Antietam has always been one of my favorite battlefields to visit. I always enjoyed visiting Gettysburg, Antietam, and other sites during the winter months because you practically had them to yourself. The place that really got to me the first time I went there was Andersonville. I walked the perimeter of the wall, all the way around the camp, and as I walked, I felt an unbelievable sorrow and depression come over me, to the point that by the time I had gotten back to where I had started, I felt like bursting into tears, and had to fight the feeling off. It took several hours for those feelings to finally leave me, and it only happened after I’d left the park. I’ve been to many battlefields, but this was the first time I had ever been effected that severely.
The feelings you describe are similar to mine ... not malicious, but sadness, sorrow .... always brings me to tears. I tend to think that the suffering and horror of the Antietam battle were so awful that it’s taking a long, long time to dissipate and I’m not sure it ever will. I am convinced, as I said before, some souls still wander there.
There used to be a museum of sorts (visitor’s center) at The Wilderness battlefield park. In it was a soldier’s uniform - a teenager. It was SO tiny, almost like a childs - really hits home how much smaller folks in that day and age were. Anyway, the pant leg was cut/ripped off because he was shot in the leg. He survived that battle, but I was absolutely transfixed by that uniform when I saw it - for some reason, it became very real to me that a human being had been in those very clothes and what he must have gone through.
A fairly ‘famous’ battle took place on my great-great-grandparents farm in the Shenandoah Valley and a cousin was executed by Union soldiers .... the Civil War definitely figures in our family history and that is one reason it interests me so much.