I read with interest Brian Downey’s recent post over at behind AotW about some tree planting efforts near Burnside Bridge on the Antietam Battlefield to form a riparian buffer. Many of you know of the continuing efforts at Gettysburg to restore the battlefield to sight lines more representative of July 1863. After taking in Brian’s blog entry, I started to wonder if similar efforts are being undertaken at Antietam. I’m happy to say they are. In a follow-up comment, Brian mentioned the efforts of volunteers to reforest the areas comprising the historic North Woods and West Woods near Dunker Church.:
Antietam is among the best-preserved battlefields in the country, and is very close in appearance to 1862.
Most of the farm lots in and around the Park have been kept in just about continuous use for their original purposes, and the usual urban sprawl has been kept at a distance. Fences and roads have changed a bit, and some modern structures have popped up, but as the Park has acquired so much of the property, no more can be built directly on the field, and some of those already there have/will be removed.
Even the town of Sharpsburg itself is remarkably similar to the way it was then. It’s a sleepy small town of about the same size today, with large numbers of original structures. Long stretches of the drive to the battlefield from just west of Frederick – the route of the Federal Army along the (Old) National Pike – still looks much like it did in 1862.
The most obvious difference between 1862 and today at Antietam has been in the de-forestation of the North and West Woods since the battle. Correcting this has been a major endeavor of the Park Service and thousands of volunteers for more than 10 years now. [more]
Various other planting and restoration projects over the last few years have helped to push the Park even closer to its appearance at the day of the Battle. More are underway or planned.
Obviously there’s no going all the way back (the monuments and Park roads, for example, are likely to remain), but it’s a gem of a place as it is now.
I’ve never been to Antietam, a situation I hope to rectify later this summer. Brian’s comment refreshed my memory on the North and West Woods. I do recall hearing about the deforestation of those areas over the years since the battle, but I had completely forgotten about it until now. If you follow the link in Brian’s comments above, you’ll see that the Rangers and volunteers at Antietam has been reforesting historic woodlots since March 1995. In a similar effort, historic fence lines are also being recreated on the battlefield. I’d love to see this happen on more battlefields as well, within reason.
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