Rich Parker

SLM 521

Virtual Tour

A Tour of Civil War Maryland

Our tour of Civil War Maryland should start on Pratt Street in Baltimore. Here, before the first real battles had been fought, the first casualties of the conflict fell. A regiment of Massachusetts soldiers, on their way south, made a stop in Baltimore. Marching from the President’s Street train station to the B & O terminal on Pratt Street, these union soldiers were met by an angry mob of southern sympathizers. A riot broke out and, before the skirmish was finished, four soldiers and seven Baltimore civilians lay dead.

Visit the site of this bloody melee courtesy of The Maryland Historical Society’s website for the Baltimore Civil War Museum at www.mdhs.org/explore/baltcivilwar.html

From Baltimore, traveling westward, one reaches the historic city of Frederick, Maryland. Frederick was a busy little crossroads during the Civil War. Located between Baltimore and Washington, sitting between the two warring armies and Antietam, South Mountain and Gettysburg, Frederick witnessed the arrivals and departures of both armies constantly during the conflict.

Frederick was a very divided city, but it was here that the Maryland General Assembly met to decide the issue of secession. Without authority, Lincoln ordered the army to delay the arrival of delegates from the slaveholding eastern shore. The vote to remain loyal to the union was taken before the opposing delegates could arrive.

You can visit historic Kemp Hall where the hasty vote took place by visiting the site maintained by the Maryland Archives: www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/stagser/s1259/121/7590/html/0000.html

Late in the summer of 1862, Union and Confederate forces were heading for a meeting at the sleepy little town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The war had not been going well for the northern forces. Incompetent generals had lead Lincoln’s army into some embarrassing defeats. Emboldened, Robert E. Lee decided an invasion of Maryland might just convince the citizens of the north that the war was as good as lost. The truth would be tested at the Battle of Antietam. Before the armies converged for the larger fight, skirmishes broke out when the armies sighted each other near South Mountain outside Hagerstown, just north of Frederick and south of Sharpsburg.

You can view some of the scenery of this prelude to Antietam at www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/western/southmountain.html and www.civilwarhome.com/antietamprelude.htm.

September 1862 was a fateful month for the history of America. Abraham Lincoln desperately needed a Union victory to renew northern enthusiasm for the war. In addition, Lincoln intended to use the war to end the institution of slavery. But announcing his intentions without a decisive military victory would make Lincoln’s noble effort seem like the act of a President looking for any desperate measure to win foreign aid to pursue a war he was losing. Antietam would give Lincoln the victory he needed.

You can walk in the footsteps of the brave men who fought on both sides of this battle when you visit the magnificent photogallery created by the National Park Service at www.nps.gov/anti/pnots/Mod_photos_T.htm.

Battles raged in and around Maryland and, as mentioned before, the small town of Frederick sat right in the middle of much of the action. Frederick is close to South Mountain, close to Antietam, close to Gettysburg, the site of the Pennsylvania battle that proved the turning point of the war. Because Frederick was so close to much of the action, the city became a place for wounded soldiers to seek medical attention. Many of the public buildings in Frederick (schools, churches, government offices) were turned into hospitals. You can see and hear the story of the incredible work done by Civil War medics and surgeons at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick. The museum is housed in an historic building that was used as an embalming station during the war.

Get an eye-opening education in the harshness, the humanity and the miracles of Civil War medicine. Take a walk through the museums galleries of exhibits at their web site: www.civilwarmed.org/exhibits.cfm.

Just south of Frederick sits the site of the Battle of the Monocacy, a small but crucial battle toward the end of this bloody conflict. General U. S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac had the Confederate capitol under siege in the summer of 1864. Richmond, Virginia was about to fall; Petersburg was in grave danger. If only Robert E. Lee could threaten Washington, D. C.; maybe grant would send some of his army north to protect the Union capitol. In a bold move, Lee sent part of his outnumbered army back to Frederick to attempt an attack upon Washington from the north. The armies met across the banks of the Monocacy River. The Union troops were defeated, but the battle bought time for Washington. By the time guns fell silent on the Monocacy, Washington’s own garrison of soldiers safely protected the city from the threat of any attack. Lee’s forces retreated southward.

Visit this small battlefield, which is still in the process of growing at the National Park Services website at www.nps.gov/mono.

Let’s finish our tour where the Civil War ended for many Confederate soldiers. On the eastern peninsular of Maryland, in beautiful St. Mary’s County lies Point Lookout. Here, the federal government set up a camp for southern prisoners. The park that now sits here has quite a history, a history that is being restored piece by piece by those on both sides of America’s defining conflict.

Visit the site of this prison camp. Hope that you survive the often harsh conditions under which these prisoners lived. One way or another – either pardoned from this camp or carried from it in a coffin – the war will end for you here at www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/ptlookouthistory.html.

May we never see another like it.