Antietam National Cemetery

Established in 1865 to inter Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Antietam, this cemetery contains approximately 4,776 interments, nearly 1,836 of which are unknown. The rolling hills hold the remains of those who fell on America's bloodiest day.

Antietam National Cemetery stands at the heart of America's bloodiest single day of combat, where 23,100 men were killed, wounded, or went missing in just twelve hours on September 17, 1862. The cemetery holds 4,776 Union soldiers, but their spirits—and those of thousands more who fell in the surrounding fields—have never truly departed from this hallowed Maryland ground.

The Battle of Antietam erupted across the rolling farmland near Sharpsburg when Union and Confederate forces collided in a series of savage engagements. The fighting at the Cornfield, the West Woods, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge created scenes of carnage that shocked even hardened veterans. When the guns fell silent, bodies lay so thick in some areas that soldiers said you could walk across them without touching the ground.

In the immediate aftermath, both armies buried the dead where they fell. Shallow graves dotted the landscape, marked by crude wooden boards or simply left unmarked. After the war, Union dead were exhumed and moved to the newly established Antietam National Cemetery, but the original burial sites never lost their ghostly presence. Blue spectral lights—described as floating orbs—drift over the old burial grounds, and visitors have watched wisps of mist emerge from the earth and disappear into headstones.

Bloody Lane, where 5,500 men fell in under four hours, remains the most actively haunted location. This sunken road became a natural trench that filled with Confederate dead, stacked two and three deep. Today, visitors report phantom gunfire piercing the silence, the acrid smell of gunpowder hanging in the air, and the distant sounds of men shouting and singing. Some have seen soldiers in ragged uniforms walking along the lane, only to vanish when approached.

At Burnside Bridge, where Union forces finally crossed after hours of desperate fighting, mysterious blue balls of light dance through the air at night. An elderly man in period butternut-colored wool clothing appeared to one visitor, spoke briefly, and then vanished without a trace. A photographer in 2009 captured authenticated images of a detailed face in the stonework—verified by Dartmouth College scientists as unexplainable.

Near the visitor center, witnesses have seen three soldiers' shadows run across the road at night. Others report figures walking and running along fence lines, and one visitor watched soldiers assume "ready aim fire" positions before making eye contact and disappearing. Runners on the trails have heard musket fire and cannon blasts when no reenactments were scheduled.

The Dunker Church, used as a field hospital where surgeons worked through the night sawing off shattered limbs, echoes with the moans of the wounded. The Pry House and Piper Farm, both pressed into service during the battle, harbor footsteps on stairs and apparitions of women who tended the dying.

Each September 17th, the anniversary of the battle, paranormal activity intensifies dramatically. Local researchers have collected hundreds of accounts over 35 years, and ghost tours operate weekly sharing these stories. Visitors consistently report feeling dizzy upon entering the battlefield, sensing an invisible "bubble" of heavy atmosphere, and experiencing overwhelming emotions they cannot explain.

Antietam is frequently cited as the most haunted place in Maryland—a battlefield where the violence was so concentrated, and the death so sudden, that thousands of souls may never find peace.