Belair on the Home Front

Belair on the Home Front. Southern Sympathizers. , When the Civil War began, Prince George's County was full of Southern sympathizers. To keep Maryland in the Union, President Abraham Lincoln imposed martial law, and as the Prince George's Planters' Advocate on May 8, 1861, noted, "Maryland is thus subjugated without firing a gun." Here at Belair, owner George Cooke Ogle and his family struggled to maintain the plantation. Ogle's nephew, Richard Ogle Hodges, enlisted in the Confederate army, as did many local men. , Camps Union and Casey were built at Bladensburg, and Fort Foote, Fort Washington, and Battery Jameson defended Fort Lincoln. The Planters' Advocate noted on August 28, 1861, that "travellers are stopped at each station [camp] and examined -- the purpose being to intercept 'Contraband' articles." , When the Federals stopped steamboat travel on the Patuxent River in August 1861, the Planters' Advocate complained, "This is a great hardship on our people, who are not only deprived of getting supplies from Baltimore, but are unable to ship their produce, large quantities of which have accumulated at different landings on the river since the boats have stopped." , In 1864, Confederate Gen. Bradley Tyler Johnson raided the county, destroying rail lines at Beltsville, cutting telegraph wires, and bivouacking at the Maryland Agricultural College (now University of Maryland College Park). Johnson made his headquarters at the Rossborough Inn there. , After the war, George Ogle hoped a new railroad would bring prosperity, but Belair was heavily mortgaged. In 1871, he sold Belair, ending nearly 130 years of family ownership.