Lost Roads of the Maryland Campaign: Part 3

That the village of Keedysville is mentioned in the Official Records no less than 52 times is enough to demonstrate the importance of this place in the Maryland Campaign. Situated halfway between Boonsboro and Sharpsburg on the Boonsboro Pike,[1] the town saw both armies stream through its main street on their way to Antietam Creek. During and after the battle its homes, churches, and commercial and public buildings became part of the wide array of hospitals and shelters that spread outward from the field. Today the Boonsboro Pike is Maryland Route 34. Around 1961 the state built a bypass that gracefully arced to the west of the town.[2] Once completed, the north and south exits from Keedysville were abandoned. Today you can readily see where the original Main Street ran and now marked as a dead end.

[1] Current maps label the road the Shepherdstown Pike (Maryland Route 34). The Cope/Carman Maps, 1908 edition, refers to it as the "Boonsboro Pike." Carman, in the Maryland Campaign, refers to the route variably as the "Boonsboro and Sharpsburg Turnpike," "the Sharpsburg and Keedysville road," and simply "the Keedysville road."

[2] Wikipedia, citing the Maryland: Official Highway Map (Annapolis: Maryland State Roads Commission, 1961 ed.), states that the bypass was completed by 1961.

North Main Street, Keedysville, looking north. The original road can be readily seen in this view.

The end of North Main Street from Google Earth.

North Main Street, September 1862.