Antietam National Cemetery: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Antietam National Battlefield

Paula Reed and Associates, Inc.

At the east end of the Town of Sharpsburg, on a hilltop is the Antietam National Cemetery. The cemetery stands out for its concentration of evergreen trees, predominantly Norway spruce and hemlock, which are not native to the area. The cemetery lies along the south side of Maryland Route 34, the Boonsboro-Shepherdstown Pike, opposite the Sharpsburg town cemetery. A limestone wall, dating from 1867, rebuilt in 1939, encloses the 10-acre cemetery and its landscaped grounds on the east, south and west. An iron fence atop a low stone base demarcates the north side of the cemetery along the highway. Elaborate cast iron gates open for pedestrians were originally designed for horse drawn carriages to enter the grounds. Just inside the gates is a limestone Gothic Revival lodge designed by architect Paul Pelz and constructed in 1867. From a brick-surfaced plaza area inside the gates, grassy avenues divide the burial area into quadrants, intersecting at the base of the 1880 US Soldier Monument, a granite statue designed by J.G. Batterson. Rows of graves are arranged by state with several sections reserved for unknown soldiers. The arrangement forms a horseshoe shape; the largest section is dedicated to New York and Pennsylvania. Uniform rows of gravestones, white marble tablets with segmental arched tops mark each grave with either a name or a number, embossed on an indented shield. Graves in the northwest section of the cemetery are post-Civil War era. There are more than 200 of these later burials including veterans and their wives from the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War. In the southwest there are segregated graves for African American veterans of World War I. East of the lodge is a brick speakers’ rostrum, an open rised platform with brick columns supporting a system of horizontal beams. Quartermaster Gen. Montgomery Meigs designed the 1879 rostrum. In the northwest section of the cemetery enclosure is the “new” lodge, a bungalow built in 1927 and now used for administrative offices. The north enclosure of the cemetery consists of an original iron fence with ornamental iron gates. Other landscaping includes a number of varieties of deciduous trees, predominantly hemlocks, sugar maples, Norway spruce, flowering dogwoods, and Kentucky coffee trees that date to the original planting in the 1860s, as well as to the 1930s, 1970s and 1980s. Approximately 65 trees survive in the current inventory (2002) from before the 1934 tree census. Some of those may date from the original or early planting efforts. The 2002 tree inventory counts 250 trees in the cemetery. The surviving oldest trees include hemlocks, sugar maples, silver maples, Norway spruce, dogwood, horse chestnut, arbor vitae, white pine, larch and baldcyprus. In 1869 Board of Trustee minutes indicate that 500 evergreens and 650 deciduous trees were planted. In 2003 storms caused 15 trees to be removed from the cemetery. In general, the cemetery is in fair condition. The various historic photographs accompanying this report, along with narrative descriptions from past showing that the cemetery has changed a great deal over its history, yet retains many character-defining features: its original layout, vegetation arrangement, much planting material, the perimeter wall, lodge and the graves. It retains integrity of location, design setting, materials, feeling and association. The period of significance for the Antietam National Cemetery extends from its initial development in 1865 to its closure in 1953.

Antietam National Cemetery: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Antietam National Battlefield

Series

Collections