Landscapes

George B. Boomer Monument, Worcester, Massachusetts

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The monument at the gravesite of George B. Boomer at Rural Cemetery in Worcester, Massachusetts, around 1895. Image from Picturesque Worcester (1895).

The scene in 2021:

These two photos show the gravesite of George B. Boomer, a Civil War officer who was killed in action during the Siege of Vicksburg on May 22, 1863. Born in Sutton, Massachusetts in 1832, Boomer grew up in the Worcester area, but later moved west to St. Louis, where he was involved in bridge building. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he found himself in a border state that had divided loyalties. Missouri ultimately remained in the Union, as did Boomer, who helped to raise a regiment of Missouri soldiers.

Boomer was commissioned as colonel of the 26th Missouri Infantry Regiment in 1862. He suffered serious wounds at the Battle of Iuka in September 1862, but after his recovery he returned to action, including participating in the Vicksburg campaign. Vicksburg proved to be a major turning point for the Union during the war, and Boomer fought with distinction, including at the Battle of Champion Hill, a major Union victory on May 16, 1862 that directly led to the Siege of Vicksburg. He was also involved in the Battle of Big Black River Bridge on the following day, and in the assault on Vicksburg itself on May 22. However, this assault proved unsuccessful, and the Union sustained many casualties, including Boomer, who was killed instantly by a gunshot wound to the head.

He was initially buried in Louisiana, then in St. Louis, before his remains were eventually returned to Worcester. His funeral was held at the Third Baptist Church on June 28, and he was subsequently buried here in Rural Cemetery. Less than a week later, on July 4, Union forces finally succeeded in taking the city of Vicksburg. This, combined with the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg a day earlier, proved to be a decisive blow that the Confederacy was never able to recover from.

George Boomer would ultimately be memorialized here by the large monument that is shown here in these two photos. It is 27 feet tall, carved of Connecticut sandstone, and it takes the form of an ancient Roman victory column with a large eagle at the top. It was designed by local sculptor and gravestone carver Benjamin H. Kinney, and it was installed here in early 1865, shortly before the end of the Civil War. On the monument, he is referred to by the rank of Brigadier General, as do many other contemporary accounts of his military career. However, it seems unclear as to whether he actually received this promotion, because other sources indicate that the highest rank that he held was that of colonel.

The first photo was taken about 30 years after the monument was installed here, and more than 125 years have passed since then. During this time, very little has changed here except for the landscaping of the cemetery, which now features much larger trees than in the first photo. Otherwise, though, the cemetery looks much the same as it did in the 1890s, and many of the gravestones from the first photo are still easily recognizable in the present-day photos, including the Boomer memorial, which still stands as one of the most distinctive monuments in the cemetery.

Bancroft Monument, Worcester, Massachusetts

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The monument to George and Elizabeth Bancroft in Rural Cemetery in Worcester, Massachusetts, around 1895. Image from Picturesque Worcester (1895).

The scene in 2021:

These two photos show the final resting place of historian and politician George Bancroft and his wife Elizabeth. Although he spent much of his life elsewhere, George Bancroft was a native of Worcester and was born here in 1800. He died in 1891, and his body was subsequently returned to his hometown, where he was buried here in Rural Cemetery. Then, two years later a large granite monument was constructed on the plot, as shown here.

As a historian, Bancroft’s magnum opus was his extensive multi-volume History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent. However, he also had a successful career in politics and diplomacy. He served as Secretary of the Navy under James K. Polk from 1845 to 1846, and during this time he established the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. He then served as the U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1849, and he was later the U.S. Minister to Germany from 1867 to 1874.

George Bancroft’s first wife was Sarah Dwight, from the prominent Dwight family of Springfield. They lived in Northampton and later in Springfield, where Sarah died in 1837. He subsequently remarried in 1838 to Elizabeth Davis Bliss, and they were married for nearly 50 years until her death in 1886. She was interred here in Worcester, as was her husband after he died five years later.

Their grave monument is one of the largest in Rural Cemetery, and it was designed by prominent architect Paul J. Pelz, whose most famous work was the Library of Congress building in Washington, D.C. The monument is 22 feet high, made of Vermont granite, and it features four large pillars with a dome above them. The original intent was for a bust or statue of Bancroft to be placed in the center of this space between the pillars, but this evidently did not happen. In total, the monument cost $7,000, and it was installed here in November 1893.

