But, often missing in the recitation of tactics is the ability to see the layers of history which make places like Antietam so unique and capable of speaking to a much larger chapter of history. Today, most visitors to the battlefield spend hours pouring over the story of September 17, 1862, a date that lives on in infamy as America’s bloodiest. Literally and figuratively, one could see slavery and freedom from these fields. From these fields, the naked eye could see the mountain gap formed by the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today West Virginia) as well as a spine of the Blue Ridge mountains which extends well into neighboring Pennsylvania. Given its location in a narrow portion of the state, Sharpsburg was also a place that sat the precarious boundary between slavery and freedom. Working alongside many of those farmers, merchants and tradespeople were scores of African Americans - both slave and free. Agriculture was the focus and was carried out by the descendants of original German and Scots Irish settlers. Prior to September 17, 1862, Sharpsburg, Maryland, and the fertile fields which surrounded it was like many other small hamlets in Maryland. WATCH ALL VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE “A Landscape Turned Red”