This prelude to the Battle of Antietam was fought in three mountain gaps along South Mountain in Maryland. Confederate forces were able to delay approaching Union units long enough for Lee to concentrate his army and set up a defense around Sharpsburg.
Campaign:Maryland Campaign – This battle took place just before Antietam, the major battle of the campaign.
CWSAC Rating: “B” – Having a direct and decisive influence on a campaign.
How to Get There: Since the fighting took place in multiple unconnected mountain gaps, there is no one place to go to see the battlefield. Driving along Alt. US 40 between Middletown, MD and Boonsboro, MD will take you through Turner’s Gap – the northernmost section of the battlefield.
For on the Field: For the newbie, download the American Battlefield Trust’s Antietam Battle App. It will really enhance your tour experience. Folks who want serious military history should pick up the US Army War College’sGuide to Antietam. I can’t recommend this book highly enough for its excellent tour of the field.
What I Love: There are a few things that make South Mountain unique. Fox’s Gap is probably my favorite section, with the Reno and North Carolina monuments. The War Correspondents Memorial is a major landmark as well. While you may encounter the occasional AT hiker, or family picnic, it’s generally a pretty peaceful field.
What I Don’t: While it is a fairly small field in terms of total acreage, it is spread out as small pockets over a wide area, so it takes some time to explore.
Final Thoughts: South Mountain is one of those hidden treasures among Civil War battlefields. It is integral to the Antietam campaign, and fairly well-preserved and well-monumented, but it doesn’t get a lot of visitation outside of AT hikers and the occasional family picnic. It’s a nice spot for serene contemplation.
Keeping it close to home for me, the next battlefield on my list is Monocacy. This engagement is commonly referred to as “The Battle that Saved Washington”, and while it was a strategic victory for the Union forces, the single-day action was tactically a loss. Maj. General Lew Wallace (in command of the VIII Corps, and later the author of Ben-Hur) successfully delayed Lt. General Jubal Early‘s advance long enough for elements of the VI Corps to move from the trenches of Petersburg to reinforce the defenses of Washington.
As a bonus, this park also preserves the spot where Special Order 191 was discovered by a couple of Union soldiers during the Maryland Campaign, so there is also some Antietam interest here.
CWSAC Rating: “B” – Having a direct and decisive influence on a campaign.
How to Get There: The battlefield is located in western Maryland just south of Frederick, about an hour away from Baltimore. Modern day I-270 cuts the battlefield in half, but there is no direct access from the interstate. I use MD-355 to get there.
The Visitors Center is located at 5201 Urbana Pike, Frederick, MD 21704. There is no entrance fee, but you should stop there to pick up a brochure and get oriented. There’s a small gift shop, and a very well-done museum upstairs. The one real piece of artillery on the field is also located by the entrance – a beautiful Revere Copper Co. Napoleon. All other cannons on the field are reproductions.
For on the Field: You’re going to want to have a guide of some sort when you’re at Monocacy. There are not a lot of monuments, markers, or waysides, so having a way to interpret what you’re looking at becomes critical. Definitely get the park map / brochure for this one. Another wonderful resource that the park has put together is a freely-available audio tour of the field in mp3 format. If you’re going to use this (and you should) be sure to download it ahead of time as cell phone coverage can be spotty on the field.
What I Love: For me, Monocacy is the closest battlefield to home, so if I want to get a quick Civil War history experience, or take friends and family to something that’s a little off the beaten path, this battlefield is a good option. The field is usually pretty empty, and there are plenty of opportunities for non-historical activities. They have a few trails laid out that take the visitor along the Monocacy River, there’s a cool railroad junction and bridge that train nerds would enjoy, and some neat old farm buildings that are quite photogenic.
Some of the structures on the Best Farm. – Photo by the author
What I Don’t: Being such a small field, there isn’t that much to see. There are some moving pieces in the battle, so it isn’t boring to learn about, but it’s not as expansive a topic as something like Gettysburg or Antietam. As I stated above, there aren’t a lot of monuments or markers, so you’re kind of on your own while you’re out on the ground.
Final Thoughts: While Monocacy doesn’t get the attention of other nearby fields, it’s worthy of at least a quick visit. Antietam fans will appreciate the connection to Special Order 191, and Gettysburg fans will want to see the nearby place where Maj. General George Meade received the order to take command of the Army of the Potomac.
Antietam is another battlefield that is close to home for me. My family went there a few times when I was a child, but it didn’t leave the impact that Gettysburg did. There are many monuments dotting the field, and I feel like the battle is easier to understand than Gettysburg. For starters, the field is smaller than Gettysburg, and the action basically moves from one side of the field to the other as the battle progresses. This is also a single-day battle (albeit the bloodiest single day in American history). I’ve been to Antietam probably about a dozen times.
View from the observation tower on the Bloody Lane. – Photo by the author
Campaign:Maryland Campaign – This was the major battle of the campaign.
CWSAC Rating: “A” – Having a decisive influence on a campaign and a direct impact on the course of the war.
How to Get There: The battlefield is located in western Maryland just outside of Sharpsburg. It’s about 90 minutes from Baltimore. I usually arrive on the field by way of MD-34 through Boonsboro (which will also have an entry in this series).
For on the Field: For the newbie, download the American Battlefield Trust’s Antietam Battle App. It will really enhance your tour experience. Folks who want serious military history should pick up the US Army War College’sGuide to Antietam.
What I Love: Like Gettysburg, this battlefield is close to home for me. It is fairly well marked with monuments, and is small enough that one can get a feel for the action pretty quickly.
Thanks to organizations like the American Battlefield Trust, who have been working to buy-up land in recent years, more of the battlefield is publicly-accessible than ever before. Even as recently as 15 years ago, the NPS hardly owned any of the battlefield itself – they mostly just held the roads running through the battlefield. Just as one example, it is now possible to walk across the field that the II Corps divisions of French and Richardson traversed to assault the Bloody Lane.
