Mine Eyes Have Seen the History...

The Battle of Antietam was the bloodies in the nation's history.

Are you a Civil War buff?

Would you like to be?

Do you wish you knew more about the Civil War Battlefields that dot the landscape?

Then maybe you need to meet with Mike Snyder.

Snyder, a retired Pottstown High School teacher and Civil War expert who has taught courses on the Civil War at Montgomery County Community College, will this fall be teaching one at the Pottstown Regional Public Library.

Specifically, his course will focus on "Military Campaigns of the cicil War -- The Fall of 1862."

Here is a description of the course:

On the heels of a hard fought victory over Federal forces at the Battle of Second Manassas at the end of August 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee his Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River in Maryland with the goal of taking the war into the North. A copy of a lost order forced Lee to cancel his plans for invading Pennsylvania, and led to the Battle of Antietam, September 17, the bloodiest single day in American military history. Following Antietam Lee withdrew into the Shenandoah Valley. Three months later his army took up a defensive position at Fredericksburg, Virginia, where on December 17, he was able to turn back the attacks of the Army of the Potomac in what was one of the largest battles of Civil War.

Snyder's book

This course will discuss both battles in detail examining the strategic and tactical aspects of the campaign and the political currents that led to them.  

It will be held Wednesdays, starting Oct. 10 and  be held Oct. 10, 17, 24, 31, Nov. 7 and 14 from 7 to 9 p.m.

The course costs $50. Registration can be accomplished through the Event Calendar on the library website or calling the library.  Cash/checks/credit cards are accepted.

Snyder has written more than one hundred feature articles on local history for the Pottstown Mercury.

He is currently the president of the Pottstown Historical Society and has lectured at many of the area’s historical societies.

His book "Remembering Pottstown" was published by the History Press in April 2010. 

Snyder has also appeared as a speaker at Civil War Round Tables throughout the country.