Show Navigation

Search Results

Refine Search
Match all words
Match any word
Prints
Personal Use
Royalty-Free
Rights-Managed
(leave unchecked to
search all images)
{ 11 images found }

Loading ()...

  • A lone leafless tree is seen in winter along a sunken road that came to be called Bloody Lane, which played a central role in the second phase of the battle of Antietam in September 1862 as part of the American Civil War.
    maryland014.JPG
  • The stone piers on the left are what remains of the original B&O Railroad bridge which was burned in 1861 by Confederates before marching South to converge with other rebel units to defend an important railroad junction from Union capture. The battle of Bull Run (as it was called by the Union, Manassas by the Confederacy; Union battles were typically named after rivers and tributaries, whereas Confederates named them after nearby towns and railroads) would be the first major battle of the Civil War.
    west-virginia005.JPG
  • History is not just around you in Washington, you're most likely standing or driving on it as well. Take the bridge connecting Pennsylvania Avenue to Georgetown for example. This bridge doesn’t just carry traffic; it’s been carrying the very water Washingtonians drink and shower with since the Civil War. <br />
<br />
Until the 1850’s, Pennsylvania avenue ended at Rock Creek, the only bridge into Georgetown being the M Street bridge. More importantly however, Georgetown and Washington had no clean or dependable water supply, relying instead on a mishmash of natural springs throughout the area that were often disease-ridden. After a fire in the Library of Congress destroyed over 30,000 books, funding was approved by Congress to build an effective water delivery system for the growing Capital. The project was overseen by Montgomery Meigs, who devised a massive, ambitious aqueduct system spanning from Great Falls to the Washington Navy Yard. Using open conduits, tunnels and bridges to transport the water via gravity through three separate reservoirs, the aqueduct was one of the first major water projects in the United States and was celebrated as an engineering marvel upon its completion after eight years of construction. The Pennsylvania avenue bridge is just one part of that elaborate water system, and was celebrated in its own right, with the aqueduct pipes simultaneously serving as the main support for the bridge itself. The superstructure of the old bridge was replaced with a stone facade as part of an expansion plan in 1916. However, the original pipes remain after 150 years; hidden behind the stone and underneath our tires.
    penn-ave-bridge-srgb.jpg
  • The road leading to the lighthouse of Point Lookout State Park in St. Mary's County, MD. A few hundred yards down this road is the former site of Camp Hoffman, a prisoner of war camp for confederates during the Civil War. Of the some 50,000 rebel soldiers who passed through its gates, approximately 4000 would die of disease and starvation. Consequently, many ghost stories have emanated from Point Lookout, one of which involves this stretch of road. Many prisoners reportedly would fake illness in order to be admitted to the adjacent Hammond Hospital where security was lighter and escape more possible. Prisoners would do this, only to expose themselves to disease in the sick wards and die in the surrounding woods shortly after making their escape. Various motorists coming down this road claim to have witnessed a man in gray tattered clothing sprinting across the road and into the forest, usually seen in the rear view mirror and always in the direction away from the camp sight.
    maryland010.JPG
  • The Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day in American History (September 17, 1862) with over 23,000 killed, wounded or missing, began on the grounds surrounding Dunker Church, with Confederate batteries opening fire against a Union assault on Confederate positions surrounding it. The savage back and forth assaults in the cornfield adjacent to the church resulted in over 8000 casualties in a matter of hours.
    maryland006.JPG
  • The sun sets over Antietam National Battlefield outside Sharpsburg, MD. The Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day in American History (September 17, 1862) resulted in over 23,000 killed, wounded or missing.
    maryland002.JPG
  • On the night of October 16th 1859 a party of 17 armed men led by the militant abolitionist John Brown crossed the Potomac River over the B&O railroad bridge to seize the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry and its stockpile of 100,000 rifles and muskets. With these weapons, Brown intended to facilitate an armed slave uprising that would begin in Virginia and move South along the Blue Ridge as word of the revolt spread. The raid was initially successful. Brown's men seized the railroad bridge, rounded up the town's watchmen, cut the telegraph wire and seized the arsenal complex (guarded by a single sentry) without incident. It all went downhill from there. <br />
