Anyone who’s ever visited a Civil War battlefield knows how haunting the site is, how the dawns seem to echo with the sound ofbugles and gunfire, how at night the voices ofsoldiers rise like mist from the glades. Antietam, which surrounds the dusty little town of Sharpsburg, is surely one of the most stirring of such places, font was here in September 1862 that one of the worst battles of the Civil War claimed more than 23,000 lives in a single bloody day.
Just north of town there’s a national cemetery, with a statue by Daniel Chester French (who sculpted the statue of President Lincoln at Washington’s Lincoln Memorial), called “The Private Soldier,” which serves as the headstone for 5,000 Union dead. Adjoining the graveyard on a hillock facing the hazy Blue Ridge is the Inn at Antietam, a 1908 Queen Anne cottage with a wraparound porch, shaded by a giant silver maple and set amid fields. Owners Cal and Betty Fairbourn have restored the place in the style of the Civil War period, filling the parlor with Rococo Revival walnut furniture, the porch with rockers, and guest rooms with Eastlake dressers and beds.
The Fairbourns, who had restored an-other house in the area before moving into this one in 1983, enlisted the aid of a decorator here, which resulted in beautifully finished guest rooms. The converted smoke house at the rear has a large brick fireplace, a sitting room lined with beaded paneling, and aloft bed. The master suite, another favorite, has an 1880s four-posterbed; matching spread, curtains, and wallpaper; and Battenberg lace.
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