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Our Civil War
Remembering the Civil War
Gallery
A Mahoning Valley group of history buffs experiences the setting for a turning point of the Civil War — the battle of Antietam.
By JoAnn Jones
It was the bloodiest one-day battle in American history.
The battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg, Md. was Sept. 17, 1862.
“Upwards of 140,000 troops fought in that 13-hour battle, and there were over 23,000 casualties,” said Dan Welch of Boardman.
Welch, a seasonal ranger for the Gettysburg National Military Park, organized a recent trip to Antietam for 24 members and spouses of the Mahoning Valley Civil War Roundtable.
“I’ve visited that battlefield a dozen times,” Welch said. “Each time I visit, it’s an
opportunity to take in and digest what happened there. Each time I learn about another general, another private, another regiment.”
The battle, the first foray into the North by Gen. Robert E. Lee, was a turning point in the war, according to Hugh Earnhart, former chair of the Youngstown State University history department.
Gen. George B. McClellan led the Union forces in an attempt to drive Lee out of Maryland.
“Gettysburg was not the turning point, as many people think,” Earnhart said. “The real one was Antietam. It showed a crack in the Confederate Army.”
On the next day, both the Union and Confederate armies gathered bodies and buried their dead, and Lee withdrew his troops, taking them back into Virginia and ending his first invasion into the North.
Welch, who has organized many trips to battlefields, said visiting Civil War battlefields is a generational family experience.
“This is one of those American traditions that honor our country,” he added. “My own experience started when I was 5, and my parents took me to Gettysburg. It was a family vacation destination for many years.”
Another trip participant, Gordy Morgan, also of Boardman, said the battlefield “is a mysterious draw to me.”
“It means a lot to me to walk that battlefield and piece together what happened there,” Morgan said. “I get out and walk the ground so I can see how the regiment moved around to get into position to confront the enemy.”
Morgan called himself “just a Civil War buff” but added that many members of the organization are “very well read” and know almost everything about the war.
The group usually goes to Gettysburg once a year, Morgan said.
“You can go six times and not see everything,” he added.
Welch, who works for the National Park Service in Gettysburg during the summer, said the Civil War is still a topic that is ever present and never far away.
“Beyond the 150th anniversary of the war, we’re still dealing with issues,” he said, “such as how the war is taught in the North and in the South, and how some Southern state capitol buildings still fly the Confederate flags. It’s still plaguing us.”