Monocacy

Our final stop of our first full day in Maryland was Monocacy, just south of Frederick. We got to the park just before the Visitor's Center closed. We did a quick tour of the VC, grabbed the brochures and were on our way. Nice to hear that they will be in a new VC in a year or so. The current one seemed quite small but we were not in it very long as we quite literally got there 5 minutes before closing time (4:30, its light much later, I realize they are not going to stay open til sunset but 6 wouldn't be too extreme). Highway 355 cuts through the battlefield and is quite a busy road. Interstate 270 also cuts through the battlefield but at least you don't have to cross it to complete the tour.

The first spot on the driving tour is next to two monuments on the north side of the Best farm. According to the markers this was Lee's headquarters in 1862 and also was where Order No. 191, the famous lost order, was found by Union forces. Our next stop was at the 14th New Jersey monument. This monument is along a railroad that now serves as a commuter line, probably taking people into DC. In 1864 it was part of the B&O line. While we were there we got a shot of the train, one of several trains we got pictures of. Maybe that will be its own post down the road. The sun wasn't setting just yet but I got a pretty neat shot with the rays coming through the clouds.
After that we moved on to the 10th Vermont and 67th, 87th and 138th Pennsylvania monuments. Then we went to the Worthington Farm. Unfortunately right as we got there a park employee drove up from the farm and closed the gate. The sign says the area is open until dark but apparently our definitions of dark are different. The road to the walking trails at the farm is a mile long so we decided to skip this stop and proceed to the final stop, Thomas Farm. Exhaustation was now playing with us so we walked around a little bit and took some pictures of the cows milling in front of the farm.

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.