Photos Of Burnside Bridge

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
Had not realized there were more than a few photos of the famous Burnside Bridge, the center of so much during the battle of Antietam

" Even with a numerical advantage, the difficult terrain and stubborn Confederate defense kept Burnside from capturing this critical Antietam crossing for three hours. After the Bridge was captured it took another two hours to cross the Ninth Corps and reorganize for the final attack on the Confederate right flank. The delay proved costly, as Confederate reinforcements arrived from Harpers Ferry just as the Federal assault was finally meeting with success. More than 500 Union troops had been killed or wounded attempting to carry the crossing, known ever since as Burnside Bridge. "
http://www.nps.gov/resources/place.htm?id=59

In a simplistic nutshell- an awfully bloody one. Some photos are really well know, others I'd never bumped into- I suppose it's ' just a bridge ', depending on ones perspective kind of a yawn unless this war is under one's skin. Like it is for most here. One of these is a photo of fresh Federal graves right at the bridge- when these men were reinterred I do not know, if they were.



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Federal Graves at Burnside Bridge, how somber

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Had not realized there were more than a few photos of the famous Burnside Bridge, the center of so much during the battle of Antietam

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Federal Graves at Burnside Bridge, how somber

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There is a reason there were so many photos of bridges at Sharpsburg. There were actually 5 bridges in the Sharpsburg area. And photos 1, 3, 4, 5 and 9 are probably of the "Middle Bridge". And it is the only one of the five stone bridges near the battlefield that did not survive to the present. In 1889 after “forty days of rain” which precipitated the Johnston Pennsylvania flood farther north, the piers of the bridge weakened and it began to settle in the high waters. The bridge was condemned and torn down. An iron bridge replaced it before the modern overpass was built. The Hitt Bridge had just two arches and the one built by John Weaver is the only one that had 4 arches. So these photos aren't of those.
 
Bridges like Burnside's pass over the Antietam all through Washington County. Almost all are still in service, but they can only accommodate one vehicle at a time, so you have to wait your turn to cross at times. They were constructed during the early 1800s. Burnside's Bridge carried traffic into the 1960s.
 
I learned a great deal from these photos! I have a gr.gr. uncle who was killed at Burnside's Bridge and have read many soldiers' accounts of it - they speak about the hill on the Union side and descending to the bridge but if go there today it looks different and I have trouble reconciling their descriptions with what I see there today.
The photos helped a great deal -it fits with the soldiers' accounts.
Many thanks for posting these!
 
Bridges like Burnside's pass over the Antietam all through Washington County. Almost all are still in service, but they can only accommodate one vehicle at a time, so you have to wait your turn to cross at times. They were constructed during the early 1800s. Burnside's Bridge carried traffic into the 1960s.


You know, I wondered!! So many of these, and the next batch just do not look as if they'd be the same. Antietam is starting to grow on me, as is Bull Run- these horribly, tragic slaughters endured by the troops. The photo with traffic trundling over one I guess would be the best know- some of these others are just, plain haunting. I'm thinking all the misunderstandings are from LoC and Archives where they're mostly all labeled ' Burnside Bridge '. That's probably the result of what Reading was speaking of, our ' turkey shoot '- the only one we know well? So any bridge labeled ' Antietam '- is THE bridge.

Of course, there's a really informative book...... didn't begin to glue the information together very well until digging around maps and photos.

If any are repeats, please excuse- love to know which ones are THE bridge, this one..

Photo #7 is the one I always remembered the most….the Confederate vantage point….especially if one insists on funneling your troops across that bridge… (creek wasn't even 4 feet deep there)

I'm guessing there's not a better way to put it? Makes me think of Elisha Hunt Rhodes writing, how no way in all Get-Out was anyone getting him on that God-Forsaken bridge, over Bull Run during what could only loosely be described as a ' retreat', Federal troops on their hands and knees- ( I think he did risk it in the end, losing his buddy cut in 2, can't remember ). Maybe not so much as troops being funneled as they just left in a big hurry- no one thinking to swim.

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And thanks very much, information on the bridge ( bridges ) and battle- nothing is as helpful as these threads where pictures are kind of drawn around photos. Can't be the only one where it's extraordinarily helpful, having this stuff explained like this. You hear Antietam described as the bloodiest battle- indeed was, without understanding how all that blood was left behind. Awful.

Can't find the information, does anyone know, were those graves reinterred?
 
You know, I wondered!! So many of these, and the next batch just do not look as if they'd be the same. Antietam is starting to grow on me, as is Bull Run- these horribly, tragic slaughters endured by the troops. The photo with traffic trundling over one I guess would be the best know- some of these others are just, plain haunting. I'm thinking all the misunderstandings are from LoC and Archives where they're mostly all labeled ' Burnside Bridge '. That's probably the result of what Reading was speaking of, our ' turkey shoot '- the only one we know well? So any bridge labeled ' Antietam '- is THE bridge.