The first photo was taken within about a year or two after the monument was installed, and not much has changed in this scene since then. There have obviously been more burials since the 1890s, but overall this particular section of the cemetery remains essentially the same, including the same gravestones from the first photo. Aside from Bancroft, other prominent burials here in this scene include Bancroft’s sister Eliza and her husband John Davis. He had a lengthy political career in the first half of the 19th century, including serving as a U.S. representative, governor of Massachusetts, and U.S. senator. They are buried beneath the rectangular gravestone near the road on the right side of the scene.

Old Hadley Cemetery, Hadley, Massachusetts

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Gravestones at Old Hadley Cemetery, around 1905. Image from History of Hadley (1905).

The scene in 2021:

Hadley was settled by European colonists in 1659, and incorporated as a town in 1661. Around the same time, this burying ground was laid out in a meadow just to the northwest of the town center, with the earliest known burials dating back to 1661. Among these was John Webster (1590-1661), who had served as governor of Connecticut before relocating to Hadley. As was the case for most of the other 17th century burials here, his grave was not marked by a stone, although a monument to him was installed in the cemetery in 1818 by his great-great-great grandson Noah Webster, the famous lexicographer and dictionary author.

The earliest surviving gravestones in the cemetery are two matching tablestones for Rebecca and John Russell. They died in 1688 and 1692, respectively, and their stones were installed in 1693, although they are not visible in this particular scene. Otherwise, though, gravestones were rare here until the 1710s, when Hadley resident Joseph Nash began carving gravestones. He used tan sandstone, and his gravestones were typically small, irregularly shaped, and with crudely-cut lettering. Despite the primitive appearance of the stones, he was evidently popular because his work appears in most of the early burying grounds in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts. Several of his stones are visible in this particular scene, including those of Mehetebel Marsh (1694-1739) on the far right, and Aaron Cook (1641-1716) and Sarah Cook (1644-1730) near the foreground on the far left side.

The two large tablestones in the center of this scene are for Joanna Porter (1665-1713) on the left and her husband Samuel Porter Jr. (1660-1722) on the right. Joanna was the daughter of Aaron and Sarah Cook, and she was also the mother of Mehetebel Marsh, so this was evidently their family plot. Tablestones were relatively uncommon because of the high cost, and were typically only used for clergymen and other prominent town residents. In this case, Samuel Porter was a wealthy merchant, and he also served as a representative in the colonial legislature, and as a judge and county sheriff. The Porter tablestones were not carved by Joseph Nash, as this was likely seen as too costly of a job to leave to a rather amateurish local stonecutter. Instead, these stones appear to have been carved by the Stanclift family in Middletown, Connecticut, who specialized in monuments such as these.

The Mehetebel Marsh gravestone was likely one of the last that Joseph Nash carved before his own death in 1740. By this point, gravestones in Western Massachusetts were starting to become more refined, in part because of an increased number of stones brought up the river from the skilled Middletown-area carvers. Among these was the gravestone of Samuel Porter III (1685-1748), the tall stone just to the right of the tablestones. He was the son of Samuel and Joanna, and although he died less than a decade after his sister Mehetebel, their two gravestones show the vast differences in skill level between local carvers like Nash and the professionally-trained carvers of Middletown. His gravestone was carved by the prominent Johnson family of Middletown, and its design suggests that it may have been carved somewhat later, perhaps in the 1750s or early 1760s.

The carvers from the Johnson family dominated the gravestone business along the Connecticut River Valley during the mid-1700s, but there were also some skilled local carvers who emerged in Western Massachusetts during this period. Foremost among them was Nathaniel Phelps of Northampton, who was active from the 1740s until the 1780s. Aside from Joseph Nash, perhaps no other 18th century carver is better represented here in Hadley, and one of his gravestones stands in the lower center of this scene, marking the grave of Joanna Porter’s brother Samuel Cook (1672-1746). This stone is a close imitation of the Johnson family’s style, but Phelps would subsequently develop his own style, and he occasionally carved highly ornate gravestones that featured full-body figures of angels. Among these was the gravestone of Sarah Porter (1741-1775), the wife of Samuel and Joanna’s grandson Elisha Porter. Her gravestone is visible in the background of this scene; it is the fourth one from the left in the back row.

