The David R. Miller farm on the Antietam battlefield is on the east side of Old Hagerstown Pike north of the Visitor Center. (Hagerstown Pike tour map) David purchased the farm at at a public sale in 1844, and he and his wife Margaret raised 13 children here. His 140 acres of fields, woodlots and orchards saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Civil War and were left in ruins. David Miller’s 30 acre field on the south side of his farm has gone down in history as The Cornfield, where 13,000 men were shot down in three hours of fighting that helped make Antietam the bloodiest single day in American history.

The Miller house and barn, however, survived with relatively little damage, although they served as a field hospital after the battle. David submitted a damage claim of $1,237 to the federal government for damage to his farm and property, and he was awarded $995 in 1872. It was not just property that was lost. Shortly after the battle David’s brother Daniel caught one of the army diseases, as thousands of dead men and horses and McClellan’s 80,000 man army covered the landscape for weeks after the battle. Daniel died of diarrhea, along with a number of other local citizens.

The Milllers retired from farming in 1886 and moved into Sharpsburg. In 1952 the farm was purchased and turned into a dairy operation. In 1989 it was sold to the Conservation Fund, a non-profit organization, who donated it to the National Park Service in 1990.

The two story log farmhouse was originally built in 1790s, and is the only intact structure on the farm that dates to the battle. The foundation for the bank barn also dates to the battle. The house has been renovated several times, and for many years was covered with aluminum siding. The latest renovation in 2009-2011 by the National Park Service worked to restore it to its Civil War appearance.