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 is Mechanicstown Bridge?
Submitted by StephenRecker on Sun, 05/26/2013 - 9:46pm
Ever since I deduced that the flurry of rare images taken at Antietam that started in 1877 was due to photographers buying cameras to take pictures of tourists brought to Pen Mar by the Western Maryland Railroad, I have been walking the tracks over South Mountain trying to find where Recher took his WMR images. Most interesting is a large bridge over Owens Creek, just west of Thurmont. I have driven under it, my second time being today, but have not made it up on the tracks yet to take a modern image.
Today, when I was choosing an image to toss on this post I noticed that a few said Mechanicstown Bridge. Could this be a different bridge? I did some research and discovered that during the Civil War, Thurmont was often called Mechanicstown by officers in their reports. Now, back in the day I read a lot of Gettysburg books, but do not remember it being referred to as anything other than Thurmont. The little town is spoken of a lot during Meade's advance to Gettysburg, but truth be told, slogging though the same story of his advance at the beginning of every single Gettysburg book is something that I came to consider tedious, so I could have easily missed the reference, my eyes glossing over...
So, has anyone heard Thurmont being called Mechanicstown?
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