Of course, there's a really informative book...... didn't begin to glue the information together very well until digging around maps and photos.

If any are repeats, please excuse- love to know which ones are THE bridge, this one..



I'm guessing there's not a better way to put it? Makes me think of Elisha Hunt Rhodes writing, how no way in all Get-Out was anyone getting him on that God-Forsaken bridge, over Bull Run during what could only loosely be described as a ' retreat', Federal troops on their hands and knees- ( I think he did risk it in the end, losing his buddy cut in 2, can't remember ). Maybe not so much as troops being funneled as they just left in a big hurry- no one thinking to swim.

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Here is an enlargement of the two women and one of the soldiers in the first photo, Annie. It is from John Bank's Civil War Blog. Hardtack and coffee is not exactly a great picnic lunch. He talks about the group:

... detail in this enlargement of the picnic image is so impressive that even pieces of hardtack can be seen in the hands of the women on the boat. The woman at left may have even taken a bite of hers. A man, perhaps a soldier, stirs something in a container held by the woman on the right. Were they aware of the pain and suffering nearby? Did they care? Who were they? Their names and their stories are lost to history.

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http://john-banks.blogspot.com/search/label/Antietam up close
 
And thanks very much, information on the bridge ( bridges ) and battle- nothing is as helpful as these threads where pictures are kind of drawn around photos. Can't be the only one where it's extraordinarily helpful, having this stuff explained like this. You hear Antietam described as the bloodiest battle- indeed was, without understanding how all that blood was left behind. Awful.

Can't find the information, does anyone know, were those graves reinterred?
I'm fairly sure the graves were interred. There was a cemetary dedicated at Antietam as at Gettysburg with the intention of reinterring those soldiers buried on the battlefield.
I've been to that same spot on the off side of Burnsides Bridge - there's a monument to some killed in the assault on the bridge but no grave markers at all.
 
I'm fairly sure the graves were interred. There was a cemetary dedicated at Antietam as at Gettysburg with the intention of reinterring those soldiers buried on the battlefield.
I've been to that same spot on the off side of Burnsides Bridge - there's a monument to some killed in the assault on the bridge but no grave markers at all.

Yes, the graves were relocated into the National Cemetery at Sharpsburg. Big caveat of course is that now and then they discover remains where they were initially buried, but missed when others were disinterred right after the war. The latest was in 2008, in the North Woods area just off the Cornfield foot trail. Groundhog brought a human jawbone to the surface and a hiker found it. The remains were of a teenager from New York (NY buttons) and he was returned to New York in 2009. In the 1980s they discovered several Irish Brigade members near the Sunken Road - they are in the National Cemetery now.
 
If you are looking at a photo of a bridge at Antietam with buildings in the photo, you are looking at the Middle Bridge, now gone. There were no buildings near Burnside's Bridge and still aren't. Several of the houses are still there, tho, including the Newcomer House which is now a visitors center on the west side of the bridge and the house closest to the camera in the next to last photo in post 9, which is a private home now, on the east side of the bridge.

The Upper Bridge has some buildings nearby, but it was seldom photographed and it's tough to get a photo of it now because of vegetative growth, but it is still there and still carries traffic. If you want to go find it, take Mansfield Road (meets the tour road at Mansfield's monument) and keep going around all the twists and turns and you will come to it in a few miles. To get back the easy way, cross the bridge and keep going - the road intersects with the Boonsboro Pike at Keadysville - take a right and you will go right back into Sharpsburg over the current Middle Bridge.
 
The top photo in post 9, of the picnickers, is the Middle Bridge, according to Frassanito, and you can tell by looking at it that it is not Burnside's. Burnside's Bridge peaks between two arches while the Middle Bridge peaked at the middle arch, which is what is in the photo.
 
FYI, in the photo of the soldier standing by the wall at Burnside's Bridge, you can see a lot of foliage from a tree at the very left side of the photo. That is the witness tree, the sycamore that still stands. BIG tree!
 
By the way….side note…..The Antietam creek through the Battlefield, is a great canoe trip….I've done it a couple times…fun anytime….but at the same time of year…late summer into early fall….it's gorgeous.
 
Bridges like Burnside's pass over the Antietam all through Washington County. Almost all are still in service, but they can only accommodate one vehicle at a time, so you have to wait your turn to cross at times. They were constructed during the early 1800s. Burnside's Bridge carried traffic into the 1960s.

Agreed, there are one lane bridges all over the area. I did some work out in Hagerstown and my route took me through Funkstown and other areas cris-crossing Antietam creek in several places and there were one lane bridges all over. I never minded the commute because once I got out there, I drove past many markers and houses used as hospitals. One such marker was across from the office building, reminding me everyday of Longstreet gathering his troops to march to Sharpsburg
 
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