Background

Antietam National Battlefield

Antietam today is home to approximately one hundred “silent sentinels,” composed of regimental monuments, State monuments, and monuments to individuals. The majority are Union. The location of where six (three Union, three Confederate) generals fell is marked by a mortuary cannon, an inverted cannon barrel embedded in a block of stone. One marks the spot of Richardson’s mortal wounding. None of the ten monuments to individuals commemorates a Michigan person. Ten Northern States, other than Michigan, have erected at least one monument.  

Wilson Farm and the Battlefield Trust

As of 2013, one of the last remaining large sections of private land on the Antietam Battlefield was a triangle piece of property bound by the Dunker Church Road on the west, The Cornfield Avenue to the north, and the diagonal Smoketown Road as the hypotenuse.  This section of property saw massive casualties and carnage in the early morning phase of the battle.  After changing hands between forces during the battle, the intense mortal combat in this area has been referred to as the epicenter of the Battle of Antietam.

The National Park Service, Save Historic Antietam Foundation, and the Battlefield Trust (previously known as the Civil War Trust, had acquired many acres over the past several decades.  However, the epicenter of the battlefield was privately owned by Phillip and Lilli “Lil” Wilson whose property was bounded on all sides by NPS land.