News Release

Join us at Antietam National Battlefield to commemorate and learn the history of Memorial Day

This year’s Memorial Day commemoration event at Antietam National Cemetery will honor those who gave their life for our country.

NPS Photo

News Release Date: May 13, 2022

Contact: Keith Snyder, 301-432-5124

SHARPSBURG, Md.— After a two-year hiatus, Antietam National Battlefield will once again commemorate Memorial Day with an in-person program on Monday, May 30 at 11 a.m. The program will take place at the park’s National Cemetery located on Rt. 34, just east of Sharpsburg, MD. This year’s program will honor those who gave their life for our country and explore the history of Memorial Day.  

Hagerstown Choral Arts Inc. will provide music for the event. There will be a cannon salute by the park’s volunteer group, Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery, and Taps will be played by Master Sergeant Geoff Blankenship and Chief Master Sergeant (Retired) Ron Glazer of the 167th Airlift Wing, Martinsburg, West Virginia. Dr. Carrie Janney, award winning author and director of the Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia, will serve as keynote speaker, discussing the origins and meaning of Memorial Day.  

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for U.S. military personnel who have died in service of the United States of America. On May 5, 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans, established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Ever since 1868, this day of remembrance has been commemorated across the country and in 1971 Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday. 

The Town of Sharpsburg will commemorate Memorial Day on Saturday, May 23, with a ceremony on town square at 11a.m. and the annual Memorial Day Parade starting at 1:30p.m. In a wonderful tradition, the Sharpsburg Elementary School 5th grade class will place 5,000 flags at the National Cemetery, one for every headstone, on May 26, in preparation for the holiday. 

-NPS-

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