The Maryland State Monument at Antietam National Battlefield

At the outset of the Civil War, Maryland was one of four border states with legal slavery located between the seceding Confederate states and the remaining Union states. While none of these border states (which also included Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri) seceded, their people were divided with many favoring the Confederacy while many others favored the Union side. Both Confederate and Union military units were raised in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri (Delaware raised only Union troops), and were often found on opposing sides in battles both large and small.

The September 1862 Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, included Maryland units fighting on both sides. Four infantry regiments and two batteries of artillery fought on the Union side while two batteries of artillery fought for the Confederacy. In the years after the war, monuments dedicated to individual units as well as a state’s overall participation were placed on the battlefields. The State of Maryland placed a monument on the Antietam Battlefield in 1900. Usually, state monuments were dedicated to that state’s troops from one side, but the Maryland monument at Antietam Battlefield is dedicated to Maryland troops from both sides. (Though not common, two other examples of state monuments dedicated to troops from both sides are at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi. State monuments dedicated to Missouri and Kentucky troops from both sides are located there).

The monument itself is an eight-sided granite pavilion with a bronze domed roof topped with a copper female statue standing on a globe, with an overall height of 40 feet. Four bas relief tablets are on the pavilion’s exterior depicting some of the Maryland units in action in the battle. Inside the pavilion are eight bronze tablets with information on each Maryland unit that was in the battle. This includes information on that unit’s entire service during the war, as well as its commanding and field officers throughout the war. It was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1900 with President William McKinley as the keynote speaker for the event. McKinley was a veteran of the Battle of Antietam.

Maryland State Monument at Antietam National Battlefield

The Maryland Monument is located near the battlefield’s visitor center and across the historic Hagerstown Pike from the Dunker Church.