General Lee's Rock at the Antietam National Cemetery: Unknown Antietam 159

hey everybody here we are in the antietam national cemetery and i thought this was obscure and unknown antietam and yet we've done numerous videos here in fact i will particularly draw your attention to one of the anniversary's anniversary videos i think three years ago where we were with wayne motts and we were breaking out artifacts from the battle and there was a soldier named darling who was kind of new to the army and he died at antietam and wayne brought out his stenciled backpack and brought it back to his headstone um you know that was probably the first time that backpack had been back to antietam since the civil war so it's particularly meaningful moment and i'll encourage you to come back and watch those videos or if you're ever here for the anniversary come here and you can hear the names of those who've perished here um listed by rangers and volunteers here in the cemetery it's particularly meaningful and i think it would be great if you did but one thing we've never really covered in all of our cemetery programs as far as i remember is something that we don't know as much about as i would like and i think i'm about to double my knowledge when dennis comes on here and that is sort of the legend and myth and truth of lee's rock was lee in this cemetery was there a rock associated with him what happened to it dennis frye save historic antietam foundation so gary i have an artifact with me and i want you to help me hold on to it here for a moment this is an original map showing the antietam national cemetery uh it was done for the antietam national cemetery board and it was actually done in 1867 um so right after the war and in fact uh the the cemetery opened in 1867 so it is it is so current with what's happened here with the removal of the union dead and re-burial of them here in this plot this was not a cemetery at the time of the battle in fact at the time of the battle this is held by the confederates in fact the union army never takes this position on september 17th or september 18th so there's an interesting irony that the united states soldiers are actually buried on ground that was held by general lee and the army northern virginia all day on the 15th 16th 17th and 18th before lee finally withdrew very very interesting irony but it's high ground it's beautiful the mountains surround us it's just outside of sharksburg and most of you've been here but there's something very interesting on this map this artifact so here's the main entrance which you all come in right here and here's the the famous lodge building now it's changed since what you see here but that's where the lodge building is and then you would come back the avenue now old simon would be right here now he's not there on this map they planned for him but he hasn't even been sculpted yet that's the great big statue that stands in the middle of the national cemetery that gary has spoken to you about previously but we're not going there we're going to come through the main entrance back the avenue and then come here to the right now to further understand where you are this section right here is for new york dead and this section here pardon me apartment this is pennsylvania dead here and new york dead here they're the biggest sections of the cemetery because they had the most troops the most men mortally wounded or killed here at antietam so come along here the kind of this circular path coming over here and notice this little this little thing right here that's called lee's rock in fact it's even identified over here uh as general lee's rock general lee's rock there it is but what in the world well let's take a look here we are this is general lee's rock and you say okay dennis you spent too much time with gary there's no rock all i see is grass there's no boulder there's no evidence of any rock you just spent way too much time with gary edelman he's addled your brains actually no this is the site of a massive boulder a massive boulder that was here in the what would become the antietam national cemetery and local tradition holds that general lee stood upon this rock during the battle and helped give orders and commands from this position now there's there's opportunity to believe that because we're located in general lee's right center we are on high ground we are behind confederate lines we especially are behind confederate artillery positions that are pointing and firing an opposition to union artillery off to our east so lee this might be a good point for him to be especially if the rock is somewhat elevated so lee's rock well think of this generally venerated even though the army of northern virginia and the confederacy loses the civil war general lee is heroic to the point of mythical and so this rock takes on mythical proportion and it's gone it's not here what happened to it we certainly haven't had enough geologic evolution for the weather to wear it away so why is it no longer here well the answer is around you the answers around you look at all these stones these stones not the stone of lee's rock but these headstones of hundreds well thousands of union soldiers buried here now is there a problem having lee's rock in a national cemetery dedicated to union soldiers is is there some incongruity perhaps that just doesn't feel quite right about having the enemy commander here at this monument to him a natural monument this natural stone iconic for general lee overlooking his opposition the enemy the army that he was trying to kill and this is evidence of how much success he and the confederates had in killing united states soldiers well it's 1866 the wars just ended and even in 1866 this becomes controversial the national cemetery has been established we're taking dead union soldiers off the field where they were buried in 1862 and removing their remains here and placing them in these nice neat rows by state and here's lee's rock and even in 1866 and 1867 this is a tourist attraction people are coming to stand where robert e lee stood people are actually chipping away at lee's rock taking away souvenirs taking it home with them i have a piece of lee's rock at antietam so the antietam national cemetery board has a dual problem here it's its issue is we have union veterans buried here and we have robert e lee memorialized here not by human hand but by mother nature and just by the very fact that lee himself apparently stood here during the battle so why is it gone well generally was too much we can't have general lee at least in 1867 and 1868 the war is so close and so near wounds are still so fresh reconciliation is still kind of far away we're in the midst of reconstruction that's not a happy period in american history and so the decision is made not unanimously by the board so after a lot of debate the decision is made obliterate these rocks we need to remove it and make it go away forever well that created a lot of controversy there were people said no no no no you that's not right we shouldn't obliterate history if lee was there and lee used the rock we should keep that as a future reference point and talk about general lee at antietam and use that particular point to indicate that lee was actually here and to discuss what he does here so there was a strong argument not to remove the rock but emotions were high emotions were strong emotions were powerful and eventually in 1868 the prevailing emotion was and the decision became eliminate the rock it must go and so this early natural monument that general lee never intended to be a monument became a point of controversy in 1866 1867 1868 what do we do with general lee's rock and now you can see this isn't done by anybody in the 21st century this clearance wasn't done by anybody in the 20th century this was done by people who lived antietam who experienced the battle local citizens and by the antietam cemetery board that decided it's best to have general lee removed from the national cemetery while the remains of men who fought here against him are removed to this location thanks dennis very well put and i think very good to put us into the mind that maybe we don't live in the only time today where things like this are controversial we are passing through um you know one particular moment in time when in fact as long as there's been monuments as long as there's been markers as long as there's been tablets there's been controversy over them so think about that um and engage positively with us on the subject if you'd like to um and thank you so much for watching and of course for supporting battlefield preservation and education you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 5,392

Rating: 4.8814816 out of 5

Keywords: American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trust, unknown antietam, 159th anniversary of antietam, antietam battlefield tour, antietam video tour, unknown civil war

Id: FEZfam48BVo

Length: 11min 3sec (663 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021