By the early 19th century, gravestone styles had shifted away from the ornate carvings of the 18th century. Instead, these gravestones tended to either have generic designs of willows and urns, or no images at all. And, rather than sandstone, these 19th century stones were typically carved in slate or marble. Most of these burials were further to the east of the original section of the cemetery, but there are several 19th century marble stones here in the old section, including one in the back row in the distance for Nathaniel Porter (1709-1779). Although he died in 1779, the style of his gravestone suggests that it was probably carved at some point in the first half of the 1800s.

Aside from Nathaniel Porter’s backdated gravestone, perhaps the most recent gravestone in this particular scene is that of Elisha Porter (1742-1796). Like his grandfather Samuel had done many years earlier, Elisha served as sheriff of Hampshire County, and he was also a colonel in the state militia during the American Revolution. His gravestone is carved in marble, and it has a fairly plain design that is decorated only with an urn in the upper part of the stone.

More than a hundred years would pass between Porter’s burial in 1796 and when the first photo was taken at the turn of the 20th century. It is hard to say to what extent this scene changed during that time. Colonial-era burial grounds were often laid out in a somewhat haphazard manner, and during the 19th century many were rearranged into orderly rows of gravestones, often with little concern for whether the stones on the surface corresponded to the remains underground. This was often done for aesthetic reasons or to make maintenance easier, but it seems unclear whether it happened here in Hadley. However, the 18th century gravestones here are all arranged in parallel rows, suggesting that perhaps their positions may have been adjusted at some point.

Today, nearly 120 years after the first photo was taken, the background of this scene has changed significantly. Rather than the open meadows of the first photo, there is now a house directly to the west of the cemetery, with a tall hedge marking the property line. However, here in the foreground the cemetery has remained remarkably unchanged during this time. Sandstone gravestones are often vulnerable to weathering and erosion, and many in the river valley are badly deteriorated, especially those from the Middletown area. Here in Hadley, though, the stones have generally remained well-preserved, and this cemetery is one of the finest colonial-era burial grounds in Western Massachusetts.

Great Gulf, Mount Washington, New Hampshire

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The Great Gulf, seen from just north of the summit of Mount Washington, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

These two photos show the view looking north from Mount Washington, with the Great Gulf in the foreground and the summits of the northern Presidential Range beyond it. Mount Washington is the highest peak in New England and the northeastern United States, and it stands at the center of the Presidential Range, a north-south oriented range that contains many other high peaks. The five highest peaks are named after the first five presidents, mostly in descending order of elevation, and each one is higher than any other mountain in the northeast outside of the Presidential Range.

Mount Washington, the highest, is 6,288 feet above sea level. It is followed by Mount Adams (5,774 feet), which is seen on the right side of this scene; Mount Jefferson (5,712 feet) on the left side of the scene; Mount Monroe (5,384 feet) out of view on the opposite side of Mount Washington; and Mount Madison (5,367 feet) on the extreme right-hand side of this scene.

Just out of view in the foreground on the right side is a portion of Mount Washington, which extends to the northeast away from the summit area. That slope of Mount Washington, along with the northern Presidentials in the distance, form the walls of the Great Gulf, a large glacial cirque. There are a number of different cirques around Mount Washington that were formed by glacial activity, including Tuckerman Ravine, Huntington Ravine, and Ammonoosuc Ravine. However, the Great Gulf is by far the largest of these, extended more than two miles in length and over a mile in width.

The first recorded description of the Great Gulf comes from Darby Field in 1642. Although this was still very early in the history of European colonization in New England, and several centuries before recreational hiking became popular in the region, Darby Field and his two Native American guides became the first known people to have climbed Mount Washington. This achievement was considered remarkable enough that John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, provided a lengthy account of Field’s expedition in his journal. Regarding the final ascent to the summit, Winthrop wrote:

They went divers times through the thick clouds for a good space, and within 4 miles of the top, they had no clouds but very cold. By the way among the rocks, there were two ponds, one a blackish water, and the other reddish. The top of all was plain about 60 feet square. On the north side was such a precipice, as they could scarcely discern to the bottom. They had neither cloud nor wind on the top, and moderate heat. All the country about him seemed a level, except here and there a hill rising above the rest, and far beneath them. He saw to the north, a great water which he judged to be 100 miles broad, but could see no land beyond it.

