DESCRIPTION: The cache is a small plastic food container with a purple snap on lid. It is labeled "Geocache #1." The cache contains a log sheet but does not have a pen/pencil. BYOP please. Since the container is small, don't leave swag unless you absolutely must, but please do sign the log and then log your find on the app.
This is cache #1 on a tour of Sharpsburg that explores the Civil War history of the town and the people that lived back then. While the history is nearly forgotten, remnants of that history have emerged over time, and people in the town tell and retell mysterious stories about images of Civil War soldiers who still wander the streets and alleys.
The caches, although hidden, are not difficult to find. Since the containers are small, don't leave swag unless you absolutely must, but please do sign the log and then log your find on the app. If you find every cache on the tour you will be rewarded at the last one with cool giveaway swag to keep as a memory of your visit to this important Civil War town. Ready? Here we go.
Sharpsburg, Maryland, looks about as tired and sleepy as any other small American village, with small homes tightly hugging the sidewalks and traffic that, for most of each day except during the evening rush, moves slowly over paved roads. Walking the streets and alleys here makes it difficult to remember that the town and its people suffered through days of warfare and months and years of personal tragedy after the events of September 1862. In those days, death came at large to the town via the battle, the graves of the dead lined the roads and houses filled with wounded of both sides and became, by definition if nothing else, hospitals—or morgues. No good episode of war is complete without accompanying sickness, and Sharpsburg was not spared that either. It came, it lingered and it took by death many townspeople in the months following. But there was more. Unexploded artillery shells were founds for years after the battle, and their discoveries, although not predictable, certainly came with predictable consequences. The crops ruined by the armies brought a scarcity of food to Sharpsburg that drove hunger to extremes, requiring the support of neighboring areas to step forward and offer basic commodities. Finally, there were bodies to contend with. They were everywhere in field graves and were mostly exposed when the dirt settled around the corpses.
Like it or not, these elements contributed to an atmosphere ripe for stories of mysterious and unexplainable happenings. This geocache tour ties them together and tries to set a context for them by reviewing and considering known historical events. It is an extension of research about the people of Sharpsburg and their role in history on Americas’ bloodiest day, September 17, 1862, that started in the early 1980s. After reading firsthand accounts of unnamed persons who stayed in Sharpsburg and witnessed the battle there, I became intrigued with the idea of discovering their identities by nuances and personal details that were parts of their stories. One of the persons was a boatman on the C&O Canal. Another was a former slave, while a third was the daughter of a master blacksmith. Small but important clues like these allowed first steps toward identification, but progress was only allowed at rare intervals, because so much of my time was committed to commuting to work and attending law school in the evening. Genealogical research was different and more difficult back then, but time has eased the difficulty and made the necessary research data more accessible.
Travels to the Antietam Battlefield were replaced by visits to Sharpsburg. I spent many hours walking streets and alleys admiring original structures, including large limestone homes, low one-story cabins, two-story brick buildings, small sheds, barns and barn stables. My interest, of course, was to find battle wounds that were inflicted long ago. Chips in bricks and mortar were stared at and scrutinized. Knotholes in planks and boards were probed. I tried to see the features of every possible structure from every possible angle. Eaves, shutters and foundations of the buildings there became well known to me.
Sometimes, curious people would stop and talk. Mostly though, I stopped them and began our chats by mentioning the weather conditions or the dogs they walked. Polite, impromptu talks about little things like that usually turned into conversations about why I was staring at the side of a building, and then another of type of conversation would take place. People would open up and talk about their town and themselves. From chance meetings like these, I learned that the people of Sharpsburg have stories to tell, and for lack of any better term, let’s call them ghost stories. In a period of over thirty years, the sidewalk conversations continued and revealed dozens of stories of unusual happenings, sightings and encounters. It seemed that anyone who lived in Sharpsburg had an unusual story, and every building, too. Although the conversations and meetings were enjoyable, thoroughly pleasant and interesting, my primary mission remained focused on individual persons and their identities.
With the inception of the internet, barriers to information access were removed, and research became possible without taking time off from work or making long drives on weekends. Finally, firm identifications were made, and individual stories about the events in Sharpsburg on September 17, 1862, came to life. In some instances, possible origins connecting oft repeated stories about sightings of Confederate soldiers and children of past eras were revealed by documented history. A conundrum ensued: what to do with them and their historical connections?
