With its strategic location
at the border between the North and the South, Hagerstown became a principal
staging area and supply center for four major campaigns in the East during the
Civil War.
In 1861, General Robert
Patterson's troops used the town as a springboard to attack Virginia Rebels in
the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. During the Maryland Campaign of 1862, General
Longstreet's command occupied the town en route to the Battle of South Mountain
and Antietam. In 1863, Hagerstown was the site of several military incursions
and engagements as General Lee's army invaded and retreated at the Gettysburg
Campaign. During the Maryland/Shenandoah Campaign of 1864, the town was occupied
several times by Confederate troops and ransomed for $20,000 during General
Jubal Early's invasion of Maryland.
A City
Divided
As a
slave-holding county in what would become a federally occupied border state
during the Civil War, sympathies were divided over the issue of secession in
this town of 4,132. Pre-war debates often erupted into near riots as Southern
sympathizers became disruptive and increasingly antagonistic.
During the War, escaped
slaves seeking asylum in Hagerstown were caught and returned to their Southern
owners. Because of pro-Southern columns appearing in the Hagerstown Mail, its
newspaper's offices were sacked and burned by Northern sympathizers following
the defeat of the Federal Maryland troops by Maryland Confederates at Front
Royal, Virginia.
Invading Northern and
Southern troops received varying degrees of welcome from the local citizenry
depending on the outcome of military campaigns in the region. Grocery stores and
businesses, owned by men whose sons went to the South, were targets for looting
from time to time during the War.
Treatment of the Sick and Wounded
Throughout the War, private
physicians and citizens took care of men from both sides in a number of
locations including personal residences and at the Franklin Hotel, the
Washington House, the Lyceum, the Hagerstown Male Academy, and Key-Mar College.
Wounded Federal soldiers eventually were transferred to primary military
hospitals in Frederick, Maryland. Confederates were sent off to prison.
The spread of smallpox from
returning soldiers to their families and friends was a serious problem during
the War. When an epidemic spread throughout the town, the Bethel Methodist
Episcopal Church's Black congregation volunteered the use of its church as a
smallpox hospital.
Following the War in 1872,
Maryland and Virginia cooperated on a project to re-enter the Confederate dead
from their impromptu graves in the region of Rose Hill Cemetery. This
Confederate cemetery, dedicated in 1877, accommodates 2,447 unidentified and 281
identified Confederate soldiers from the Battles at Antietam, South Mountain,
Gettysburg and Hagerstown.
Ransom of Hagerstown
In 1864, Hagerstown almost
literally ``felt the heat" of the Civil War. In July, General Jubal Early,
commander of Confederate forces, moved his troops from the Shenandoah Valley
toward the Potomac River, threatening a third invasion of the North by Southern
soldiers. On July 3 fighting occurred at Harpers Ferry, Leetown, Darksville and
Martinsburg.
Two days later, General
Early crossed the Potomac at Shepherdstown later skirmishing at Keedysville,
Point-of-Rocks, Soloman's Gap and Hagerstown,
On Wednesday, July 6, Early
sent 1,500 cavalry, commanded by John McCausland, into Hagerstown to levy a
ransom for $20,000 and a large amount of clothing, in retribution for Federal
destruction of farms, feed and cattle in the Shenandoah Valley.
A cooperative effort by
three banks and the Hagerstown City Council produced the money to save the town
from burning while citizens and businesses surrendered vast numbers of pants,
shirts, hats and shoes to the Rebels.
These city banks are still
in operation: Hagerstown Bank (later Hagerstown Trust Company), the Hagerstown
branch of the Williamsport Bank (later the Washington County National Bank), and
Hagerstown Savings Bank (later First National Bank).
