JFK and Newport, R.I.

We drove a couple hours today to Newport, R.I., one of the gems of New England. The town is home to numerous 18th century homes, mega-mansions along Bellevue Avenue and St. Mary's Church, where President Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier on Sept. 12, 1953. According to news accounts, 800 people gathered inside the church and another 3,000 waited outside. Here's a slideshow of the wedding and more. The big, brown church is at 12 William Street, a few blocks from the wharf area.

Burnside Bridge

I never get tired of this scene: Burnside Bridge across Antietam Creek. The National Park Service cleared the area immediately in front of this shot to reveal the rifle pits from which Confederate troops held off thousands of Union soldiers for several hours.

Ghostly scene in Bloody Lane

It's 6:30 a.m. in Sharpsburg. Md. Fog covers most of the battlefield at Antietam. And in Bloody Lane, which was piled with dead Confederates after the battle, the scene is a little otherworldly.

Meet Pvt. Benajah Hodge

It was nice to see someone remembered Civil War soldier Benajah Hodge. A private in the 25th Massachusetts, Hodge is buried in a picturesque hillside cemetery in Collinsville, Conn., where nearly all the veterans' graves I saw were marked with an American flag on Memorial Day.

Hodge was a 37-year-old blacksmith when he enlisted in the Union army on July 26, 1862. The 25th saw heavy action in North Carolina under Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Hodge also participated in the bloody Union defeat at Cold Harbor in Virginia and was wounded at Petersburg on June 15, 1864. Hodge mustered out of the army in Oct. 20, 1864.

Civil War nooks and crannies

I like to visit the out-of-the-way Civil War sites. Here's a small church in West Virginia along the route of Confederate general A.P. Hill's march to save Lee's Army at Antietam. The church, built in 1837, now serves about 15 hearty Pentacostal members. I spoke briefly with the preacher, who gave me a guided tour of the one-room building and proudly pointed out the new air-conditioner/heater. He said the building once served as a stable.

Climbing Maryland Heights

I had been all over Antietam and Harpers Ferry over the past couple decades -- except for one spot: Maryland Heights. We solved that issue Friday, climbing to the top and back in about 2 1/2 hours. It was about a five-mile hike and well worth the effort.

Maryland Heights overlooks Harpers Ferry, the small West Virginia town at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. In Maryland, it was a strategic site for both Civil War armies. Stonewall Jackson used the Heights to shell Harpers Ferry before capturing the Union garrison there in 1862. Later, the Union Army built its own powerful garrison on the Heights, adding a stone fort, powerful long-range cannon, powder magazines, campgrounds and more.

Ruins of the stone fort, gun emplacements (bottom photo) and campgrounds built by Union soldiers still remain. It's a wonder how soldiers hauled cannons and supplies to the top of the mountain. I had to stop several times on the way to the top, about 2,400 feet up. I have a new respect for President Lincoln, who made the journey up the mountain in 1864. He didn't make it all the way up, but he scores major points with me for the effort. Afterall, he was in his mid 50s and he had the heavy stove-pipe hat and all.

After Antietam: Battle of Shepherdstown

There's not much to see now at the site of the Battle of Shepherdstown (W.Va.), which took place two days after Antietam on Sept. 19-20, 1862. Developers want to get their hands on the peaceful, remote site along the Potomac River to build a housing development. Thankfully, a preservation group is fighting those efforts. A local told me he sometimes lets relic hunters on his property. I know the site was a popular one for relic hunters in the early 1980s. There's a farm house at the top of the hill behind this sign that has a cannonball embedded in a wall. It's private property, and I didn't have the time to ask permission to check it out. As the road marker notes, this is also the site where Lee's Army crossed the Potomac during its invasion of Maryland.