On the night of Friday, Dec. 6, we drove up to our campsite at Antietam National Battlefield, in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the middle of pouring rain. After setting up camp, we went to bed. We woke up early Saturday morning, ate a quick breakfast, and drove over to the main part of Antietam, which is where the battle happened, to begin working on the illumination.
A bit of background: In September 1862, during the Civil War, Robert E. Lee launched an invasion of the Union. His army met Union troops at Antietam Creek, outside Sharpsburg. What followed was the bloodiest single-day battle in US history, claiming the lives of 23,210 men. To remember the battle, every year the National Park Service holds the Antietam Illumination, which involves filling many of the fields there with luminaries, which are paper bags containing sand and a candle. There is supposed to be one luminary for everyone who died in the battle. To honor them, the bags are supposed to be in neat rows. To set up and light all the luminaries, the NPS gets Scout troops to volunteer to help.
Our troop was assigned a field, which we filled with about 500 luminaries. It took about five hours to set up all the luminaries. We started lighting them around 2:45, but since it was windy, the bags kept catching fire. Luckily, we had enough extras. After about an hour and a half of trying to make lighters work in the cold and replacing burned luminaries, we went to the cars to wait for it to be dark, so we could drive around and see the luminaries. The park people started letting us go drive around at about 5:00. It was very pretty, but sobering to visualize all the luminaries and think of all the men who died there.
Because there was supposed to be a snowstorm the next morning, we made the decision to go home Saturday night. After a nice dinner, we packed up camp and went home.
A bit of background: In September 1862, during the Civil War, Robert E. Lee launched an invasion of the Union. His army met Union troops at Antietam Creek, outside Sharpsburg. What followed was the bloodiest single-day battle in US history, claiming the lives of 23,210 men. To remember the battle, every year the National Park Service holds the Antietam Illumination, which involves filling many of the fields there with luminaries, which are paper bags containing sand and a candle. There is supposed to be one luminary for everyone who died in the battle. To honor them, the bags are supposed to be in neat rows. To set up and light all the luminaries, the NPS gets Scout troops to volunteer to help.
Our troop was assigned a field, which we filled with about 500 luminaries. It took about five hours to set up all the luminaries. We started lighting them around 2:45, but since it was windy, the bags kept catching fire. Luckily, we had enough extras. After about an hour and a half of trying to make lighters work in the cold and replacing burned luminaries, we went to the cars to wait for it to be dark, so we could drive around and see the luminaries. The park people started letting us go drive around at about 5:00. It was very pretty, but sobering to visualize all the luminaries and think of all the men who died there.
Because there was supposed to be a snowstorm the next morning, we made the decision to go home Saturday night. After a nice dinner, we packed up camp and went home.
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