Maryland's Civil War:
From Battlefields to Medicine

Robert E. Lee is rarely thought of as having the soul of a riverboat gambler. But the Commander of the Confederate Army often played a high stakes game during the war. Two of his riskiest maneuvers came in Maryland, one near the beginning of the war; the other at the end. Neither succeeded, and both affected the course of the war. RV'ers can visit both places, as well as other historical, ecological, and just plain fun places in the area.

History first. A border state, Maryland had divided loyalties. Although it remained in the Union, Lee thought most people supported the South. The temptation to move the war north was very strong, so following his early successes in Virginia, Lee crossed the Potomac. He met the Union troops under George McClellan, near the village of Sharpsburg. What followed was the bloodiest single day of fighting in American history, the Battle of Antietam.

Over 120,000 troops fought on that hot, muggy, September day in 1862. Over 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or disappeared. It's said that the waters of the gently meandering Antietam Creek ran red for days.

It is quiet now in the fields around Sharpsburg. The loudest sounds are bird songs and the occasional car tooling down Hagerstown Pike. There are no gaudy souvenir shops
or other tourist attractions in town. The local community has a great respect for what happened here.

Most of the landscape looks very much as it did on during the battle. The visitors center at Antietam National Battlefield is a low-lying building on a slope sited to give as much of an overview as possible of the major scenes of the fighting. Regular presentations by park rangers explain the troop movements and progression of the battle.

The museum is very small; there are relics about The Instruments of War - the use of music by the armies, some uniform and personal items of some of the soldiers, and photographs of the battlefield taken shortly after the guns fell silent.

A History Channel-type video with reenactors and narration explains the importance of the battle. As a military action, it was a draw. Politically, though, it kept France and England neutral and gave Lincoln a platform from which to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

The well-marked driving tour of the battlefield rolls through the back lanes to all of the major sites of the battle. There are plenty of places to pull over and enough monuments and historical markers to satisfy even the most fanatic Civil War buff. Burnside Bridge, The Cornfield, and Bloody Lane all move out of history books as visitors step onto them.

Lee's second gamble on Maryland soil came near the end of the war, in July, 1864. His army was holed up in Virginia, trying to protect the Confederate capitol at Richmond. The Union troops were pouring in from the north, threatening to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

But that left Washington almost defenseless. The temptation to try to take the Union capitol was irresistible. Lee sent a small force across the Potomac to Frederick. They planned to sweep down into Washington from the northwest, routing the home guard and militia that were the city's only defense.

The 15,000 battle-seasoned Confederates under Gen. Jubal Early were met by the only defenders in Frederick - another rag-tag collection of 2300 untested trainees. They were led by Gen. Lew Wallace (who later went on to write Ben Hur).

While more Union troops rushed from Virginia and Washington, Wallace's men tried to hold back Early's forces in the wheat and cornfields along the Monocacy River south of Frederick. It was a lopsided battle, and one that Wallace and the Union couldn't win. But the stubbornness of the Union men slowed Early and cost him a day's march. When he reached the heights overlooking Washington, he could see the Union reinforcements pouring into the capitol and knew he couldn't take the city. It was the most important victory Lee ever lost.

Unlike Antietam, most of the Monocacy battlefield is still in private hands. The visitors center in the old stone Gambrill Mill was near the center of the fighting. The ½-mile walking trail loops around from the center to the river and back. Rangers can give directions to other paths where depressions in the ground show where rifle pits were dug. A brochure with a driving trail to the other major points of the battle is free at the visitor's center. Do remember, though, that these roads carry more regular traffic than sightseers.

Over 600,000 soldiers died in the Civil War. For every man killed in battle, two died of disease. The National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick explores the role of the often-unappreciated medical teams.

This is not a museum for the squeamish. While there are benign exhibits of recruiting stations in both north and south and a diorama of a typical army camp, the focus is on the medicine, and that's pretty grim. Any lingering illusions about the glory of battle evaporate very quickly. The photos and written accounts are graphic and heartbreaking. One nurse's diary breaks down her day hour-by-hour, including "7PM, patient fading rapidly. Hold hand until he dies. Cover him."

But this is still an important museum for anyone interested in the Civil War. In many ways, the war gave birth to the Emergency Medical System. New weapons caused horrific wounds and both medics on the field and doctors in the hospitals were forced to improvise new techniques to save lives. Plastic surgery was invented, although most of the reconstructive surgeries were performed without anesthetics. In addition to the medical advances, the system of interconnected general hospitals, triage, and organized structure within hospitals developed.

"Shoot if you must this old gray head…" so Barbara Fritchie challenged Confederate General Stonewall Jackson by waving Old Glory from her bedroom window when his troops rode through Frederick. Jackson, so the story goes, was so impressed with the lady's pluck that he ordered his men to treat her display of patriotism with great respect.

The house where the lady and the general had their confrontation is open for tours - sort of. Not that anybody likes to talk about it, but the actual house was located next to this one and was demolished a long time ago. The locals just moved the artifacts next store and kind of look the other way. It's the symbolism that matters, after all. (There's an alternate version of the meeting between Barbara and Stonewall, too. That version claims that Barbara was quite elderly and more than a little dotty and that Stonewall was mostly amused, but that doesn't make half as good a poem!)

Frederick itself is well worth a visit. It's an old town that didn't lose its business center to lawyers' offices and inertia when the suburbs started opening up. The narrow streets are not great for RVs, but there are several parking lots where rigs can squeeze in. An excellent walking tour leaves the visitor's center on weekends. The guides know all of the gossip as well as all of the facts. The rest of the week, spend 50¢ for the self-guided walking tour brochure. Also check in with the Frederick Tour and Carriage Company (301-694-7433) for information about horse-drawn tours of Frederick's historic district.

When leaving Frederick, take Rt. 40 West instead of the interstate and head towards Sideling Hill. Along the way, the Wilson General Store demands a stop. There are a lot of fun old things here: big round wooden cheese boxes, liniments suitable for any ailment, sodas from the boxlike coolers. One of the biggest selections of penny candy in the state covers countertops in glass jars filled with brightly colored sweets. It's all presided over by two shy, grandmotherly clerks.

Sideling Hill is Mother Nature's contribution to the area's attractions. When engineers started blasting away at the mountain while building I-68, they uncovered a geological layer cake. This stratified inside of the mountain shows a clear, detailed picture of the geologic development of the Appalachians. Before driving through it, stop at the visitors center. There's a trail that leads to the edge of the cut and a lot of displays inside showing what was found and where.

The old route that follows the perimeter of the mountain is still there as Rt. 40. It's a good road, fine for RVs, but one that makes drivers appreciate the straighter, shallower climb through instead of around and over the hill. It's a nice way to loop back towards Frederick and Hagerstown.

Hepburn's Orchards in Hancock is the place to stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables in season. Dozens of apple orchards cover the hills around Hancock, and the patio outside the main shop is heavy with the aroma of a dozen varieties of apples. That scent competes with what's wafting from the bakery, as warm cobblers, pies, tarts, and cookies move from the ovens to the sales counters. Robert E. Lee never visited here, but those treats would have been another Maryland temptation he couldn't have resisted.
-0-