Partial inspiration and a new direction came from our involvement with a community theater group in Hagerstown. After a year or so of participation, I wrote a play about the people of Sharpsburg and their roles in gathering the dead from the battlefield and establishing permanent cemeteries. The concept was presented to the board of directors as an option for production in the fall 2010 season, and it was accepted. A strong cast was assembled, and the show went to stage for three nights. The formative plan I hoped for was to present the show at other venues as an educational opportunity for schools and historical tourism. Some inroads were made but not enough came through because the show had a large cast, and the cost to present it made the idea impractical. To make the story workable, I would have had to pare down the cast to a minimum—one seemed like the best possible number. Because the history of the people of Sharpsburg sometimes had roots in stories we already knew, the combination of the two gave rise to a Sharpsburg Civil War ghost tour in 2012. We prepare for our eighth as we launch this geocache tour.
Sharpsburg has a legacy of great history and great storytellers who have handed down descriptions of important events and persons. O.T. Reilly, Wilmer Mumma and Lee Barron each made noteworthy contributions. History can sometimes be precarious to handle or explain well if taken from only one point of view. But sometimes only one point of view exists or is known, and the view through only one lens is usually a narrow one. Still, we lose something if we ignore such accounts, and a moderate, rounded view can be maintained merely by understanding personal dynamics, relationships and experiences.
Sound stewardship of history is critical, particularly to a place like Sharpsburg, unbent by commercialism and mostly intact despite historical tourism. And yet there are differences among the presentation of history here, with the dominant view isolating the military history from its impact on the community it devastated, while another perspective gathers in and attempts to understand that impact by combining eyewitness accounts, personal experience and the logical consequences and resulting folklore.
This geocache tour is intended to entertain those who love Sharpsburg, the Battle of Antietam, mysterious folklore and the drama of storytelling. We hope you enjoy the geocache hunt!
Is Sharpsburg, Maryland America’s Most Haunted Civil War Town? Perhaps. The conclusion is admittedly bold and yet may be justifiable because the volume of sightings of soldiers here is unlike any other American Civil War town. The number of phenomena and their frequency of occurrence in Sharpsburg are staggering and distinctly disproportionate to the population and the postage stamp size of the town. You won’t likely meet anyone from Sharpsburg without a story to share. Confederate soldiers are routinely sighted moving in every section of the town, on every street and every alley and in every block. Time of day does not matter, and regular sightings occur just after dawn, during midday, in late evening before dark and, of course, throughout the late night and early morning hours. Seasons do not seem to matter either, as regular occurrences and sightings in Sharpsburg are noted throughout the year, although they seem to be incredibly abundant in the period from mid-September to mid-November. There are single soldiers and troops marching, wounded soldiers, officers on horseback, wagons and carts, mules, caissons and artillery. The incredible volume and variety of reported sightings is enough to convince anyone that there are spirits here that never left when Lee’s army ended the fierce engagement at Antietam during the overnight period from September 18 to 19, 1862. The movements of the current sightings takes them in the same direction and along the same paths followed by Lee’s army when it fled to the west to cross the Potomac. The carnage and desolation in Sharpsburg from the Battle of Antietam plagued the town’s residents with disease, famine and death for months and years following the Civil War. Though today Sharpsburg appears peaceful and serene, a mysterious undercurrent of unrest lies beneath the surface and arises from time to time, particularly in late summer and fall.
Do the spirits of hastily buried soldiers still linger in the streets and alleys looking for repose or a way home? Or are the bloodshed and terrors from long ago imprinted in the foundations and atmosphere of the village for all time? This geocache tour, based on over thirty five years of historical research, follows closely the history and tours presented by Sharpsburg Civil War Ghost Tours. It describes events that unfolded in Sharpsburg and holds historical accounts of its citizens, and connects them to myths and fables linked to peculiar happenings that have been reported. What ever happened to the body of Charley King, the youngest soldier to die during the Civil War? Does Jacob McGraw’s ghost still haunt and stumble through the Ghostly Confederate Soldiers’ Passageway? This geocache tour may offer explanations for the origins of these mysteries and more.
DESCRIPTION: The cache is a small plastic food container with a purple snap on lid. It is labeled "Geocache #1." The cache contains a log sheet but does not have a pen/pencil. BYOP please, Enjoy the tour and grab a cool swag when you finish!