Sept 18th, Point Lookout

September 18

Point Lookout State Park was open today, but the Civil War Museum and Lighthouse were closed.
We also went to tour St. Mary's City museum and it was also closed   This is Maryland's premier outdoor living history museum which is on the site of the state's first capital and the fourth permanent British settlement in the New World.
                                                   
                                                                 

 

 The Point Lookout lighthouse stands where the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River merge.

This was the observation post for Americans during the War of 1812.  It was also a staging area for local militia in early summer 1813. Two- to three-thousand British troops occupied the point July 19-27, 1813.  They conducted raids of St. Mary's county form here.

 

 

Point Lookout, also known as Camp Hoffman, imprisoned the largest number of military and civilians during the Civil War.  There were 52,264 documented Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout.  It is unknown exactly how many prisoners died at this POW camp.  There are 3,384 names of dead prisoners listed on the Federal Monument.  Yet nearly 700 additional dead have been identified since then and new names are documented every year.

Point Lookout Confederate Memorial

 

Two-thirds of Confederate soldiers were farmers before the war, the other third was composed of men from more

than 100 different prewar occupations.  The vast majority of Confederate soldiers, more than 90 percent, did not own slaves or large tracts of land, and would not say that the preservation of slavery was their reason for volunteering to serve in the

Confederate army.