| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — "Contraband" Camp |
| | During the Civil War, thousands of enslaved African-Americans escaped from captivity in the South to liberty in the North. The grounds before once sheltered these freedom-seekers, know at that time as “Contraband”.
Conditions in the “Contraband Camp” were appalling. Men, women and children lived half underground in dark, damp, smoky dens.
Nurse Sophronia Bucklin’s first-hand accounts of the “Contraband Camp” described men burrowing like “beasts . . . — Map (db m60315) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — "The Bean Pot" |
| | On June 10, 1865 J.H. Thompson, former POW camp head surgeon, notified the public that Pt. Lookout had been “abandoned”. This notice was published in the St. Mary’s Gazette. The St. Mary’s Beacon newspaper had been seized during the war by the U.S. Government due to the Beacon’s critical content of the Lincoln administration and changed the name to Gazette. The Beacon’s editor, John Downs was imprisoned here at Pt. Lookout.
The Government sold the buildings and contents of the . . . — Map (db m60276) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — A Bustling Civil War Community |
| | By the end of the Civil War in 1865, the military bases at Point Lookout had grown into a small city. Besides the hospitals and prison camp, you could find dockyards, saw mills and warehouses - even a railroad, a post office and newspaper.
Point Lookout was also the Southern terminus for the Potomac River Flotilla, a U. S. Navy unit. Flotilla vessels brought supplies up Chesapeake Bay to Point Lookout, where they were transferred to river steamers. These steamers traveled the Potomac, . . . — Map (db m8934) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — A Crucial Point — Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail |
| | This site, where the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River merge, was an observation post for Americans during the War of 1812. It was also staging area for local militia in early summer of 1813.
Two- to Three-thousand British troops occupied the point July 19-27, 1813. They conducted raids into St. Mary's County from here.
"Our situation is extremely critical...The whole fleet is yet lying off Point Look Out. What will be their movement I know not." -- Captain James Forrest, Maryland militia, July 27, 1813 — Map (db m62446) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — A Place of History |
| | Point Lookout is a witness to much of our nation’s history. As you survey the vast expanse of Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River, remember those who have come before.
Early Inhabitants
Five thousand years ago, Native Americans first came to this shore, drawn by the natural bounty. The earliest inhabitants were hunters and gatherers; later, the Conoy Piscataway tribe farmed these lands, growing tobacco and corn.
Spanish sailors were the first Europeans to sight the Point in the . . . — Map (db m60317) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — A Seaside Resort at Point Lookout |
| | The grassy area in front of you was once the site of a major resort. The geared wheels peeking out of the grass are all that remain. They were part of a power plant that provided lighting for the resort’ buildings and power for its water treatment plant.
Even before the Civil War, tourists were making their way to Point Lookout. The first resort here opened in 1860. Imagine the guests on the lawn, the women in long dresses with parasols, watching the steamboats en route to Baltimore and . . . — Map (db m60316) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Death at Point Lookout |
| | It is hard to imagine this tranquil site as a place of sickness, suffering and death. Yet during the Civil War, five graveyards marked Point Lookout.
Why so many graves? In 1863, Union forces chose this isolated spot for a prisoner of war camp. Over 50,000 Confederate soldiers were confined here in tents and crude buildings. Crowded conditions, insufficient food, contaminated water and exposure to harsh weather inevitably led to disease.
Dysentery, tuberculosis and smallpox spread . . . — Map (db m60286) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Defense Strategies |
| | Imagine defending this isolated peninsula during the Civil War. There were threats from within (from thousands of prisoners) and from without (by Confederate soldiers trying to free their comrades or gain territory). What's more, a pro-Southern population surrounding the Point.
To meet this challenge, Union strategists devised a complex defense plan. They built three forts, a series of rifle pits and a gun battery, positioning them to catch enemies in a murderous crossfire. These defenses, . . . — Map (db m8936) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Fort Lincoln |
| | Standing before you is Fort Lincoln, the main Union fortification on the peninsula. As a key defense stronghold, Fort Lincoln, also known as Fort #2, was cleverly designed to resist attack.
To defend against artillery fire or direct infantry assaults, the Fort had 60-yard square earthen walls. Loose dirt on the outside slowed attackers, while hardened interiors resisted cannon fire. At the rear, an L-shaped passage protected the gates from cannon fire or a battering ram. A dry moat further . . . — Map (db m8967) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — John Wilkes Booth — Escape of an Assassin |
| | War on the Chesapeake Bay
Divided loyalties and ironies tore at Marylanders’ hearts throughout the Civil War: enslaved African-Americans and free United States Colored Troops; spies and smugglers; civilians imprisoned without trial to protect freedom; neighbors and families at odds in Maryland and faraway battlefields. From the Eastern Shore to the suburbs of Washington, eastern Maryland endured those strains of civil war in ways difficult to imagine today.
Those strains continued . . . — Map (db m1000) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Let There Be Light |
| | For 136 years, the Point lookout Lighthouse
helped generations of Chesapeake Bay
mariners avoid shoals, navigate through dense
fog, and find the Potomac River’s mouth. The
beam shone until 1966, when an automated light off Point Lookout assumed the job of the original wood-and-masonry lighthouse.
