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[James Wright] At our coming we had found an
old-fashioned country neighborhood,
the people living in peace.
We left it with homes, fields and forests
marred, shattered devastated, and ruined.
More than 400 Minnesotans fought at
the Battle of Antietam
near Sharpsburg, Maryland on
September 17, 1862
the bloodiest single day of
any war in American history.
Today, thousands of visitors annually
retrace the steps of Civil War soldiers.
Antietam National Battlefield is
one of the most pristine battlefields
in the National Park Service inventory.
You can go out and behold the battlefield
and see it the way it looked 150 years ago.
Eighteen months into the Civil War,
this is first time Confederate forces
invade the North.
Farms and factories in the South have
been badly damaged, and Lee desperately
needs to resupply his army.
The Confederates have established
a one-thousand mile front
from Chesapeake Bay to the Mississippi River.
If Lee plays his cards right,
Maryland could become a star
on the Confederate flag.
President Lincoln leaves nothing to chance.
He has suspended the writ of habeas corpus
meaning that criminal suspects
can be held without being charged
and prevented the state's
legislature from meeting.
Looking backwards over our shoulders,
he's the great Emancipator,
but if you look at a map
you know why Abraham Lincoln is
treading so heavily
on the people of Maryland.
That's because if Maryland falls,
Washington falls.
The First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry
is part of the Second Corps.
Under the command of Colonel Alfred Sully,
it is organized into 10 companies
along with the 2nd Minnesota Sharpshooters.
Minnesotans had been the first to volunteer
for the Union Army, and by now,
they are battle-tested.
Up early the morning of September 17, 1862,
they will cross Antietam Creek, a cornfield
and a major crossroads before encountering
the Confederates in the West Woods.
The First Minnesota Infantry is moving
closer and closer to the fight,
and now they emerge on what would have been
an awesome, bloody scene
on the morning of the battle.
The dead and wounded lay thick,
many begging us for a drink of water,
others telling us not to tread on them
and it was difficult to march over
the ground without stepping on some man.
In the space of four hours in this field here,
8000 casualties.
We're at the western edge of the cornfield.
The regiment is still in a line
moving towards the West Woods.
They're going to hit the Hagerstown Pike.
This is one of the most
famous fences in the Civil War.
There's many pictures by Alexander Gardner
of Louisiana soldiers tangled up in this fence.
Sully finally leads the regiment into the West Woods.
It is about this time that
Lee's reserves begin
to hit the First Minnesota hard,
and the men begin to fall
in the Confederate fire.
The man to my right gave a quick "Oh!"
and dropped his hands onto the part
of his body that had been hit.
but dropping his gun
he was able to limp to the rear.
And a splinter from the rail of my fence,
hitting me in the face said: "You're next."
The West Woods was the furthest advance
for the First Minnesota before the order
to retreat and regroup.
They're retreating through these series
of rock ledges and fences, back towards
the North Woods part of the battlefield.
When we were only about half-way
up the slight rise of ground
over which we were retreating,
Sully gave the order to face and fire,
with the result that a solid volley from about
three hundred muskets poured
into the following enemy
and caused a quite appreciable
check to their oncoming.
The single day's battle resulted
in more than 23,000 casualties,
with heavy losses on both sides.
If the horrors of war cannot be seen
on this battlefield,
they can't be seen anywhere.
Charley Goddard spoke for thousands of men
who fought at this place.
The first Minnesota brought
435 men to this battlefield.
Seventeen were killed, 79 were wounded
and 24 were missing.
That's over one in four men who never
made it out of here intact.
At a terrific cost, Lee's invasion
of the north had failed.
His army retreated to southern soil.
After waiting months for a Union victory,
Lincoln used the opportunity to issue
a preliminary version
of the Emancipation Proclamation
on September 22, 1862.
150 years later, Minnesotans continue to remember
the men who fought at Antietam.
Edmund Sampare, enlisted as a private
on September 30, 1861.
He was killed in the cornfield.
We have to, as the citizens of our state,
do everything that we can to make sure that
we're preserving these gravesites and gravestones,
so future generations can be reminded,
can remember and then they can
interpret this for themselves.
When we talk about decisive battles and
turning points in the war,
Antietam was near the top of the list,
because, for the first time,
freedom becomes an objective of the war.