Burnside Bridge at Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland

[Don Chesnut]

Burnside Bridge at Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland.

[glenng]

Now if I did not now that bridge was in Maryland I would have said that was a quaint English bridge in England.
Beautiful photo.

[terrib]

That's just downright beautiful. I'm learning so much on this forum. For instance, I would have the tendency to try to get the whole tree at the end of that bridge but that would have taken away from the subject - especially given that the reflection in the water only goes as high as the point you cut it off. I'm guessing that was planned. Great job!

[FrankMi]

Excellent!

[dje]

Lovely scene, beautifully handled.

Dave

[rpcrowe]

Lovely shot of a beautiful brige with a gruesome history. I enjoy history, especially when my or my wife's ancestors were connected with it.

The Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest day of the Civil War. It could also have been the end of the Civil War except that the incompetent Union Generals, among them McClellan and Burnside handled their troops with total incompetence.

McClellan never committed his overwhelming numbers of troops and Burnside (for whom the bridge was named and for whom the term "sideburns" was coined) sent his troops across the bridge in piecemeal lots rather than in an overwhelming charge. They were decimated by a relatively small number of Georgia marksmen across the Antietam Creek. It has been a question of contention that the Antietam Creek could have been waded less than a hundred yards downstream.

If true, wading that creek by Union troops would have saved countless thousands of lives because the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia would have been captured and the Civil War might have ended years before it actually did.

Some of my wife's ancestors belonged to the Dunker Church that built the bridge and also the white Dunker Church which was another bloody site during that bloody day.

However, Antietam was classified as a Union Victory and allowed President Lincoln to publish the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves in the states in revolt against the Union but, none that were in states such as Maryland and Kentucky which had not seceeded from the Union.

However, the Emancipation Proclamation was instrumental, along with Prince Albert's support, in preventing England from participation in the War on the side of the South. If it had, the North would probably have been forced to allow Southern Independence and the entire history of the world would have been changed.

http://www.rockingham.k12.va.us/EMS/.../antietam.html

[Mike Buckley]

Very nice, Don. It has been decades since I have been there and your photos make me think I should return sooner than later. Thanks for sharing them!