Another educational Civil War tour for Club members in the books

Forty-seven National Press Club members and guests enjoyed an educational and entertaining tour Saturday, Sept. 8, of Antietam National Battlefield, the Maryland site of the bloodiest one-day engagement in U.S. military history, in the 14th annual trip hosted for the Club by the Civil War/American Battlefield Trust.

Garry Adelman, the Trust's Director of History and Education, joined the busload of visitors from Washington at the National Park Service's battlefield visitor's center near Sharpsburg, Md., for a colorful five-hour excursion through what on Sept. 17, 1862, was the site of a 12-hour battle between nearly 100,000 Union and Confederate soldiers. Some 23,000 were killed, wounded or declared missing before the guns went silent and the Confederates retreated south across the Potomac River.

Adelman's enthusiasm and through knowledge of the battle and the era in which it was fought brought to life the horrific clash between some 40,000 Confederate and 60,000 Union soldiers under the leadership of many of the Civil War's top generals, including Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, James Longstreet and A.P. Hill for the South and George McClellan, Joseph Hooker, Edwin Sumner and Ambrose Burnside for the North.

While the battle failed to provide either side with a clear victory, Adelman noted that it proved significant in several ways. Thwarting Lee's invasion of the North facilitated Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and deterred Great Britain from intervening for the Confederacy. The battle also demonstrated the effectiveness of the Army of the Potomac's newly adopted ambulance corps and triage system.

A cool drizzle did not deter trip participants from visiting battlefield landmarks such as Dunker Church, Bloody Lane and Burnside Bridge in what has become a popular Club program arranged since 2005 by Club member James Noone. The Trust, which provides transportation, guides and a boxed lunch for Club participants, is a non-government entity working to purchase and preserve private land at historic battlefields that might otherwise be developed. It's original focus on Civil War sites has expanded to include Revolutionary War and other U.S. battle sites.

Saturday's trip was the program's best-attended and the third to Antietam. Other area battlefields visited include Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, Manassas and Fredericksburg, plus tracing the escape route taken by Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.