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Book
Review -- A Guide to Civil War Sites in Maryland, Blue
and Gray in a Border State, by Susan Cooke Soderberg
The Smithsonian Associates Civil War
E-Mail Newsletter, Volume 1, Number
9
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 The
Mid-Atlantic area is the perfect place to live if you are
interested in the Civil War. The reasons are obvious. Within
a day's drive of Washington we have Richmond, Petersburg,
Pamplin Park, Gettysburg, Antietam, City Point, Harpers Ferry,
and more. But this informative guidebook by Susan Cooke Soderberg
tells us about the places we may be overlooking, places that
are literally right in our own back yards.
Soderberg takes us to many different parts of Maryland. She visits Silver Spring,
where Jubal Early rode 'round the capital and exchanged shots with Lincoln
at Fort Stevens. She notes the many significant spots in Baltimore, especially
the train station where Lincoln changed cars before secretly coming into the
capital for his first inauguration. Of course, she includes Antietam Battlefield;
the prisoner of war camp at Point Lookout; the route to and the retreat from
Gettysburg, where Robert E. Lee found little sympathy for the Southern cause
from western Marylanders. In contrast, she shows us the coves and inlets of
the Eastern Shore, where Confederate sympathizers there helped John Wilkes
Booth escape into Virginia. Also, she lists the many military encampments in
Rockville, Darnestown, Hagerstown, and Williamsport. Civil War cemeteries are
located in every sector of the state.
 For
those who prefer personalities to biographies, Soderberg
includes short biographies of famous Civil War Marylanders.
The true value of the book is how Soderberg integrates the
locations and the people with the significance of the events.
She brings home to us that "the ghosts of the Civil War
walk many paths in Maryland, not just the hallowed ground
of battlefields."
Soderberg brings the Civil War very close, to the point that, "you are drawn
to these places ... you understand them through your senses what you cannot
glean from books ... but you experience, and that experience is then yours
alone ..." After reading this book, you won't pass a present-day
highway exit in Maryland without being reminded of the Civil War.
Photos by Susan Dennis
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