antietam bookshelves in time for the 150th Anniversary. I spoke on Friday and Tom speaks this morning at 10am.

I know how much work it was to get my book here on time, so I can't even imagine how much effort Tom put in, as his is a scholarly tome of about 600 pages. I believe he spent the better part of the last twenty years culling through thousands of letter just so we can all study the Battle of Antietam without having to put in a similar effort. Thanks Tom!

In addition to release dates, our books share some images from Ezra Carman's photo collection, scans of which we secured after a long drive across Pennsylvania in the snow. Ah, good times.

Well, I have to get dressed and head back to Sharpsburg for some more book signing. See you there!?

Man, I just stopped by the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts to check out their new Civil War exhibit. It is AWESOME! So much O.T. Reilly stuff that I am going crazy. Also a lot of things colelcted by Sharpsburg's Martha Ada Thomas, who somehow escaped my notice before. Ed Lewis, who works at the desk at the museum and who grew up in Sharpsburg, filled me in about Martha, who he knew when he was a young man. Apparently she is mentioned by Wilmer Mumma in his books. I'll have to check that out when I get home tonight. When you stop by the museum be sure to ask Ed for some stories. What a great day!

Very exciting times. The folks at Antietam are upgrading their museum in time for the anniversary, and today I got to see how they are presenting some reunion items that I have loaned them for the exhibit. They did an incredible job! I am so thrilled. They really have some stunning items in there. It is scheduled to be open next month. Good job, folks!

I am here to announce that my new book, Rare Images of Antietam, will be ready for the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. I am scheduled for a talk at the battlefield at 1pm on Friday, September 14th and a book signing at 1pm on Saturday September 15th.

The book is 152 pages with seventy featured images and hundreds of supporting images. I'd love to tell you more about it but I only have a week to get this book to bed. Thanks so much for all of the interest.

Last spring I had the pleasure of giving Tony Horwitz a tour of Antietam. Now, I love his book 'Confederates in the Attic', but the kicker is that so do many of the people in my extended family. In fact, most of the women in my life could care less about the Civil War, but have read that book and think of it as a favorite.

So, it was fun to have them share my excitement about my 'brush with greatness.' I had actually been booked to give Paul Giamatti a tour so that he could bone up on his role as Longstreet in an upcoming movie, but he dropped out of the project and the tour never happened. So when the Tony tour came around, everyone was happy that I had a new story to tell, the one about the time I met Madonna getting kind of old, and all...

I just got my copy of the article in the mail and reading it reminded me of when I used to play guitar on other peoples' records and I would get a copy in the mail. I was always nervous to hear what they had done with my work - if they would use the correct take and if they would mix the guitar correctly. But now, as then, I am pleasantly surprised. Tony is a great writer and the photographs made for the article are stunning.

But the best part of the whole experience, besides perhaps having slightly impressed my mother-in-law, was the lunch I had with Tony when he gave me some great advice. At the time I was still going to release my rare Antietam images book as a huge opus. I showed him a draft with 600 images and told him it would not be out in time for the anniversary. "Steve,' Tony said (please note with awe that we are on a first name basis...) "pick your dozen best images and get something out for the 150th. Just do it." Well, how could I ignore his advice. I mean, he did pick up the tab for lunch.

Last week I had the privilege to accompany Ted Alexander to the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg where he was the special guest of the Harrisburg Civil War Round Table's book club. One of the perks of the trip was that we had been invited to spend some time in their vaults before the event. Wow.

The curator had already laid out some insanely cool Antietam artifacts that he was going to have out on a table during the event (talk about service) including an original Lincoln letter to Little Mac ("What's the news from the front?"); a beautiful letter from a soldier describing the battle (which I will be using in my book); and a tiny photo album with the entire Gardner death series. I also found a framed bullet from South Mountain with a note from the Yankee that took it off a dead Rebel in the vaults which was also put on the table.

But I was really there to see what Antietam images they had. Long story short, the most interesting to me was a glass plate negative of an image that appears in Scribners Magazine in 1903. It says that it a photograph of the Bloody Lane, but it has never looked to me like it.

The most glaring problem is the fence line on the left. If the camera is standing with the tower to its back, the fence on the left would be Virginia Worm. If the image is flipped horizontally, the fence on the right was a post fence by the 1870s, but it would have rails, not boards.

But with the mountains in the distance, the camera is looking East and would be up by the curve below the 130th PA monument. At that spot, I don't think there was ever a post and rail on the left, and again, if the image was flipped, the post and rail that was on the right for a while had rails, not boards.

And if this is looking East, what is that building on the horizon to the left? There is no building there and I don't think there ever was. There is a big tree where Richardson was putting a battery when he was wounded...but no building.

So, Bloody Lane? I'm not buying it.

Thoughts?