Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 9: Antietam and a detour through Civil War medicine.

It should be obvious that the American Civil War is far too vast a topic to distill into a handful of bromides, and what's more, battles like the one in Antietam have been the topic of numerous books and research studies.

My own thoughts on the occasion of visiting Antietam National Battlefield have remained a inchoate jumble since the morning we toured it. To say that the experience was profoundly moving is an understatement. Perhaps the way these hours are rendering a verbose character like me speechless says as much as the absent words ever could.

As time has passed, what happened at Antietam in September of 1862 has been the subject of a reassessment. Antietam was very important, indeed, and History Dot Com offers a good summary of why.

1. Antietam enabled the Union to repel the first Confederate invasion of the North.
2. The battle allowed Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
3. Antietam kept Britain and France on the sidelines.
4. The battle lifted sagging Union morale.
5. Photographs from Antietam brought the horror of war to Americans for the first time.
6. The battle may have saved Lincoln from a resounding defeat in midterm elections.
7. Antietam marked the beginning of the end for General George McClellan.

There are many videos on YouTube, but this one captures the essence without delving into military strategy and tactics.

Perhaps the real reason for my own emotional reaction to Antietam stems from the many observations about the battle's wider psychological ramifications, specifically the recognition that there is nothing glorious or noble about war.

It's about visiting the battlefield as an adult, as opposed to a child (which I did with my parents, roughly 45 years ago). Back then, I transformed my bicycle into a shine to the Confederacy, complete with rebel flags and a gray sling for my BB gun.

Kids swallow the bilge, because that's what being a kid is all about. Excuses dwindle as one ages. None of the other reasons for "growing up" come close to the imperative to dispense with childlike reasoning in favor of more rational processes. That so many don't manage to do so might explain the persistence of war as a human practice.

We're left with the Dunker Church and the North, East and West Woods.

The Corn Field and Bloody Lane.

Burnside Bridge, and the site of the final attack, when Confederate troops marching all day from Harpers Ferry arrived just in time to extend the war another two and a half years.

A few photos are below, at the end of this narrative.

There's a lot to learn from the Civil War, and the place to start is scrubbing one's noggin clean of the flawed judgments we've made about the conflict in the 150 years separating lost orders wrapped around cigars from the ubiquity of the iPhone.

Back in Frederick for a final afternoon and evening on the road, I insisted we visit the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.

Follow in the footsteps of soldiers and surgeons to discover the harsh conditions, personal sacrifices, and brilliant innovations of Civil War medicine, innovations that continue to save lives today.

To understand how important doctors, nurses and medical innovation were in the Civil War, consider the numbers.

Roughly 1,264,000 American soldiers have died in the nation's wars -- 620,000 in the Civil War and 644,000 in all other conflicts. It was only as recently as the Vietnam War that the amount of American deaths in foreign wars eclipsed the number who died in the Civil War.

Roughly a third of them died on the battlefield, or from their wounds and injuries. The others were killed by disease. The war began absent any substantive preparation for casualties of this magnitude, hence the medicine museum's importance.

The museum also has a collaboration beer:

One vast hospital: Flying Dog's Saw Bones Ginger Table Beer.

On Thursday, we drove back home. The trip East gave me lots to think about, which is to say it was a complete success.

Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 8: Civil War history in Frederick, Maryland and environs.

It's an old album filled with even older songs, and it came back to me while we were in Frederick: Civil War songs: "I’m a Good Old Rebel," but assuredly not like this.

I was born in 1960, so the American Civil War Centennial passed without my direct participation. However, it may have given me an area buzz, if inadvertently. By the age of 10 or so, I was hooked on the topic. No library book was safe, even those with big adult words.

How do you think I learned those big adult words, anyway?

Consequently, the ancestral stirrings began as we drove south/southwest straight through from Massachusetts to Frederick, Maryland, an historic route that took us past Gettysburg. Unfortunately, there'd be time for only one battlefield, Antietam. It lies twenty or so miles west of Frederick.

When I was a wee lad, the town of Frederick was known to Civil War buffs as the home of Barbara Fritchie, an elderly woman born before the American Revolution. According to legend, she proudly defended her American flag to passing rebel troops: "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country's flag."

The flag incident as described in the poem likely never occurred at the Barbara Fritchie house, although Barbara Fritchie was a Unionist and did have a Union flag. Friends of Barbara Fritchie stated that she shook a Union flag at and insulted Confederate troops, but other neighbors said Barbara Fritchie, over 90 years old, was ill at the time.

How very unsurprising. Think of Fritchie as a pre-urban legend. Other Frederick legends of more recent vintage are Vikings running back Chuck Foreman, who was born in Frederick, and singer Patsy Cline, who lived there in the 1950s.

Much later in life, I became aware of Frederick as the site of a big brewery plant constructed during the first period of expansion for "microbrewing" during the 1990s, a site now occupied by Flying Dog of Colorado, in an early East Coast brewing expansion that anticipated more famous cross-country shifts like Sierra Nevada and New Belgium's production breweries in North Carolina.

There's more about Frederick beer here:

Brewer's Alley and Monocacy Brewing in Frederick MD.

New Albany readers will note that downtown Frederick is enjoying a rebirth much like our own, with a problem that will be familiar to you: The one-way street grid there makes navigation maddening for a visitor.

The city itself is only an hour away from Washington D.C. and Baltimore, and appears to be big, prosperous and sprawling. Once we were able to find the bed and breakfast after wide loops traversing hostile one-way terrain, the car was parked and we took to our feet.

Our first evening in town began at Summitra Thai Cuisine. The web site doesn't dispense the usual superlatives. It doesn't have to, because the food speaks for itself. Simply yummy.

We learned that a central feature of downtown Frederick is Carroll Creek Park. If you've ever wondered what the reclamation model for New Albany's Falling Run Creek looks like, this is a good place to start -- that is, as soon as Padgett leaves town.

Carroll Creek Park began as a flood control project in late 1970s - an effort to remove downtown Frederick from the 100-year floodplain and restore economic vitality to the historic commercial district. Today, more than $150 million in private investing is underway or planned in new construction, infill development or historic renovation along the Park.

The first evening ended with beers at Brewer's Alley (link above). Since I took very few photos, I'll crib some from the tourist folks, who won't mind a bit.

As an addendum, words of truth from Frederick's Döner Bistro -- and the sign does not lie.

On Wednesday: The pilgrimage to Antietam National Battlefield.