Who Defended the Bridge?

The other evening our neighborhood friend who owns the Antietam Ironworks Inn asked me to use my fine Googling skills to find out which general defended the Antietam Ironworks bridge during the battle.  (He wasn't sure that in fact someone did, but he was under the impression that someone had.)
Unfortunately, I did not come up with a name or even that the bridge played any role in the battle except that Rebel troops crossed it in their journey to support Lee at Sharpsburg.  However, my short search did find that companies from the 13th Massachusetts camped here for a bit in 1861 (a year before the battle).  The letters at this site are very interesting glimpses into the soldiers' lives. I especially enjoyed a letter from James B. Noyes; apparently, the most memorable part of being in Antietam Village was the vicious attack of fleas!

Modern day defenders watching over the bridge

Early Morels

It's an extra early season for mountain morel mushrooms, but they are, in fact, here and as delicious as usual!  Due to the extraordinarily warm end of winter and early spring, the daffodils, forsythia, redbud, dogwood, and morel are all popping, and we aren't complaining one bit!  Usually these guys don't make their appearance until around the second week in April; be sure to check out these two other posts for proof.

Spring in the Hollow

This was taken last week; the daffodils are quickly wilting away now. 

"For oft, when on my couch I lie
   In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
   Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

~Wordsworth 

The forsythia are quickly turning from brilliant yellow to lime green.

"The forsythia sings against a chorus

of green, yet the hue of winter looms."

~ Rosemary Royston

 

This is Bradford Pear, right?  This tree is along our northside fence row.

"no flower ever opened   
so staunch a white leaf,   
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver"

~ Hilda Doolittle

The redbud are beautiful right now.

"I will go, I said, to the country

When the red-bud blooms in the spring

And then, as of old, for sheer rapture

My heart will sing."

~ May Frink Converse

The dogwood are my favorite.

"But high o'er all the early floral train,
Where softness all the arching sky resumes,
The dogwood dancing to the winds' refrain,
In stainless glory spreads its snowy blooms."

~ George Marion McClellan

 

Antietam Sunrise

Life has proven extraordinarily busy lately, but when a sunrise like this presents itself, I'd be a fool not to slow down for a moment to take a shot.  I took this on our way to Hagerstown one morning last week during our usual hectic routine.  This is looking east (obviously) off Rt. 65 just north of the Battleview Market.

Anymore

Sometimes I hear something, see something, feel something,

and wonder why I'm not part of that - 

not doing that - 

not that

anymore.