Brookeville Prisoners Paroled - Brookeville MD - U.S. Civil War Sites on Waymarking.com

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Brookeville Prisoners Paroled— Gettysburg Campaign —On June 28, 1863, Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart left Rockville with three cavalry brigades, 125 captured Union supply wagons, and more than 400 military and civilian prisoners, arriving in Brookeville that night. At every opportunity, prisoners Maj. James C. Duane (Chief Engineer, Army of the Potomac) and Capt. Nathaniel Michler (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) urged Stuart to parole them. Finally consenting, Stuart prepared paroles at Brookeville and at Cooksville the next morning, slowing his advance.

The prisoners were not fed. Only white men were permitted to stop for water as they crossed streams. The Confederates slashed at blacks if they attempted to drink and shot one who was too weak to continue.

Most civilian prisoners walked home from Brookeville. Thomas Bailey and Mortimer Moulden (Rockville's postmaster and Provost Marshal)refused parole because they feared Eblen, a recuperating young Union soldier, would be shot if he could not keep the pace. They were marched to Cooksville and released the night of June 29. Bailey and Moulden helped Eblen back to Rockville, sometimes carrying him. Altogether, they walked 70 miles.

[Aside:]
Hood's Mill
While Stuart paroled prisoners, Gen. Fitzhugh Lee took his brigade north to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Hood's Mill. Arriving just after dawn on June 29, 1863, cavalrymen tore up the track, destroyed the bridge at Sykesville, and cut the telegraph line, severing one of the Army of the Potomac's means of communication with Washington.

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