Point Lookout State Park
N 38° 02.383 W 076° 19.326
18S E 383983 N 4211046
Point Lookout is a site on the Chesapeake Bay and Booth Escape Trail of Maryland's Civil War Discovery Trail.
Waymark Code: WM7AKA
Location: Maryland, United States
Date Posted: 09/27/2009
Views: 17
At the start of the Civil War, Point Lookout was a popular resort with hotel, cottages, and a lighthouse. In 1862, the United States government leased the Point Lookout area to build a hospital for its Union troops. It was built like the spokes of a wheel and named Hammond General Hospital for Surgeon General William A. Hammond.
In 1863, a prison camp for Confederate prisoners of war was also built at Point Lookout. It was designed to hold 10,000, but it grew to 20,000 prisoners.
Because Point Lookout sits on a peninsula surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River in an area that was pro-Southern, there was always a threat of Confederate attack. Three forts, a series of rifle pits, and a gun battery were built for defense.
At the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln in a theater in Washington, D.C. and used the help of southern Maryland's Confederate underground to escape. Booth traveled through Maryland and crossed the Potomac River into Virginia where he was found and killed.
Today, the original structures of the hospital, POW camp, and forts are gone. Nature eventually reclaimed the land after the War. Only the earthen walls at Fort Lincoln which was the main defensive fortification on the peninsula, survive. But Fort Lincoln has been reconstructed through research to look much the same as it did during the War. A memorial to those who died in the prison camp stands at Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery and an impressive POW Memorial complete with prisoners' stories is at the Confederate Memorial Park at Point Lookout. At the campgrounds, there is a Civil War Museum and Nature Center.
The posted coordinates mark the location of the two Civil War Discovery Trail interpretive signs at Point Lookout. They are Point Lookout State Park - Hammond General Hospital and John Wilkes Booth - Escape of an Assassin.
Civil War Discovery Trail Websites: