Green Corn March

— Antietam Campaign 1862 —

On Saturday, September 6, 1862, the Army of Northern Virginia was spread along the entire length of Buckeystown Turnpike all the way to Frederick. The soldiers camped in the fields on either side of the road on the evenings of September 5-6, and by the next day most of the army was camped south of Frederick. On their way the Confederates stripped the nearby fields of green corn. Too much of this corn put many of the soldiers out of commission for several days with stomachaches—"Maryland's Revenge," some called it.

The landscape today is much the same as it was when the Confederates marched by. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson camped with his men near this spot at Three Springs. Benjamin Moffet, from a farm near the camp, presented Jackson with a riding horse. According to Henry Kyd Douglas, after mounting the horse, Jackson "touched her with a spur, and then with distended nostrils and flashing eyes she rose on her hind feet into the air and went backward, horse and rider, to the ground. The General was stunned, bruised and injured in the back. ... Now [Gen. Robert E.] Lee [whom had injured his hands and could not yet ride his horse] and Jackson were both being carried in ambulances."

(Sidebar): This fertile land was the first in Maryland to be planted primarily in wheat and corn instead of tobacco. Most of the land here belonged to descendants of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence, in an estate called Carrollton Manor that included more than 17,000 acres and was worked by more than 500 slaves. On the western side of the road, as you proceed up the turnpike toward Buckeystown, you can see some of the old houses of large estates owned by prominent Maryland families.

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Show me all markers in:  Adamstown, MD  |  Frederick County  |  21710  |  Maryland  |  United States of America

The Dutchman's
Carroll's Mill
1862 Antietam Campaign
Gettysburg Campaign
Point of Rocks
Point of Rocks
"Carrollton"
Site of Buckeystown Methodist Episcopal Church
Monocacy Aqueduct
Buckeystown

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