It was a restful place to spend Sunday and in the evening we joined the villagers in a stroll through the shady streets and out on the bluff overlooking the Potomac. Here on the edge of the cliffs on a natural base of limestone rock is an imposing shaft lately erected to the memory of James Rumsey, Shepherdstown pioneer and inventor of the steamboat. Rumsey, you know, was the Langley of steam navigation. While Prof. Langley originated the idea of the heavier than air system of aeronautic transportation, his aeroplane, upon which experiments were made on this same Potomac river, was not perfected to the point of standing the practical test. Two bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio, were destined to make a crowning achievement where the scientist had failed. Posterity will demand that the Wright brothers share their fame with Langley. [Illustration: Antietam Battlefield at Dunker Church (right) and Cornfield (left) Across Hagerstown Pike] Although Robert Fulton is popularly credited with the invention of the steamboat, he only perfected the work which was started by Rumsey in the waters of the Potomac at Shepherdstown in September, 1784. In the presence of George Washington a boat which ascended the stream by mechanical appliances was exhibited by Rumsey 23 years before Fulton's Clermont made its memorable voyage on the Hudson. The house in which Rumsey lived is one of the historic landmarks of Shepherdstown. The inventor went to Europe and built a new boat which made a successful trip on the Thames in December, 1792. A few weeks later sudden death in the very prime of life cut short Rumsey's career. In the Civil War Shepherdstown endured the agony but shared little of the glory of battle. It is about eight miles north of Harper's Ferry and less than four miles west of Antietam. Skirmishes took place here early in the war and in September, 1862, it saw Stonewall Jackson's famous foot cavalry sprint through this corner of Jefferson county in his encircling movement for the capture of Harper's Ferry. A week later echoes of the guns engaged in the bloody work at Antietam reverberated against the hills around Shepherdstown and on the afternoon of that 17th day of September hundreds of mutilated men were carried into the village and committed to the care of the townspeople. The wounded were Confederate soldiers and from the majority of homes in Shepherdstown had gone fathers, sons, brothers to fight under Lee or Jackson. Marie Blunt, one of the heroic women who assisted caring for the wounded, in describing that melancholy day, said: