The stone observatory on the Bloody lane is now finished and ready for visitors. The view from this point alone is worth a visit to the famous Bloody lane as you can take in the entire right to the left nearly four miles. There will be, when all planted, nearly four hundred markers, giving one a good idea of the entire battle field with the advantage of the good roads. Every body ought to visit it and make a study of this great battle.
Where did O.T. Reilly live?
Submitted by StephenRecker on Fri, 03/23/2012 - 8:41pm
John Schildt gave his wonderful Antietam Hospitals talk at the Hagerstown Civil War Round table last night. I get giddy before I hear John speak because he is one of those rare storytellers who really takes you back in time. He did not disappoint.
Before the talk he asked me if I knew where O.T. Reilly's childhood Keedysville home was. I told him that when I only had a few clues, some from his grand-daughter and some from old newspapers. I remembered that in 1933 he wrote a whole biopic in the Shepherdstown Register. I told John I would check it out and see what I could find.
The best part of this biopic is the reason he wrote it. In 1933 the National Park Service took over the Antietam Battlefield Site. One of the first things they did was try to get the townspeople were giving tours to take a test. Well, O.T., "the eye-witness guide" had been giving tours for almost 60 years and was not about to let that happen. So, he took his case to the paper. He already wrote a weekly column, so he decided to use this venue to let people know exactly who he was and tell them about his amazing experiences as a child at the time of the Battle of Antietam.
I will be transcribing his biopic over the next few weeks. But it all started with this.
About
Hello. I'm Stephen Recker and welcome to my blog. In it I will be discussing the different projects I am working on related to the American Civil War with a focus on photography related to the battle of Antietam. I am particularly interested in how the battlefield has been interpreted throughout the years. I will be discussing how it was done then and how new technologies can be brought to bear to bring life to those old materials as well as new ones. See the 99 Places Every Antietam Battlefield Guide Should Know.
Sharpsburg Items
Antietam Valley Record
Thursday, September 5, 1895