From Pennsylvania to Braselton

We slept in and got a late start (0900), set the GPS to Braselton and headed out.  To our surprise, the GPS sent us right down Seminary Ridge, the site of the Confederate Line in Gettysburg.  There was sunshine this morning, not fog, so we stopped and took a picture of the memorial placed by Georgia at the 100th anniversy of the battle.

The Georgia Memorial . .

Once we left the park, we continued on country roads for about an hour.  We finally got on the Interstate, but soon saw that Antietam was an upcoming exit.  I pulled off and we checked the mileage, about 20 each way, so we made the side trip to the battleground.  We had to make a very tight turn in Boonsboro, onto the Boonsboro Pike.  This was a Civil War era downtown, not designed for 65′ motor home/tow car . . .The local driver in the oncoming lane stopped early, giving us enough room to make the turn (we made it by less than a foot).

We drove by the National cemetary but there was no room for us to park, so we continued on the Visiter Center.  We chose to park in a field, as there were a state vehicle parked under the trees and another smaller coach already parked there. We arrived at the center just as a docent started giving us a play-by-play description of the battle.

Some figures about the battle:

• Elasped Battle time  12 hours
• Troops engaged (both sides)   100,000
• Casualties (both sides)  23,000+  One unit, Hays’ Louisiana Brigade lost 60 percent of their force in the first 30 minutes!  This was the single bloodiest day in the entire Civil War.

This is the New York Memorial (Cathy is checking the names on the plaque).  New York memorials both here and in Gettysburg were unique in that they individually list all their officer casualties.

This is the Dunker Church, the only (universally visible) existing structure on the battleground at that time.  It was built in 1852 and it worshippers were pacifist German Baptists.  It was damaged by cannon fire but was standing at the end of the battle, only to be hit by a tornado years later.  It has since been rebuilt to original specifications.

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This is the Maryland memorial with the battlefield behind and to the right.

This is the Mumma Farm, the only civilian structure that suffered deliberate destruction during the battle.  It was burned by Confederates to prevent it from being used by Union sharpshooters.  The Mumma family had fled just prior to the battle.

We got some route advice from the staff at the Visiter Center and took a different route out.  This was a lot longer but took us through several very small towns and villiages.  We spent a lot of our time trying to take side routes whenever possible to see more than just Interstate.

After getting back to the coach we found that we were “blocked in” by another coach and a truck towing a trailer.  We walked the field to make sure that it was not too soft, and decided to make a run, across the field and exited over a culvert on the other side.  Kinda like 4-wheeling it with 19 tons…

Because of the late start and the unplanned stop at Antietam we decided to spend the evening at a campground just outside of Wytheville, VA. as it was getting dark.

In the morning, we were off at dawn and heading down Highway 77 to Franklin, then on to Dillsboro (had to see the train) then back into Georgia. At this point, we have been on the road for 110 days!

Arrived Braselton at 1700 EST.

Now planning our next trip . . . .