Antietam National Battlefield Visitor Center — Attraction in Shepherdstown

This is such a beautiful place! Open fields with postcard perfect farm houses dotting the land. Even without the history, this place is enjoyable to visit. The visitor center is small (nothing like Gettysburg) with bathrooms, a gift shop, an observation room that looks over part of the battlefield, a theatre with introductory film, and two small rooms of battle-related artifacts. When I visited, the artifacts were missing due to a "water leak". I am not sure what my $20 admission fee was for other than a donation for battlefield maintenance.

I chose to tour the battlefield using the Auto Tour route found on the National Park Service map found at the visitor center. You can complete the tour fairly quickly by never exiting your car, but I got out at every tour stop to read interpretive panels and take in the scenery. You can enter the Dunker Church at Stop #1 and climb the Sunken Road/Bloody Lane Tower. I highly encourage getting to the top of the tower. The view is...

We stopped at Antietam on the way back from a family trip in Deep Creek Lake. Since we rarely come out this way, I didn't want to miss the chance since I love history. The visitors center had just reopened so I was eager to see it. From what my husband said, it's a huge step up from just the plaques and cornfields that used to be the main attraction. The visitor's center was small but still had a movie and exhibits to view. I was expecting something similar to Gettysburg but I hate to say that Antietam just didn't seem to have the same budget. I wish the movie and exhibits could have captured more of what the battle was like that day. Seemed like a missed opportunity. I'm still glad we stopped and would still recommend visiting. Love supporting our...

There's plenty of parking, restrooms, a gift shop, video and observation tower. There's a $20 fee per vehicle. We got a map and went on the driving tour. It was Wednesday afternoon and we had the park to ourselves. This battlefield has been amazingly well preserved. It looks just like it did in 1862. The views are expansive and there's almost no sign of modernity. This is hallowed ground and you can feel the somberness of it. I appreciated the Dunker church, sunken lane and Burnside's bridge. It was surreal to walk the sunken lane. I will never forget it. Burnside's bridge looks untouched by time. There's a large tree beside it called the "witness tree" because it was there in battle photos. You can't touch it though because they want to...