Long Working Week

When I look up and notice I haven’t posted an entry since Sunday, it is a bad sign that the day job is overtaking my hobbies! 

It hasn’t been all work this week.  I can sort of announce victory on the Antietam Project.  After 354 marker entries, five on site visits, and probably in excess of 1000 photos, I have entered all but 25 stray missing War Department tablets into the HMDB site.  Fittingly, I saved Old Simon for last.  Most of these are browsed through the Sharpsburg geographic grouping, but some of the tablets, monuments, and markers are at South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, and Shepherdstown.  I’ve done some updates along the way to the Antietam Marker List, and should get that dressed out this weekend.  One more addition I think should be made, however, is a listing of the various markers (Civil War Trails in particular) covering the route of the campaign – from Chantilly to Shepherdstown.  I’d really like to do more with the lead up to the Battle of Antietam.  In particular my curiosity is piqued regarding the cavalry skirmishing around Sugarloaf Mountain and the Crampton’s Gap fight.  So this might be a launching board for more research beyond the markers.

I also spent some time this week in the Official Records chasing down some names.  The Antietam Battlefield Board maps, which are a near indispensable resource by the way, show several Confederate formations along the Boonsboro Pike that don’t directly match to War Department Markers.  In particular, in the morning phases a skirmish line under “Twiggs” is shown to the south of the Pike, near where the picnic area is today.  Well “Twiggs” doesn’t match with any brigade or regimental commanders.  The only reference I’ve seen is to a Captain from Evans’ Brigade.  From scant OR references it seems “Twiggs” and the U.S Regulars were having a spirited skirmish all through the morning and past noon.  Unfortunately, that’s all I have for now.  It’s like a thread hanging off the edge of the desk, I’ll just have to follow it and see where it goes. 

Lastly, I had some time to track down one of the new markers in Loudoun County.  A state marker to the Loudoun Branch, Manassas Gap Railroad was placed in a rather remote location to the west of Leesburg (actually south of Purcellville, but Leesburg for better or worse my datum point).  The subject of the marker deals with a railroad line built from the Manassas Gap main line out into Loudoun Valley.  The hope of the railroad was to continue through Snickers Gap and on to Harpers Ferry.  The interesting “what if” for this marker deals with the construction halt in 1857.  Had the Loudoun Branch been reality in 1861, this would have changed the operational geometry of the First Manassas campaign.  Instead of marching to Piedmont Station, Jackson might have rode the cars all the way.  Ol’ Jack wouldn’t have stood guard while the men rested at Ashby’s Gap.  And another side point, the rolling stock Jackson captured at Harpers Ferry, could have been quickly impressed to the Confederate cause, instead of only limited amounts being transported by alternate means to the main line at Strasburg, Va.  Just food for thought. 

Onward if not upward.