Camp Stanton: A Slice of Civil War History by the Side of the Road |
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Home – Political News – Camp Stanton: A Slice of Civil War History by the Side of the Road
Camp Stanton: A Slice of Civil War History by the Side of the Road
Civil War history and heroic sacrifice will be commemorated this Memorial Day at famed battlefields like Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. But history was also made at places long lost to time.
As you approach the scenic Patuxent River on Maryland’s Route 231 heading east, at the tiny town of Benedict, a gray historic marker is easy to miss. Miss it and miss a great story.
The marker records that near this spot, on what is now flat farmland along the water, sat for a brief period during the Civil War Camp Stanton.
Named after Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Camp Stanton was formed for the purpose of recruiting and training black soldiers from Maryland for the Union Army. Freemen, runaway slaves, even those still enslaved like William H. Coates, aged 18, and William B. Jones, aged 19, whose owner, George Peterson, agreed to let them join—for a price of $300.
Together, these men were enlisted to form the 7th, 9th, 19th, and 30th United States Colored Infantry regiments, and over the ensuing months and brutal winter, they trained and drilled and prepared for the fight.
Indeed, conditions were so rough that Camp Stanton would be shut down after only six months because so many soldiers were falling ill. Plus, the camp had done its job.
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All told, 8,718 men had trained at Camp........