Although Winthrop’s description was secondhand information at best, the account seems reliable, since it contains information that Field would only have known if he had actually reached the summit. The “two ponds” are likely the Lakes of the Clouds, located along the ridgeline between the summits of Mount Washington and Mount Monroe, and the description of the “plain” at the summit likewise corresponds to reality. And, his description of the Great Gulf also helps to verify the account, since Field would have only known about “such a precipice, as they could scarcely discern to the bottom” if he and his guides had actually stood here at the edge of the Great Gulf headwall.

Aside from Field’s journey, there were very few recorded ascents of Mount Washington during the colonial period. However, this began to change by the early 19th century, as New Englanders began to travel to the White Mountains to experience the scenery here. By 1819 there was a footpath from Crawford Notch to the summit, and this was later followed by a carriage road in 1861 and a cog railway in 1868. The summit area became a seasonal community, with several hotels and even its own newspaper.

However, despite the extensive development on Mount Washington, the other summits on the Presidential Range remained largely untouched, as did the Great Gulf. Visitors were generally happy to admire these scenes from afar, and there were few landscapes that could compete with this view here in these photos. Writing in his 1856 book Incidents in White Mountain History, Benjamin G. Willey provided the following description of this scene:

[G]oing a few rods northward, you come to the brink of an almost unfathomable abyss, known as the Great Gulf. It is a rocky, precipitous descent of two thousand feet. Rising up opposite you from the bottom of this Gulf, almost perpendicularly, is the great range of mountains, comprising Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison. This vast range may be seen from their roots to their summits by one standing on the brink. Deep down in the very bottom of the hollow are rough, confused piles of rocks, with narrow and deeply-worn ravines between them. Springing up occasionally, near the very base of the mountain range, are tall spruces, while further up on their sides are birches and small firbushes. Toward the east, the Gulf has an opening, surrounded on all its other sides by mountains.

A few years later, in his 1860 book The White Hills: Their Legends, Landscape, and Poetry, described the scene in even more rapturous language, from an overlook on the nearby carriage road. He wrote:

Yet the glory of the view is, after all, the four highest companion mountains of the range. Clay, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, that show themselves in a bending line beyond the tremendous gorge at the right of the path, absurdly called the ” Gulf of Mexico,” and are visible from their roots to their summits. . . . Except by climbing to the ridge through the unbroken wilderness of the northern side, there is no such view to be had east of the Mississippi of mountain architecture and sublimity. They do not seem to be rocky institutions. Their lines have so much life that they appear to have just leaped from the deeps beneath the soil. We say to ourselves, these peaks are nature’s struggle against petrifaction, the earth’s cry for air.

This scene certainly captivated visitors, but few were adventurous enough to actually descend into this “unfathomable abyss.” Because of its remoteness, the upper reaches of the Gulf escaped large-scale logging, and even the trail builders of the late 1800s tended to avoid the area. A single hiking trail was built through the Gulf as far as Spalding Lake in the lower foreground of these photos, but it did not ascend the headwall of the mountains. Nor did it apparently see much use, because it did not see much subsequent maintenance.

The Great Gulf was still an essentially trailless wilderness when the first photo was taken around 1900, but this would soon change. From 1908 to 1910, Warren W. Hart oversaw the construction of a series of trails in the area, starting with the Great Gulf Trail, which traversed the Gulf, climbed the headwall, and ended near the spot where these two photos were taken. Another trail, named the Six Husbands Trail, was opened to the summit of Mount Jefferson by way of the steep slopes in the right-center of the scene. Two other trails—Adams Slide and the Buttress Trail—climbed Mount Adams, and the Wamsutta and Chandler Brook Trails climbed the northeastern slopes of Mount Washington from the Great Gulf.

At the time, the Great Gulf was still in private hands, but in 1916 it was purchased by the U.S. Forest Service. It subsequently became part of the White Mountain National Forest, and in 1964 it was designated as the Great Gulf Wilderness, which conferred greater protections on the land than other portions of the national forest. As a result, this view from atop the headwall looks essentially the same as it did over 120 years earlier, and in all likelihood it also looks the same as it did over 380 years ago, when Darby Field first described the “precipice” where he could “scarcely discern the bottom.”

