CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE: NOT ANOTHER CIVIL WAR FORT!

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE: NOT ANOTHER CIVIL WAR FORT!

Just when I thought there were no more Civil War forts to visit in the Mid-Atlantic States, the Admiral drove me to Point Lookout, Maryland to visit Fort Lincoln, “the main Union fortification on the peninsula.” It is not nearly as impressive as Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia or Fort Monroe in Hampton, but it was built at the critical point where the Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Location, location, location! All that remains of Fort Lincoln are some of the raised earthen walls that surrounded the buildings. The only buildings inside the walls are replicas of bunkhouses for enlisted men and officers and a guard house. I would venture a guess that this may be the least visited fort on the entire Atlantic coast. We were the only visitors this past Tuesday, September 23. While the fort was built extremely well to withstand any assaults, according to one of the narrative signs, “Fort Lincoln saw no action.” Still, there was plenty of action around Fort Lincoln, especially after the defeat of the Confederate Army at Gettysburg. The Union Army set up the Point Lookout Prisoner-of-War Camp on this peninsula bordered by the Potomac and the Chesapeake. This Prisoner-of- War Camp was also called “Camp Hoffman”. Its claim to fame (or infamy) is that it held the largest number of military and civilian prisoners during the Civil War. Historians have documented 52,264 Confederate prisoners (soldiers and civilians) at Camp Hoffman. By comparison, Andersonville housed 45,000 prisoners (Union soldiers) during this War. “Camp” is an interesting term for the Point Lookout prison, which housed the POWs in tents. Their detention was no picnic and this place was no camp. There are 3,384 documented prisoner deaths at Camp Hoffman, although most of the literature indicates that the death toll was considerably higher. These numbers dwarf the number of prisoners held at Fort Delaware throughout the Civil War. But Fort Delaware is in great physical shape and holds countless reenactments to attract the tourist population. By contrast, Point Lookout, or Camp Hoffman, is pretty desolate, marked primarily by an obelisk with the names of prisoners who died there and plaques for each of the states that “succeeded” from the Union. Yes, a typo on the monument – doesn’t anyone proofread these words before they’re engraved into stone?

Maryland had plenty of folks who wanted to secede along with their neighbor, Virginia. But the federal government could not protect itself in Washington, D.C., had Maryland been allowed to secede. Shortly after the Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania troops were passing through Baltimore heading South, when they were attacked by citizens of Baltimore. Four soldiers and twelve citizens were killed, nineteen secessionist legislators and the Mayor of Baltimore, also a secessionist, were imprisoned, along with other prominent secessionists. They were denied the right to trial and/or appeal. The U.S. Government essentially occupied Maryland during the Civil War with a large number of Union troops. In the 1860 election, there were 92,000 Maryland voters for President, and just 3000 of those votes were for Lincoln. Move over, Barack, you are not the least popular president of all time. And you have not yet had to impose martial law on any states. Even though Maryland was occupied by federal troops, this occupation did not stop thousands of young Maryland men from leaving the State to join the Confederate troops, or as the Point Lookout signpost says, “to join the fight for independence.” There is a distinctly Confederate “feel” to this area of Maryland, if only because there were so many Confederate soldiers buried here. Many of their bones have been disinterred and moved to their home states, but their spirits remain in the Confederate flags and other Confederate paraphernalia which decorate the memorial to them.

Competing with the Confederate ambience are the spirits of the residents of “Contraband Camp”, also located at Point Lookout during the Civil War. As you may have read in other blogs, the men, women and children who escaped from slavery in the Southern states were called “contraband of war”, and in that way they were still considered property by the Union Army, which had no legal duty to return this “property” to its “owners”. Be that as it may, many African-Americans who escaped from slavery in the South made it to Lookout Point, where they lived in freedom for the first time. Although their living conditions have been described as squalid (caves underground, with a hole for an entrance and a hole to allow smoke to escape), the African-Americans who made it to this part of Maryland were FREE. And some of them were lucky enough to have found jobs with the military, actually getting paid a wage for the first time in their lives. I’m sure conservative pundits will point to this transition from slavery to the government payroll as the beginning of the “Welfare State” – anything to put down the poor, hard-working African-Americans. But let’s face it – the Union military was hurting for support staff, and the newly free African-Americans brought many skills with them, not just as laborers, but also as plantation house managers and cooks and caretakers. I’m not even sure, given their legal status as contraband of war, that they would have been permitted to work for any other employer than the U.S. Government. Just another intrusion by Big Government into our lives – to level the playing field, or rather to provide a playing field for African-Americans – their first ever in this country. Please don’t try to draw comparisons between the history of African-Americans in this country and the history of immigrants from Europe or Asia or South America – there is simply nothing like being dragged into this country in chains and enslaved for hundreds of years.

Lookout Point played an earlier role in American history than its service as both a prisoner-of-war camp and a contraband camp during the Civil War. It was an observation post (“lookout” – get it?) for British ships by American soldiers during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. But the British took control of it July 19 through 27, 1813, and they sent raiding parties into St. Mary’s County while they were in control of the Point. Of course, long before “Americans” settled here, 5000 years or so, Native Americans lived here. The first groups were hunters, but later the Conoy Piscataway (easy for you to say) took advantage of the rich soil to plant tobacco and corn. They were not only farmers on land, but also “farmed” the Chesapeake for oysters, clams, crabs and fish. The first Europeans known to venture to Lookout Point were Spanish sailors in the 1500s. After their forays around the Point, Captain John Smith and his buddies explored the peninsula. As we toured the peninsula last Tuesday, it was populated by people fishing on the Bay side and a few parks employees mowing the grass at what is left of Fort Lincoln – oh yes, and by one solitary jogger. For some reason the small Lookout Point Park Museum is closed on Tuesdays – that could explain the scarcity of people. But it just wears this shroud of neglect, in other words, it’s a great place to visit if you want to get away from crowds, yet still learn a little bit more about American history.

The Lookout Point lighthouse is still operative – also closed when we visited. It is opened for tours from time to time, and apparently there are a lot of ghostbusters who like to tour this particular lighthouse. Many specters have been detected by those in the business of specter detecting. Some very serious studies have been conducted into the presence or absence of ghosts at this location. There were so many stories of strange noises and sightings here that a parapsychologist studied the lighthouse for the presence of ghosts in 1980, and get this, the Maryland Committee for Psychical Research held a séance inside the lighthouse. It doesn’t get much weirder than that. For my part, I am more interested in the fact that many of the lightkeepers at this lighthouse were women. Women became lightkeepers because this was one of the few non-clerical government positions open to them. The first woman lightkeeper, Ann, inherited the job in 1830, when her father, James Davis, died. She held on to the job for 17 years. She probably didn’t earn the same wage as her father, but her 17 years of service clearly topped his 3 months in the position. Male lightkeepers followed Ann, but none of them lasted very long in the job. Then another woman, Martha Edwards, took over for 2 years. She was followed by her daughter, Pamelia, who kept the light at Point Lookout from 1855 through 1869. Go Pamelia! I enjoy writing down women’s names, whenever they are available – there have been far too many “anonymous” women in history. It’s way past time to give credit to all the pioneering women who preceded us.

Here ends the umpteenth blog on another Civil War fort, another haunted lighthouse, and another diatribe about the mistreatment of African-Americans and the failure to acknowledge women in history. Amen.