The Bridge at Antietam (Sharpsburg). Antiietam is regarded as the bloodiest day’s fighting in the Civil War. Photo from Wikipedia.h
My son, Joseph Hugh Kitchens III and me.. Many members of our family fought at Antietam, members of the 38th and 22nd Georgia Infantry Regiments. Photo by Joe Kitchens

The following poem by Joseph Hugh Kitchens III was inspired by a news that the National Museum of Civil War Medicine had acquired a macabre relic of the battle of Antietam. As is his style, Joseph captures the irony and tragedy that a young man’s life and body have vanished while his arm has survived to become an object of scientific inquiry -and public curiosity.

Epitaph for the Arm of Antietam

I could not see the explosion,

I could not see the musket burst,

I did not hear the bullet,

As it split me for the worse,

I only fell to the ground,

Ignored by any beast or bird or hound,

My only epitaph to be,

No tears, no misery

But science, and history.

Note: the arm is the speaker here.

Arm-of-AntietamDownload