This is the fifth of a seven-part series reviewing the recent annual Civil War Symposium produced by the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall in Carnegie, Pennsylvania.
We have all read, and in some cases experienced, the impacts of a disaster that visits our homes and communities. A normal life is suddenly upset and, perhaps, changed forever in ways hardly imaginable only a few days before. But, can we even begin to imagine armies passing through our streets and fields leaving nothing but death and destruction in their wake?
For the people in and around Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the waning days of summer in 1862, life was about to change. Not for a day. Not for a week. Literally, the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam would resonate in the community for generations!
Ashley Whitehead Luskey has spent her career in public history and academia, and she has taken an interest in an aspect of the Civil War that most 
do not take into consideration: civilians in and around the battle area and the impact on their lives before, during and, most significantly, after the bullets stop flying. To paraphrase Paul Harvey, there is a “rest of the story.”
Located in what was considered western Maryland, Sharpsburg was only a mile from Confederate Virginia. Loyalties were mixed in a town with about 700 residents and another 600 or so living nearby There were about 1,500 enslaved people in Washington County with maybe 150 in the town. Largely a self-sufficient region, the community boasted of agriculture with supporting mills, tanneries and small shops. Not a booming center of commerce by any means, but the region could care for itself.
And then, on September 14th, the war came. To those living there, it never left.
Confederates passed through Sharpsburg on the 14th enroute to the fight on nearby South Mountain. After their defeat, they would tell the locals the next day to flee. Indeed, Southern artillery would open on the approaching Union army from the Sharpsburg Heights, and soon enough shells would start coming back the other way.
Some folks would flee their homes for safety with family or friends a few miles away. Some would hide out in the woods or in caves, and still others would hunker down in their cellars. Many would seek to hide their valuables or their livestock. One farmer spread grain sacks in his basement to muffle the sounds of his horse’s hooves.
Enslaved people were in a state of confusion and fear, as well. Would the Confederates kidnap them and send them south into even worse slavery, or could they find freedom with the Yankees?
The Battle of Antietam raged for only a day. In other places, armies would move on after a battle. For the area civilians, their battle only began on September 18th as they emerged from hiding and returned to trampled fields, burned barns, destroyed fences and looted homes. Woodlots had been destroyed, and the vandalism of the armies had been rampant. A few days later an out-of-town reporter asked a resident which army had stolen more. Said the man, “The rebels took, but the Yankees took right smart.”
Dead bodies were everywhere, including some who met their fates while they were in the process of looting homes. Worse, there were dead horses and mules everywhere. Every building with any kind of roof was filled with wounded.
The noise, fire, destruction, smells, and sights were overwhelming. One resident likened it to a New Testament “Judgment Day.” Only five buildings in the town of Sharpsburg escaped damage from artillery shells or small arms fire. The Lutheran church would not fully recover until 1867, more than five years after the battle!
On the 19th, the Army of Northern Virginia would vacate Sharpsburg. The federal army would move in, and more than 70,000 were in the area by month’s end with more arriving daily. The Army of the Potomac would remain in the area until October 26th, more than five weeks after the last shots had been fired. A Union army surgeon claimed, “Days after the battle are a thousand times worse than the day of the battle.”
Both Robert E. Lee and George McClellan had issued strict orders to their men to leave civilians alone. After all, both generals considered Marylanders to be “their people.” Issuing orders and enforcing them are distinctly different, however, and civilian supplies were “appropriated” liberally by both armies.
As the armies moved on, they left behind more than 6,000 dead. They also left behind unexploded ordnance that would kill some locals. In the wake of the armies, visitors would begin to arrive, some out of curiosity, some seeking the wounded or remains of loved ones, but few were looking to help the community recover.
There were more than 33,000 army horses in the community after the battle, horses that needed 141,000 tons of forage and left some 4,100 tons of manure and a like quantity of urine. Flies filled the summer air, and dysentery and typhoid outbreaks began to occur, often killing the youngest. The burials of locals more than doubled from pre-battle rates.
Some residents noted that it seemed almost quiet and lonely once the last soldiers left in November, but momentary panic would return in the summers of 1863 and 1864 when the armies passed again through the area. One resident implored them to “find someplace else to fight.”
As bad as the aftermath was, the next 50-plus years would see residents battling their own government as the bureaucracy moved into town. Told by army commanders “the government will take care of you,” the locals quickly found that was not quite the case. To file a claim, you needed to have a very specific inventory of your losses, be able to prove your loyalty to the Union and the have witnesses attest to your claim. In an area with divided sentiments, this was not easy. Even if you convinced a local inspector, the claim would be sent to the quartermaster and then onto Washington, D.C. where they would often disappear; there was no appeal mechanism. Damage attributed to the Confederates was rejected out-of-hand.
The claims process was still being debated in Congress in 1882, and it was agreed “fairness” required reconsideration. A claimant, though, had to start from scratch, and after 20 years records were gone, memories had faded and many folks had died. The process failed to do much to heal the aged wounds.
In 1913, 51 years after the battle (!), arbitration was still in progress. By that time, many were willing to settle a $10 thousand dollar claim for as little as $600 (which was NOT adjusted for inflation!).
And the feds were not yet done. They appropriated land for a national cemetery and a military park, and the small town seeking to forget was forced to remember as it was continually besieged by veteran reunions, monument dedications and curiosity seekers. Normalcy would never return to those who were living peacefully in Sharpsburg in early September 1862 before the War came and they experienced “the greatest nightmare of their lives.”
June 9th: In the Wake of Antietam: the Loudon Valley Campaign of 1862
