Dunker Church, Antietam Battlefield, MD
Posted by: 
hykesj
N 39° 28.548 W 077° 44.783
18S E 263768 N 4373179
This small unassuming church, belonging to the pacifist Baptist Brethren, had a front row seat at the single bloodiest day of the American Civil War.
Waymark Code: WMT1HM
Location: Maryland, United States
Date Posted: 09/09/2016
Views: 4
The Battle of Antietam (or the Battle of Sharpsburg as it was known in the South) took place on September 17, 1862. In the late summer of that year, Confederate General Robert E. Lee thought it a “propitious time” to invade the North. The Union Army of the Potomac was somewhat in disarray after several defeats and command changes and Lee was hoping to strike a decisive blow. So he moved his Army of Northern Virginia into the State of Maryland west of Washington D.C. General George McClellan was reinstated as commander of the Army of the Potomac and quickly moved his army into western Maryland to confront Lee.
On the evening of September 16, the two armies faced each other along a line that stretched for miles north and east of Sharpsburg, roughly paralleling a small stream known as Antietam Creek. The next morning, the Federals attacked the Confederate left north of Sharpsburg. Later, they attacked the Confederate center and finally the Confederate right east of Sharpsburg in the afternoon. Throughout the day the two armies clashed in the woods and farmlands north and east of Sharpsburg with attacks and counterattacks, advances and repulses and with reserves being brought in, sometimes just in the nick of time to prevent total disaster. After twelve hours the fighting ceased, due in large part to total exhaustion on both sides. Though nothing was gained nor lost, combined casualties were over 22,700 – the most in any one day during the war.
The stamp was part of a series marking the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. It was one of a pair of stamps specifically commemorating the events of 1862 (the other shows the Battle of New Orleans). The design is based on a painting by Thure de Thulstrup, one of several created for the Louis Prang Company of Boston to be used on a series of Civil War-themed prints. Thulstrup graduated from the Royal Swedish Military Academy as an artillery officer and served time in the Franco-Prussian War with the French Foreign Legion. So although he did not witness the actual events (he didn’t arrive in the United States until 1873) he used his past military experience and attention to detail to create realistic images. For instance, although difficult to see on the stamp, the full painting shows the extremely rocky soil in that area of Maryland. This feature of the landscape caused cannon balls to fly off in every direction helping to make Antietam an “artillery hell.”
The exact scene depicted in the painting (and on the stamp) occurred very early in the day with the first wave of Federal attacks from the north. It shows members of General John Gibbon’s brigade pushing confederate soldiers back in front of the Dunker Church. These were westerners from Wisconsin and Indiana who had gained some notoriety (and a nickname: “the Iron Brigade”) by distinguished service in earlier battles. The painting is a little romanticized since I don’t believe they actually got that close to the church. The gains made by the Iron Brigade were short-lived however as Confederate General John Hood’s division arrived to repulse the attack and drive the Federals back into a cornfield that lay just north of the church. This cornfield saw considerable action changing hands several times during the day. Such was the carnage in that cornfield that one observer later remarked that you could have walked from one side to the other without ever touching the ground by stepping from body to body.
The Dunker Church, seen clearly on the stamp belonged to a group of German Baptists who practiced baptism by total immersion in water (hence the name “Dunker”). It was built in 1852 and although it survived the battle that day it collapsed during a wind storm in 1921. It was rebuilt in time for the battle’s centennial in 1962 using as much original material as possible.
Stamp Issuing Country: United States
Date of Issue: 24-April-2012
Denomination: (45 cents)
Color: multicolored
Stamp Type: Single Stamp
Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]
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