3 Best Sights in Sharpsburg, Frederick and Western Maryland

Time has returned Antietam National Battlefield, the site of the bloodiest one-day battle of the Civil War, to its tranquil antebellum appearance, with woodlands giving way to sloping cornfields bound by rough-hewn fences. On September 17, 1862, more than 23,000 Union and Confederate troops were killed, wounded, or missing here. The gruesome battle led Abraham Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. A self-guided tour by car follows 8½ miles of well-preserved battlefield including Dunkard Church and Bloody Lane. An hour-long documentary is shown at the visitor center at noon each day, and there is an exhibit of Civil War artifacts. You can also hike the battlefields with an audio tour or accompanied by a ranger. Stop at the Pry House Field Hospital Museum (an extension of Frederick's National Museum of Civil War Medicine), where a re-created operating room and implements used to care for the wounded are displayed.

Doug Bast, a local historian and founder of the Boonsborough Museum of History, never gave up his boyhood habit of collecting unusual curios. Besides extensive Civil War artifacts (including a cannonball), among the quirky finds crammed into this small house are a wooly mammoth tusk, a moonshine still, mummified animals, a piece of the White House discarded during a mid-20th-century renovation, patent medicines, and Geronimo's walking stick.

At the historic Newcomer House, The Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area Exhibit and Visitor Center, a new addition to the battlefield site, aims to promote stewardship of historic, cultural, and natural Civil War resources across the region and features interpretive exhibits that play on key themes such as On the Home Front, In the Heat of Battle, and Beyond the Battlefield. Brochures, maps, county visitor guides, and other materials are available, and center volunteers can help visitors tailor their plans for exploring the heritage area.