Trailblazing Women.
Lighthouse keeping was one of the first
non-clerical government jobs available to
American women. In 1830, when Point
Lookout’s first keeper James Davis died after . . . — Map (db m1004) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Maryland and the Confederacy |
| | The U.S. Government, located in Washington D.C. was surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. Since Virginia had already joined the Confederacy, it was critical in the survival of the Union that Maryland not be allowed to secede. The State was quickly occupied by Union forces and secessionist legislators were thrown into jail before they could vote for secession. Of the 92,000 votes cast by Marylanders in the 1860 presidential election, fewer than 3,000 were for Lincoln. However approximately half . . . — Map (db m60278) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery |
| | Erected by the United States to mark the burial place of Confederate Soldiers and Sailors who died at Point Lookout, Md., while prisoners of war and were there buried to the number of 3384, but whose remains were subsequently removed, either to their respective homes, or to this cemetery where the individual graves cannot now be identified. — Map (db m927) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery |
| | Erected by the State of Maryland in memory of the Confederate Soldiers who died Prisoners of War at Point Lookout, from March 1st, 1864, to June 30th, 1865.
(north face) “At the call of Patriotism and duty they encountered the perils of the field, endured the trials of a Prison, and were faithful, even until death.”
(east face) Virginia 640 • North Carolina 962 • South Carolina 248 • Georgia 249 • Alabama 75 • Tennessee 63 • Louisiana 38 • Mississippi 42 • . . . — Map (db m943) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Point Lookout Prison |
| | This memorial plaza is to honor the sacrifices of the 52,264 Confederate soldiers, sailors and civilians imprisoned near here during the War Between the States. Point Lookout prison camp was established immediately following the Battle of Gettysburg and was operated by the Union Army from September 1863 to June 1865
The camp was built to hold 10,000 prisoners; at times it held more than double that amount of military and civilians. Due to inhumane conditions as well as active persecution, . . . — Map (db m60250) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Point Lookout Prisoner-Of-War Camp — (1863–1865) |
| | After the Battle of Gettysburg, the Union established a prisoner-of-war depot near here. Confederate soldiers and Maryland civilians were imprisoned and guarded by 400 Union troops. With only tents for protection, 3,384 prisoners died. — Map (db m998) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Point Lookout Prisoner-of-War Camp — (1863-1865) |
| | After the battle of Gettysburg, the Union established a prisoner-of-war depot near here. Confederate soldiers and Maryland civilians were imprisoned and guarded by 400 Union troops, with only tents for protection. 3,384 prisoners died.
State Roads Commission of Maryland, J. Millard Tawes, Governor
St. Mary’s County Historical Society, Charles E. Fenwick, President — Map (db m60283) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Point Lookout State Park — Hammond General Hospital |
| | Hammond General Hospital, opened
at Point Lookout, Maryland, in
August 1862, was named for Surgeon General William A. Hammond. The massive structure, built
to accommodate 1,400 amen, was set on piles about two to three feet
above ground and covered nearly
all the area between the Potomac
River and the Chesapeake Bay. It was well over 500 feet in diameter and had 16 wings, each 175 by
25 feet, radiating out from an open central area like the spokes of a
giant wheel. One wing . . . — Map (db m1001) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Point Lookout-Hammond Hospital |
| | This monument is dedicated to the memory of those soldiers, sailors, and hospital attendants from both North and South, who were here at Point Lookout from July 1862 to July 1865.
This monument marks the general location of the Hammond Hospital — Map (db m60284) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Shipwreck! |
| | Centuries of storms, fogs, shoals, collisions, combat, poor judgement and bad luck have plagued local mariners. Gazing across Point Lookout's waters, we can only wonder how many of their wrecks litter the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River.
Don't Light The Boiler
November 11, 1864: The Union gunboat U. S. S. Tulip was heading up the Potomac River to Washington D. C. for repairs. To make better time and avoid Confederate batteries on the Virginia shore, the . . . — Map (db m8935) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Smallpox Epidemic |
| | Near this location during the Civil War was the smallpox hospital where thousands of people were quarantined.
Highly contagious, horrible to behold and often fatal, smallpox was a dreaded disease. When the scourge hit the prison camp, officials built this second hospital to isolate victims. Whether you were Union, Confederate or civilian, you were quarantined here.
Surgeons, hospital stewards and nursing sisters from the Daughters of Charity cared for the smallpox patients so well that . . . — Map (db m60285) HM |
| Maryland (St. Mary's County), Scotland — Storm Blocks the Route to Freedom |
| | In April 1848, the Chesapeake Bay's stormy weather doomed a maritime dash to freedom by 77 slaves from Washington D.C.
Anti-slavery activist William L. Chapin had arranged for the schooner Pearl to spirit the 77 to New York and liberty. But when Captain Daniel Drayton was forced to seek shelter in Point Lookout Creek and Cornfield Harbor, the fugitive slaves had no choice but to surrender.
Liberty for Some
Two of the Pearl's unlucky passengers, sisters Mary and . . . — Map (db m62551) HM |
Subscribe
— Privacy Policy
— Terms of Use
— About Us
— Contact Us
HMdb.org