Antietam

After sharing a great breakfast of French toast with strawberries with our friend Dave, Nicole and I hopped in the car for a short trip. This weekend's destination was the Antietam battlefield.

Let me tell you, it sure felt weird to be enjoying a pleasant walk on a sunny day through fields where more than 20,000 people had been killed or maimed in a single day.



I don't know what else to say about that.

One thought that did keep coming up: The leaders of the Confederate army were clearly much better than the leaders of the Federal army. Here's how you can tell: The Federal army outnumbered the Confederate army 2 to 1. They had better artillery. And - here's the biggie - they had a copy of the Confederate army's battle plans.

That's a sizable advantage.

But check out the final tally.
- Confederate losses: 10,700
- Federal losses: 12,410

Not an impressive "victory" for the Feds, but apparently it was enough to push Robert E. Lee back into Virginia, and prevented Great Britain from officially recognizing the Confederate government.

There was one cool thing I wanted to get in the bookstore. It was a CD-ROM with an animated, minute-by-minute overview of troop movements. Basically it was gave an aerial view of the battlefield, and you got to watch all the little pieces move around. Pretty neat, but not worth the $25 they wanted for it. There is also a set covering 3 Civil War battles for $35.

Anyway.

Now we're back home and Nicole is making more calzones. She's unstoppable.