The stone observatory on the Bloody lane is now finished and ready for visitors. The view from this point alone is worth a visit to the famous Bloody lane as you can take in the entire right to the left nearly four miles. There will be, when all planted, nearly four hundred markers, giving one a good idea of the entire battle field with the advantage of the good roads. Every body ought to visit it and make a study of this great battle.
Another view of the Owens Creek Bridge
Submitted by StephenRecker on Tue, 05/28/2013 - 9:08am
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.
About
Hello. I'm Stephen Recker and welcome to my blog. In it I will be discussing the different projects I am working on related to the American Civil War with a focus on photography related to the battle of Antietam. I am particularly interested in how the battlefield has been interpreted throughout the years. I will be discussing how it was done then and how new technologies can be brought to bear to bring life to those old materials as well as new ones. See the 99 Places Every Antietam Battlefield Guide Should Know.
Sharpsburg Items
Antietam Valley Record
Thursday, September 5, 1895