Monuments to Individuals at Antietam
The monument to O.T. Reilly at Antietam is across from the National Park Visitor Center. It is in front of a private home. (Visitor Center-Dunker Church tour map) The monument was dedicated in 1927.
Oliver Thomas Reilly was born in 1857 and as a young boy experienced the Battle of Antietam from his family’s nearby farm near Keedysville. The battle became his passion. He moved into Sharpsburg and ran a store on Main Street that sold battlefield relics and served as his headquarters as battlefield guide for over fifty years. Based on his incredible knowledge he could guide veterans returning to the battlefield to the places that they only vaguely remembered, all the time learning their stories and experiences. Years later, he would tell these stories to a new generation.
Reilly published a book, The Battle of Antietam, and wrote a homespun newspaper column that ran in local papers and was often picked up by papers in the big cities. And he erected this monument on ground donated by the Poffenberger family, marking the site of a hospital after the battle. Reilly died in 1945, having preserved a host of memories and passed them on to the future.
From the monument to O. T. Reilly at Antietam
To the memory of the
Old Dunkard Church
The oak tree that stood
in front and the Union
Civil War Veterans of
Sharpsburg, Maryland
Erected by O. T. Reilly the
Half-Century Antietam
Battlefield Guide 1927
Location of the monument
The Reilly monument is across Dunker Church Road from the National Park Visitor Center in front of a private home. (39°28’24.6″N 77°44’45.6″W)