Maryland offers to buy South Mountain sites

摘要

The state of Maryland has offered $56,000 for the purchase of about 15 acres on South Mountain, where Union and Confederate forces squared off in a strategically significant prelude to the Battle of Antie-tam. The land is currently owned by the Central Maryland Heritage League of Middletown. If approved, the purchases would include the 5.5-acre Mahaffey Woods and 9.1-acre Wise Farm south field, according to the Hagerstown Herald-Mail. The Wise homestead sat atop South Mountain in Fox's Gap, one of three clefts in the mountain where the Confederates delayed a Union thrust at General Robert E. Lee's overextended army. The Wise Farm was subjected to some especially grim fighting that rivaled the slaughter at Antietam's Bloody Lane three days later. Impatient Union troops buried Southerners' bodies by throwing them into the farmer's well. They were later rein-terred at Hagerstown.