No Big Antietam Battle Re-enactment Planned In Md.
SHARPSBURG, Md. (AP) -- The 150th anniversary of the bloodiest day of the Civil War could come and go next year without a large-scale re-enactment.
Organizers of previous Battle of Antietam re-enactments say they don't expect anything like the events that attracted thousands of re-enactors and spectators to private farms near Sharpsburg in 1997 and 2002.
Local historian Dennis Frye led the planning for those events.
He tells The (Hagerstown) Herald-Mail that his new job at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park precludes him from organizing another Antietam re-enactment.
Frye and others say there is less open space available for re-enactments. They say fewer young people seem interested in studying the Civil War by recreating battle scenes.
More than 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or declared missing at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.
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