MARYLAND: Peaceful Park Was Once Savage Civill War Camp
During the Civil War, Maryland became a border state, and because of its proximity to the Union capital, Washington D.C., it played a pretty key role during the war. While the area was traditionally a summer retreat/resort, during the Civil War, what’s now known as Point Lookout State Park grew into a bustling port and a temporary town of sorts, complete with an army garrison near Fort Lincoln, several houses and miliary offices, an army hospital, and the infamous prisoner-of-war camp, meant to hold Confederate soldiers captured during battle until they could be exchanged or released.
The camp, known as Camp Hoffman, was built after Gettysburg to detain Confederates camptured after the battle. It was made to hold around 10,000 prisoners, but between 1863 and 1865 (when the exchange of prisoners between the North and South was suspended) the number of men confined there boomed to between 12,000 and 20,000. As many as 16 men were living in each tent, making the already unsanitary conditions even worse.
Of the 50,000 men who did time at the camp, a reported 4,000 men died while awaiting release, although some suggest that the number could be even more devastating… as high as 14,000 (although keep in mind that conditions anywhere during the Civil War were equally bad). Most of the bodies were thrown into a mass grave, and while many were later dug up and returned home, many were never identified or sent back. A tall pillar stands over the site of the grave, which once held the remains of 3,384 Confederate prisoners of war, with the names of the dead inscribed on it.
If you’re thinking that all this death and horror make prime conditions for a haunting…you’re absolutely correct! The abandoned 1830’s era lighthouse and the giant stone obelisk built to commemorate those that died in the prison camp are the site of some bizarre and unusual activity: chills, ghostly apparitions, mysterious voices and, worst of all, a distinct smell of rotting flesh occasionally plague the otherwise peaceful park.
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