What to Do in Maryland
Chuck Darrow
It’s hardly news that Maryland is filled with popular tourism destinations. Baltimore and its Inner Harbor, Annapolis and its almost 400 years of history and Ocean City and its wide, clean beach and festive boardwalk have long been favorites of South Jersey residents. But the Old Line State (as its known to its inhabitants) offers more than the above points of interest. Below are three more that are worth considering for day and overnight trips:
Antietam National Battlefield
Ask most Americans familiar with this period of history and they will likely identify the Battle of Gettysburg as the turning point of the Civil War. But it can be argued that had the Union not prevailed at Antietam some 10 months earlier (technically, the battle is considered to have been a draw, but it did force Gen. Robert E. Lee to retreat), by July 1863, Lee and his Confederate forces would have been enjoying cheesesteaks in Philadelphia.
Prior to the Sept. 17, 1862 conflagration that stands as the single bloodiest day ever on American soil—some 23,000 soldiers were wounded or killed in 12 hours—things were not going well for President Abraham Lincoln and the North. The South had been rolling up decisive victories and as a result, both France and England were considering throwing their support (financial and otherwise) behind it—moves that surely would have spelled doom for the Union.
In addition, Lincoln’s plans to issue the Emancipation Proclamation freeing more than three million Southern slaves were being opposed by his brain trust, which argued that such a move would be impotent and irrelevant without a reversal of battlefield fortunes to prove the North had the military muscle to enforce it.
And so it was on that late-summer’s day in and around the southwestern Maryland hamlet of Sharpsburg, Md.—which is just about three hours from Cherry Hill--that Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac under the command of Gen. George McClellan engaged in a day of incomprehensible carnage.
The battlefield’s Visitor’s Center is closed for a major renovation project (although the bookstore remains open), but important sites remain open. They include:
- The Cornfield, where the fighting began at sunrise and where thousands of men perished in just three hours.