Burnside Bridge, Sharpsburg, Maryland (2)

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The view of the north side of the Burnside Bridge, from the west bank of Antietam Creek, in September 1862. Photographed by Alexander Gardner. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints collection.

The scene in 2021:

As explained in more detail in the previous post, the Burnside Bridge—or lower bridge, as it had previously been known—was the focal point of the later phase of the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. Ahead of the battle, the Confederates under Robert E. Lee had taken a defensive position near the town of Sharpsburg, with a line of soldiers that extended north to south. The southern end of his line was anchored on the heights just to the west of this bridge, and this led to intense fighting for control over the bridge.

Opposing the Confederates in the vicinity of the bridge was General Ambrose Burnside, whose IX Corps was positioned to the east of here, in the distance on the left side of this scene. However, because of poor coordination on the part of the Union commander, General George B. McClellan, Burnside received no orders until around 10:00 a.m., long after the fighting had begun on the northern part of the battlefield.

Despite the bridge being defended by only 500 Confederate soldiers, it took Burnside’s 4,000-man corps several hours to take the bridge, suffering about 500 casualties in the process. The Union forces finally took the bridge around 1:00 p.m., but Burnside delayed in moving his men, and they did not all cross until around 3:00 p.m. This gave the Confederates time to gather reinforcements, and rather than striking a decisive blow at the Confederate line, Burnside’s soldiers were faced with fresh Confederate soldiers commanded by A. P. Hill. The final portion of the battle occurred on the heights to the west of the bridge, to the right of where these photos were taken, and it was largely inconclusive, with Burnside’s soldiers managing to hold the bridge but unable to gain much ground.

The bridge came to be known as Burnside Bridge in his honor, although his actions here did face criticism. Some criticized his delays in moving his corps over the bridge, while others questioned whether the Union could have simply waded across the shallow creek, rather than making a costly and time-consuming effort to seize the bridge. Nonetheless, he was subsequently promoted to command of the Army of the Potomac in November, but he was ultimately dismissed after the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg, which likewise involved a time-consuming crossing of a waterway.

The first photo was taken only days after the battle, by prominent Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner. Today, not much has changed here in this scene. The bridge is still standing, as is one of the trees from the first photo. Barely noticeable on the far left side of the first photo is a small sycamore tree, which now towers over the bridge in the present-day scene. It is the most famous “witness tree” at Antietam, and both the tree and the bridge itself are major landmarks here at the Antietam National Battlefield.

Burnside Bridge, Sharpsburg, Maryland

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The view looking west toward the Burnside Bridge over Antietam Creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in September 1862. Photographed by Alexander Gardner. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints collection.

The scene in 2021:

The previous posts have featured some of the most distinctive landmarks on the Antietam battlefield, including the Dunker Church and the Bloody Lane. However, probably the single most iconic landmark at Antietam is this stone arch bridge, which came to be known as Burnside Bridge after the battle. In addition to photographs such as the first one here, the bridge has also featured prominently in numerous paintings of the battle, and even on the reverse of a commemorative coin issues by the U.S. Mint in 1937.

This bridge had been built in 1836 to connect Sharpsburg and the nearby town of Rohrersville. Prior to the battle it was generally known as the Lower Bridge, and it crossed Antietam Creek about a mile to the southeast of the center of Sharpsburg. It was constructed of local limestone, with three arches that spanned the creek.

This previously obscure rural bridge became famous for the events of September 17, 1862, when the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee clashed with the Union Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan. It was part of Lee’s first large-scale offensive campaign, when he invaded western Maryland as part of an effort to weaken northern morale. Upon reaching Sharpsburg, he set up a defensive position line near the town, and his right flank was positioned here in the vicinity of the Lower Bridge, on the high ground on the opposite side of the bridge in these photos.

Despite having a significantly larger army than Lee, McClellan believed that the opposite was true, and he exercised extreme caution in his attack. He did little to coordinate the movements of his different corps commanders, so it resulted in a piecemeal assault that negated the Union’s significant strength in numbers. The fighting began early in the morning, with an attack on the Confederate left flank near the Dunker Church. After this stalled, the battle shifted to a sunken road that became known as the Bloody Lane. There, after hours of fighting, the Union finally dislodged the Confederates from their makeshift trench, but the heavy losses had made the perpetually risk-averse McClellan unwilling to take the initiative and make an aggressive pursuit.

