From Reverse Angle
Photo Courtesy of John Aichele
Directly across from you is 137 East Main Street, also known as the Adam Michael House. This was the home of Adam Michael, a wagon maker and a staunch Confederate sympathizer. The front part of the house is a log construction with brick over top. Built in 1818, the older section of the building may predate 1799. According to some sources, this was one of the four original houses laid by Joseph Chapline. The battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day of the war, with over 23,000 casualties North and South. Every one of the surrounding farms, churches, and houses were converted to field hospitals. Adam Michael refused the Union troops to use his house as a field hospital, but as his son Samuel said, “On Monday they forced a hospital in our house. Kate and Mother fought them hard…The hospital was continued in our parlor for several weeks. I do not know how many has died in it. They have left now. It looks like a hog pen.” Up to 90 patients at one time or another may have been in the house.
Question for Consideration: If you were a Union or Confederate sympathizer and the opposing side wanted to use your house as a hospital, would you let them?