Antietam Illumination 2008

Illumination day dawned cold and overcast, and was to get even colder as the hours grew later.  Cold or not, the visitor center was a beehive of activity by the time I arrived.  

No sooner had I settled in, did I get paged that I'd visitors at the front desk.  And I was happy to meet long time blog correspondent Richard and his delightful niece Sarah and friend Samantha.  Sarah became a Junior Ranger this year and is justly proud of her achievement, she's quite a student of the Civil War and both she and Samantha were very charming and bright girls.

After some pleasant conversation we three gathered at the blogger's gun for the photo below.



Richard, Sarah,  Samantha and me.

For a really fine personal view of the Illumination, check out Richard's video here, 

(as well as mine, here).

That day had me so busy I was able to shoot only a few photos, including these:

Illumination day began with Ranger Hoptak setting 23,110 luminaria throughout the battlefield.

Okay, that's a lie.  The actual work is done by over 1,300 volunteers, many of whom have been doing this for twenty years now and they really have it down to a science.

By about four o'clock the volunteers started fanning out across the battlefield lighting the candles in the very cold afternoon.


As the sky grew dark the amazing happened again, those simple brown paper bags, weighted with sand and containing a single candle...

helped us remember each of those 23,110 American casualties of the Battle of Antietam.  September 17th, 1862 remains America's bloodiest day and the day that transformed the American Civil War into a war of liberation.

Its good to remember.

Ranger Mannie