Frederick

Our next stop of the day was Frederick. Our first stop was the town Visitor's Center which gave us a great walking tour brochure. Plus the guy was really helpful about answering our questions. He even told us about a few Civil War sites that were not in the brochure or marked on the street, such as Lee's headquarters near City Hall. The walking tour took us past (among plenty of other sites) the church that Jackson napped in (also where Barbara Fritchie worshipped), the City Hall, Ramsey House where Lincoln visited wounded General Hartsuff in October 1862, and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.

For me the best part was the cast iron dog sitting outside Dr John Tyler's home. The dog, "Guess" was stolen by Confederate troops who, according to the brochure, intended to remold the cast iron dog into bullets. But recasting iron isn't a simple process and apparently they decided it wasn't worth the effort. The dog was found on the Antietam battlefield and returned to Tyler's house. I thought that was just a great story.
I though the National Museum of Civil War Medicine was pretty neat. One complaint I had was that they would not allow any pictures inside. I understand not wanting flashes to destroy artifacts but I don't use a flash on my digital camera and the things I would have taken pictures of were mostly modern exhibit tablets just for the information on them.

We also hit our second cemetery of the day, Mount Olivet. The Confederate section was weird in that it was one long line of graves. I don't think I've ever seen Civil War graves laid out like that before. Other notables buried there include Francis Scott Key, Thomas Johnson (first Governor of Maryland) and Barbara Fritchie.
There really is quite a lot to do in Frederick. We didn't have time to do it all as we also had one more stop planned for this busy day, Monocacy.

Fort Frederick

On Monday our second stop was Fort Frederick (our first was a cemetery in Hagerstown, but that's for tomorrow's post). Its not really a Civil War fort as it was built decades earlier for the French and Indian War. But it did see some Civil War combat. On December 25, 1861 there was a small skirmish at the fort, which was being defended by a company of Union troops. Interestingly at the outbreak of the Civil War the fort was farmland, and was being farmed by a free black. I guess if you're going to be a free black living in a slave state better to live inside a fort. The top picture is taken from the catwalk behind the west barracks. The foundation of the Governor's House can be seen between the east and west barracks. Originally the catwalk would have gone all around the fort but today only a small modern version exists.

The bottom picture shows Mike in front of the big gate. Kinda shows just how tall the walls were. Its a bit hard to see in the picture but there are nice big spikes on top of the gate too just in case you decided you'd crawl over the gate.

The fort was rebuilt by the CCC in the 1930s. The day we went we had the whole place to ourselves. There were about 5 rangers/workers on the grounds but no other visitors, save two geese.

The fort's other pre Civil War job was as a prison for British and German troops captured during the Revolution and the War of 1812. I thought it was a neat place and worth the visit. I'm not sure it'd be a destination spot but if I was in the area with an extra hour or two I'd definitely stop again.