In the meantime, the southernmost part of the Union line was the IX Corps, under the command of General Ambrose Burnside. He was positioned a little to the east of the Lower Bridge, across the river from the right flank of the Confederates. This portion of the Confederate army was potentially vulnerable, with so many men fighting further north against the attacks on the left flank. However, Burnside did not receive orders from McClellan until around 10:00 a.m. Burnside then used a portion of his corps to find a river crossing downstream to outflank the Confederates, while also making several ineffective charges at the bridge itself.

Despite having a significant numerical advantage, with over 4,000 Union soldiers compared to just 500 Confederate defenders, the Confederates held off Burnside’s corps throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. In the process, the Confederates suffered about 120 casualties, while also inflicting about 500 Union casualties before Burnside finally took the bridge around 1:00 p.m. But, it would take another two hours for Burnside to move his men across the bridge and prepare for a final attack on the Confederate line.

The many delays throughout the battle, combined with McClellan’s ineffective coordination of his generals’ movements, prevented what could have otherwise been a decisive blow against Lee’s army. There were also many who questioned Burnside’s decision to waste time trying to take the bridge, rather than simply having his men wade across the relatively shallow creek. Ultimately, these delays meant that Burnside’s attack on the Confederate flank was countered by the arrival of A. P. Hill at 3:30 with fresh Confederate reinforcements. The final portion of the battle was fought between Hill and Burnside on the hill beyond the bridge, eventually drawing to an inconclusive end around 5:30 p.m.

That evening, Lee withdrew his army and made his way back to Virginia. In abandoning his invasion, it made the Battle of Antietam a strategic victory for the Union, although McClellan had missed the opportunity to make it one of the greatest Union triumphs of the war. He also failed to pursue Lee’s fleeing army, and this decision, combined with his ineffectiveness at Antietam, ultimately led President Lincoln to dismiss him as commander of the Army of the Potomac in early November. And, despite the questionable decisions that Ambrose Burnside had made here at this bridge, Lincoln picked him to replace McClellan. Burnside’s time as commander would prove to be short lived, though, because he was in turn dismissed after his own debacle at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December.

The first photo here in this post was taken only days after the battle. The photographer, Alexander Gardner, arrived at the battlefield on September 19, and he spent the next few days documenting the carnage here. He took a number of photographs of the bridge, which had survived the battle relatively unscathed despite being at the epicenter of intense fighting for several hours. In fact, at first glance the photo does not seem to give the immediate impression that a major battle had just been fought there.

However, on closer inspection, the photo offers clues about what happened here. On the bridge itself, many of the wooden boards are missing from the tops of the walls on either side of the walkway. While some of these may have been damaged in the battle, many of them were removed after the battle and repurposed as makeshift grave markers. In the foreground of the first photo, running along the stone wall to the right of the bridge, is a row of temporary graves, each of which is marked by a board from the bridge. These graves had likely been freshly dug shortly before the photo was taken, and many of the graves are topped by large mounds of dirt.

Following the battle, the bridge reverted to its original use, and this continued well into the 20th century and into the age of automobiles. It finally closed to vehicular traffic in 1966, when a bypass was constructed. More recently, the bridge underwent a major restoration after a portion of one of the walls collapsed into the creek. This project involved resetting the stones and repointing the masonry, and the work was completed in the spring of 2017.

Today, the bridge is part of the Antietam National Battlefield, which is run by the National Park Service. It is one of the best-preserved Civil War battlefields, and the quiet riverbanks here at the Burnside Bridge are a must-see for any visitors. The graves from the first photo have since been relocated, but otherwise this scene looks largely the same as in the first photo, aside from additions such as monuments to the regiments who fought here. Among these is a small monument in the foreground to the 51st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which was one of the units responsible for taking the bridge. However, perhaps the most remarkable feature in the present-day scene is the large sycamore tree that towers over the bridge in the center of the photo. This is the same tree that was growing next to the bridge during the battle, as shown in the first photo, and it stands as the most famous “witness tree” here on the Antietam battlefield.