While other cultural and historical places light up Christmas
trees, Antietam lights up a battlefield. Saturday, December 6,
2008 was the 20th Annual Memorial Illumination Ceremony in which
23,110 lighted candles graced Antietam’s battlefield, one candle
for each soldier killed, wounded, or missing during battle. The
battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 was the bloodiest one-
day battle during the Civil War, the bloodiest day in America’s
history. (Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle but it lasted
three days.) The Yankees kicked back the Confederate army south
of the Potomac, though President Lincoln wasn’t happy that
General George McClellan didn’t follow the retreat and destroy
the Confederate army, as Lincoln had instructed. McClellan’s
reticence cost him his generalship; following orders could have
potentially averted many subsequent deaths during the next three
years of the Civil War. I wasn’t able to visit the illumination
this year, but I did drive down to Antietam a couple weeks ago.
I grabbed a gu