The Battle Of Antietam

The sides: WE vs. THEM

Was actually a really nice day; weather-wise. The cold start led to some pretty comfortable conditions.

The original plan was to visit key Civil War (War Between The States for Chuckie) locations in/around Brunswick, MD.

I'm still not really sure what happened in Brunswick. I was there. I recall that, and some bricks that used to be part of a roundhouse, next to a few dead guys. (They were buried.) The bricks had a bell installed in them... I think it was one of those old things where a rope was run down into the graves of the adjacent dead guys, and if any of them weren't really dead yet, they could ring that bell and ..... we'd run like hell... cause frankly... some guy buried in a grave that got killed in a train wreck years before, waking up down there and ringing an emergency-casket-bell just isn't very natural. I'm thinking the guy that would be brought out of that grave would be fairly dirty (thus smell), and probably more than a little mad.

Ok... So that's what my head got out of Brunswick.

There was then a 90 minute break, while discussions ensued over where the next key point of the Civil War was in/around Brunswick. It was in that discussion that I first heard of some unknown location with a really long Indian "M" word. Apparently there's books on the place, and shit went down there back in the 1800's.

The decision was made (no.... there was no decision MADE! There never is!!! We just slowly gravitate places!) to head to Antietam Battlefield.

We were in two vehicles (not following each other), and both managed to get lost in some town called Funkytown. I think we were in Maryland. I really have no fucking idea where we were!

After what started to feel like some crazy urban driving game involving (GACK!!!) cell phones, we met back up and managed to find the battlefield.... along with 10,000 other pathetic people with no lives.

I mean geeze dawgs! 145 years later, and shit's still going down in Sharpsburg!

This was when the battle began.

WE vs. THEM

All that stuff before?.... No. That was what led up to the war.

Now the 2009 Battle Of Antietam mainly centered around The Bloody Cornfield. You can find it now by driving 1.4 miles east on 45 or 65 (or whatever the name of the road is that Dirtman happens to be looking at on his map at the time), then proceed to the south-west end of the north-east corner of the west woods. Just look for the sign. There'll be plenty of them. They'll point you to every fucking corner of those damn woods! .... .... Ain't really no woods there now... but man o MAN are you gonna know where they were!

So the battle was raging all around The Bloody Cornfield. Minor skirmishes erupted from all corners of the various woods. The Boy Scouts even launched their own probes. Ordering kids to their slaughter in droves; like Kamikazes, they were unleashed upon us. You can't have slaughter without laughter, and there certainly was plenty of that thanks to our whole group.

Strange people also felt the need to attack us in The Bloody Corfield. One unidentified soldier of the THEM side, conducted a drive-by, style attack; hanging out of the vehicle as his bitch hit the gas, screaming some strange battle cheer at us: "The Cornfield Walk!!! That's the Cornfield Walk!!!" They repeatedly attempted probes upon our position throughout the afternoon, but they were no match, and eventually fled from us around 2:30 p.m.

Dirtman was WAY too happy about pointing this out to us:

Just a little freaky, says I.

Hmm... You know.... I wonder now. ... Perhaps Dirtman was actually siding with THEM. Working behind the lines as a double agent, he would shoot us off in deadly directions, only to utilize modern technology to further thwart any sense of order with his disinformation.

Oh yes.... In this picture below, he appears to stand there bravely like a stone wall; right on the edge of The Bloody Cornfield itself! Intelligence confirms that he utilized his communications to contact another WE soldier.... ONLY to place an ambiguous order for a bizarre chicken dinner.

A WE soldier wrote, "He charged fearlessly right into THEM. He was trying to reach some corner marker in the field. We yelled to him that THEM was the ones that put that marker there to fool us. Still he went out there. My buddy yelled to us, 'Look he's standing there like a Corn-dog!' So that's how we came to know him." Corn-dog Jackson would go on to fight other battles that day.

However, I submit this to you, dear historian: Why would a WE soldier march so bravely upon The Bloody Cornfield, in the full face of THEM bearing down upon us, and order a chicken dinner? Disinformation, or just strange hunger patterns? You decide.

As thirst and alcohol withdrawal started to kick in, monuments started to take on a different feel. You know shit's going south when you stare at a Irish Brigade monument and start drooling at the thought of an Irish Pub.

Luckily, since Johnboy punked out of purchasing a "Best Of Antietam" CD (that you play in your car while touring numerous interesting points - like the west edge of the northeast south side of the north woods, across from the Drunken Church), we ended the little pamphlet tour and ended up being routed out of Sharpsburg.

They won.

We were pushed back to Middletown, VA where we bivouacked at the Irish Pub!