For our second weekend on the east coast, we decided to head to West Virginia to go camping. We left right after I finished work on Friday, August 28, and it took us about 2 hours to get to the KOA camp in West Virginia.On Saturday, we spent the morning at Antietam Battlefield (near Sharpsburg, Maryland). It was sobering to see the fields where thousands of Civil War troops killed each other on September 17, 1862. As you'll recall from your junior year of high school, that day was the bloodiest one-day battle in the history of America's military.
At Bloody Lane, 10,000 Union troops spent three hours trying to break through a line held by only 2,200 Confederate troops. One observer wrote about this part of the battle: "They were lying in rows like the ties of a railroad, in heaps like cordwood mingled with the splintered and shattered fence rails. Words are inadequate to portray the scene."
The cannons at Antietam are in the same positions they were in during the battle.
In the afternoon, we went to Harpers Ferry. (And no, there is not an apostrophe in Harpers, even though it's named after a guy named Robert Harper.)
At Harpers Ferry, the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers meet. Here, the Potomac river flows from the bottom of the picture, the Shenandoah flows from the right of the picture, and the resulting river (still the Potomac) flows off to the left.
During the 1850s, Harpers Ferry was a bustling merchant town. In 1859, John Brown attempted the raid of a local armory to advance the abolitionist cause. Though his raid failed and Brown was executed, the incident focused the nation on the moral issue of slavery and pushed the nation closer to civil war.
Today, Harpers Ferry is basically just a tourist stop, with many of the old stores preserved as museums.
Harpers Ferry is also a great place to get a cold treat on a hot day. Olivia enjoyed the flavored ice we gave her.
All in all, it was a fun trip, and we hope to continue taking advantage of having a car out here on the east coast.
3 comments:
How fun! I hope you do something fun today as well!
Now this is the way to learn history! I'm glad that you were able to go. I'm also SO relieved that you explained about the apostrophe. How worried I was! Truthfully.
Very pretty pictures! Looks like you are having so much fun!
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