Road Tripping Through History: Two Old Soldiers Who Fought at Antietam Greet FDR on the 75th Anniversary-- Part 1

I was ready to go on to another subject in this blog until I came across this, and I felt obliged to include it here since it is very appropriate to what I have been writing about.  This Road Trip Through History all started back in May when I wrote about President McKinley's speech he gave at Antietam at the dedication of the Maryland Monument there in my Civil War II blog.  It went from there to U.S. presidents who have visited Antietam in this blog as well as specifically FDR's visit.

From the January 21, 2016, John Banks' Civil War Blog  "Antietam:  Two old soldiers meet FDR at 75th commemoration."

John Banks sure finds interesting stuff to write about.  Check out his blog.

He wrote about President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaking at the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1937.  (This even more interesting in the fact that we now are observing the 75th anniversary of World War II with our own batch of 90+-year old warriors from that war.)

The next day, the Hagerstown (Md) Morning reported that there were approximately fifty Civil War veterans in attendance and even more impressive to me, anyway, at least two who had actually fought at the battle.

They were Bazel Lemley, 94, and Robert Miles, 95.  Mr. Banks' article has a photograph of these two men with FDR.  Lemley, a Union veteran, is shaking hands with the president and Miles seems to be  laughing.

--Old Secesh