Antietam & the Potomac

The Civil War along the Potomac: from Boonsboro the route rides MD-34 through Keedysville into Antietam National Battlefield and Sharpsburg, follows Harpers Ferry Road down the Potomac to Sandy Hook, across the river from Harpers Ferry, then goes through Brunswick and Jefferson and back over South Mountain at Gathland and Crampton's Gap to Boonsboro. It's 50 miles. The route stays in Maryland and doesn't cross the US-340 bridge into West Virginia. Harpers Ferry Road has one-lane bridges and cyclists from the C&O towpath: yield and take it slow.

From Boonsboro the route rides MD-34 through Keedysville and into Antietam National Battlefield, where on September 17, 1862 the bloodiest single day of the Civil War was fought. The roads through the battlefield are slow, with low limits and people walking. The visitor center and the 8.5-mile tour road charge $20 per vehicle for three days, and one pass covers up to two motorcycles. The route then passes through Sharpsburg and follows Harpers Ferry Road south along the Potomac, a narrow, wooded road with one-lane bridges and cyclists from the C&O Canal towpath.

At Sandy Hook, Harpers Ferry sits right across the river. The route stays on the Maryland side and doesn't cross the US-340 bridge into West Virginia; it continues to Brunswick, an old railroad town on the canal, then to Jefferson and up Gapland Road to Burkittsville and Gathland State Park at Crampton's Gap, where George Alfred Townsend, a Civil War correspondent, built the War Correspondents Memorial Arch in 1896, next to the Appalachian Trail. MD-67 through Rohrersville takes the route back to Boonsboro.