<br />
Brown's entire plan hinged on the assumption that slaves in the surrounding countryside would flock to him after receiving word of the raid. However, no slaves were made aware of the planned attack, and consequently Brown quickly found himself surrounded in the morning not by eager runaway slaves but by angry townspeople and militia. Volleys were exchanged and hostages taken as Brown and his men retreated into the Arsenal's engine house (known today as John Brown's Fort)  barricading themselves inside. <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, An eastbound B&O train stopped by Brown's men earlier that morning was allowed to continue forward, whose conductor quickly wired a telegram reporting the raid to officials in Baltimore. In a matter of hours, Washington was alerted to the attack. President Buchanan dispatched a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee; future commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, to end the siege and capture John Brown. The Marines arrived in Harper's Ferry the next day. Brown refused to surrender himself in exchange for the lives of his remaining men, and the marines stormed the engine house to take Brown prisoner.
    west-virginia006.JPG
  • Storm clouds over Antietam National Battlefield. Sharpsburg, Maryland.
    maryland001.JPG
  • At the foot of the George Washington Monument C.1826 at the summit of South Mountain, Maryland. It was here that the Army of the Potomac broke through the rearguard of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after discovering special order 191, Robert E. Lee's battle plans for the Invasion of the North inside a cigar box near a farm outside of Frederick. The top secret plans described in detail how the already outnumbered confederate army had been divided into 5 corps and spread out. Lee himself quickly learned via confederate spies in Washington that his plans had been discovered, <br />
and immediately cancelled the planned invasion. Lee then ordered his divided army to regroup outside the nearby town of Sharpsburg, where the Confederate army would cross the Potomac River back to the safety Virginia. But Lee wasn't going to abandon everything after coming this far with nothing to show for it. Lee ordered his rebel army to make a stand against the oncoming army of the Potomac on the banks of a nearby creek called Antietam.
    south_mountain.JPG
  • At the foot of the George Washington Monument C.1826 at the summit of South Mountain, Maryland. It was here that the Army of the Potomac broke through the rearguard of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after discovering special order 191, Robert E. Lee's battle plans for the Invasion of the North inside a cigar box near a farm outside of Frederick. The top secret plans described in detail how the already outnumbered army had been divided into 5 corps and spread out. Lee himself quickly learned through spies in Washington that his plans had been discovered, <br />
and immediately cancelled the planned invasion. Lee then ordered his divided army to regroup outside the nearby town of Sharpsburg, where the Confederate army would cross the Potomac River back to the safety Virginia. Unwilling to abandon his army’s first invasion of the North with nothing to show for it, Lee ordered his men to make a stand against the oncoming Army of the Potomac along the banks of Antietam Creek.
    maryland020.JPG
  • Among the thousands of commuters who pass daily over D.C.’s Chain Bridge, some may wonder; just where are the chains? <br />
<br />
The chains haven’t been around since the actual chain-suspension bridge from which the name originated was overcome by storms and flooding in 1840, yet the name has stuck to every new bridge built to replace it since. But that is just one piece of Chain Bridge’s rich history. The span over which Chain Bridge is built is one of the oldest crossing routes in the vicinity of the capital. In fact, the wood covered bridge that was built here in 1797 was the very first bridge to span the Potomac River. This cycle of bridges being created and destroyed by the elements continued up to the Civil War, when the sixth chain bridge (a crossbeam truss design with no chains) played a vital role in the supply and movement of Union army encampments throughout fairfax county. Because of its close proximity to the capital, the bridge was heavily guarded by sentries and artillery throughout the war. While today’s (eighth and final, so far) chain bridge was built in 1939, it stands on the stone piers of the seventh chain bridge built shortly after the civil war in the early 1870’s.
    chain-bridge-civil-war.JPG
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
x

Craig Hudson Photography

  • About
  • Blog