Embark on an Antietam Battlefield Tour and explore the sites of the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. This tour can be combined with a visit to the South Mountain battlefields for an even more in-depth experience of the 1862 Maryland Campaign.
Tour Itinerary Includes:
- Antietam National Battlefield Visitor Center – orientation & museum
- North Woods – initial Union assault jumping off point
- East Woods – location where General Joseph Mankfield was mortally wounded
- Miller’s Cornfield – bloody early morning fighting amidst tall corn stalks
- The West Woods – National Park trail follows fighting’s intense ebb & flow here
- Bloody Lane – site of savage combat leaving casualties piled high along sunken roadbed
- Burnside’s Bridge – landmark arched stone bridge visitors can walk across
- National Cemetery – final resting place for many Civil War soldiers
With so much history to take across this preserved sacred ground, our expert Antietam battlefield guide leads your group to help reflect on the enormous toll inflicted 150 years ago during America’s Civil War. Our tour guide has been “tramping” the battleground for over 50 years since a Boy Scout in 1972. He has studied the Maryland Campaign of 1862 for over 30 years. He has been leading battlefield tours along with the South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, and Shepherdstown Battlefields, all of which are part of the campaign, the first invasion of the North during the American Civil War.
The pivotal battle scene captured in this historic painting centers around Burnside’s Bridge. This limestone arched crossing still stands as an iconic landmark in Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Visitors can explore this bridge spanning Antietam Creek, the site of intense fighting on September 17, 1862, during the Civil War’s bloodiest single-day battle. This National Park Service protected area memorializes the struggle to control Burnside’s Bridge and other strategic locations across the open fields and woodlands now preserved as hallowed ground.
