F.D.R. Visits Antietam on 75th Anniversary of the Battle-- Part 1

From the Antietam Journal blog.  "FDR visits the Battlefield:  A Presidential visit" by Ranger Mike Gamble.

The seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1937.

Some folks in attendance still had actual memories of the battle 75 years later.  Approximately fifty Civil War veterans and a crowd of thirty-five thousand gathered to hear the President of the United States m Franklin D. Roosevelt, give a stirring speech and to view a re-enactment of the battle.

From  the grandstand overlooking the famous Bloody Lane, visitors were able to view 1,000 National Guardsmen simulate battle.  Units of Guardsmen came from Maryland, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia as well as active duty soldiers from Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Following the battle,  the crowd stood for a playing of the National Anthem as Boy Scouts marched in front of the viewing stand with the flags of thirty states representing the homes of soldiers who fought at the battle.

The president received a memento of the fighting:  a brightly polished piece of wood with a bullet embedded in it  chopped from a tree near the Burnside Bridge.

--Old Secesh