ANTIETAM NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD — ANTIETAM NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD -- Rocky Rosacker stood on the southern side of the Sunken Road - ground held by Confederate troops at the outset of the bloodiest day in American history. The yellow-green fields to the north that September morning in 1862 were Union territory.
The Annapolis man opened his arms wide, conjuring ghost armies in blue and gray.
"This is what Lee saw," said Rosacker, himself a combat veteran of the Marine Corps. "This is what Longstreet saw. This is what those guys faced. ... You can almost feel how it was the day of the battle."
It's a feeling that Rosacker says is threatened by a Rockville firm's proposal to build a cell phone tower on the edge of the battlefield.
Liberty Towers LLC says the 120-foot structure - it would extend 30 feet above the treeline to the west - would be disguised as a farm silo to blend in with the rolling farmlands of Western Maryland. But opponents say it would overwhelm a battlefield seen nationally as a model of historic preservation.
"One of the reasons that Antietam is so well-known and so well-respected is the fact that here, when you stand on the battlefield, what you see is a very rural environment that hasn't been impacted by commercial development," said John Howard, superintendent of Antietam National Battlefield.
The proposal - Liberty says it's one of several sites under consideration - has earned Antietam a place on the Civil War Preservation Trust's 2008 list of the nation's most endangered battlefields. It's among the most egregious examples, the group says, of the threat that development is posing to sites some view as sacred.
`Absurd'
"To put that thing up in that place is absurd," said O. James Lighthizer, president of the trust.
Mike Hofe, president and chief operating officer of Liberty Towers, has described the structure as a "stealth tower" that would have minimal impact on battlefield vistas. He says the proposal remains in the "early planning stages"; Liberty has yet to file for permits.
On the battlefield yesterday, a small herd of brown cows grazed in a fenced enclosure west of Antietam Creek. To the north lay cornfields that are planted by local farmers - like the cattle, part of the National Park Service's effort to restore the surroundings to their 1862 appearance.
Antietam National Battlefield remains a work in progress. Sixty percent of the land has been purchased since 1990.
