Unintended Target
Before you, at the top of Church Street, stands St. Thomas Episcopal Church, which became an unintended target of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's artillery on January 5-6, 1862. Jackson had led his force from Winchester, Virginia to destroy as much of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal as possible while driving Federal units before him to Hancock. He reached the Potomac River south of the town on January 5 and demanded that Gen. F. W. Lander and his Union command surrender, shelling them from Orrick's Hill (named for the home of Confederate congressman Johnson Orrick). When Union reinforcements arrived, Jackson decided to withdraw and march to Romney (in present-day West Virginia) on January 7. Before he departed, however, he ordered Col. Harry Gilmore to plunder a supply train of rifles, ammunition, and other supplies.HM Number | HM58E |
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Series | This marker is part of the Maryland Civil War Trails series |
Tags | |
Marker Condition | No reports yet |
Date Added | Thursday, October 9th, 2014 at 9:17am PDT -07:00 |
UTM (WGS84 Datum) | 17S E 741972 N 4398078 |
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Decimal Degrees | 39.69828333, -78.17785000 |
Degrees and Decimal Minutes | N 39° 41.897', W 78° 10.671' |
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | 39° 41' 53.82" N, 78° 10' 40.26" W |
Driving Directions | Google Maps |
Area Code(s) | 301, 240 |
Closest Postal Address | At or near 123 Western Maryland Rail Trail, Hancock MD 21750, US |
Alternative Maps | Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap |
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