The observation tower on the Bloody Lane is very cool, and the other major landmark – the Burnside Bridge – is serenely beautiful. It’s never seemed very crowded on the field when I’ve gone, though the exception to this seems to be their annual Memorial Illumination (which I’ve not yet had the chance to attend).
My boys on the banks of Antietam Creek, near the Burnside Bridge. – Photo by the author
What I Don’t: Probably the only downside to Antietam is the entrance fee. Currently, it’s $5/person or $10/car, but it’s been on the rise in the last few years. If you have an NPS annual or lifetime pass, they will accept those.
Final Thoughts: While the battle was indecisive tactically, it was close enough to a Union victory to allow Lincoln to feel like he had the freedom to announce the Emancipation Proclamation. September 17, 1862 was also the bloodiest single day in American history. Both of these facts come together to net Antietam an “A” level priority in the CWSAC survey, and make it a must-see for any Civil War enthusiast.
I have to start this series with the battlefield that started it all for me – Gettysburg. It’s my first historical love, in a very real way.
Numerous volumes have been written about the battle. Absolutely everyone who was involved (at least on the Union side) wanted to have a monument there – even units who never made it to town. It is THE battle of the Civil War in the popular mind. All of these things come together to make a visit to Gettysburg a MUST for any Civil War buff. As of this writing, I have been to Gettysburg 57 times.
Looking at The Devil’s Den from Little Round Top. – Photo by the author
CWSAC Rating: “A” – Having a decisive influence on a campaign and a direct impact on the course of the war.
How to Get There: Gettysburg is located in south central Pennsylvania. It’s about 90 minutes from Baltimore. When I go, I usually either take MD-97 through Westminster and Littlestown, or US-15 to the Emmitsburg Road. The view as you enter the battlefield from the south along the Emmitsburg Road is breath-taking. As students of the battle know, 10 roads converge in Gettysburg – the key reason the battle was fought there – so there are plenty of ways to go.
For on the Field: There are a few resources that I always love having with me when I’m at Gettysburg. For the newbie, download the American Battlefield Trust’s Gettysburg Battle App. It will really enhance your tour experience. If you’re more interested in a book-based tour, my favorite is The Complete Gettysburg Guide by J. David Petruzzi. Folks who want serious military history should pick up the US Army War College’sGuide to the Battle of Gettysburg.
What I Love: As I stated, Gettysburg was the place that sparked my interest in history. I have a special connection with it for that reason. The new visitor’s center is beautiful. It’s very easy to find information on the battle – from the thousands of monuments on the field, to the countless books, articles, blog posts, documentaries, and even movies – you can develop as full a picture of the fighting as you have time for. The smaller places that make up the field are also legendary: The Railroad Cut, The Devil’s Den, The Wheatfield, The Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, Culp’s Hill, and on and on.
The view from Cemetery Ridge in the late afternoon. – Photo by the author
What I Don’t: There’s not a lot to get upset about, honestly. It can get crowded in the summertime. And the “tourists” – especially the ghost tour crowd – can make the more serious buffs roll our eyes.
Final Thoughts: Everyone should go to Gettysburg. For the real Civil War nerds, this should not even be a question.
In my last post, I kicked off a new series and talked about my goal of visiting all the CWSAC Battlefields.
One of the first things I did to help me accomplish this was to create a custom Google Map of all the places that I needed to visit (I am a computer and map nerd, you know). I’m embedding a copy of that map here in case it is useful for someone else. This is what the principal battles of the Civil War looked like, geographically:
I’m pretty good about updating the map as I go on trips. Sites marked in green have been visited at least once, while sites in red are on the to-do list.
Full disclosure: I created this map myself based on a best guess of where several of these battlefields are located after looking at the CWSAC reports and various other resources on the web and in books. There may be inaccuracies on sites I haven’t visited yet. No warranty, and your mileage may vary. 😉
One of my favorite things to do is visit historical sites – especially battlefields. Over the last several years, I’ve begun to expand my horizons beyond Gettysburg; building up a desire to learn as much about the entire Civil War as possible. I had of course visited other local battlefields: Antietam, Harpers Ferry, and Manassas to name a few, but I knew there were more battlefields in other theatres, and my study of the Gettysburg campaign had opened my eyes to all the “minor” actions that took place on the way to the major battles that you think of. There had to be some type of definitive list of these events.
My curiosity led me to the CWSAC. In the 1990s, Congress had created the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission to determine which Civil War battlefields existed and their state of preservation at that time. Their efforts led to a list of 384 “principal” battlefields (from as many as 10,500 armed conflicts of all sizes over the 4 years of the Civil War). Most of these sites don’t have a National Park associated with them. Many aren’t even protected by a State or local park. I decided to set a goal to visit each site.
Since I began this journey a few years ago, I’ve made significant progress. As of this writing, I’ve visited 67 of these battlefields. I should also point out that I don’t strictly adhere to visiting only CWSAC sites – many of the smaller skirmish actions (especially those associated with the Gettysburg campaign) have been on my radar, too.
Up to this point, I’ve been keeping notes about my travels in a small journal, and I’ve also occasionally posted about my visits on Facebook, but I recently realized that a more proper outlet for this historical travel-log would be my blog here. So today I’m adding a new category called “Battlefield Visits” and I’ll be doing an entry for each battlefield that I’ve been to and the ones I travel to in the future. My hope is to make a couple of posts a week until I “catch up” with the sites I’ve hit already, but we’ll see how things go. Most of these posts will probably be quite short, but others may be longer – especially for places I’ve been to multiple times, or that are of greater significance. I’m excited to have you along for the ride!
Regular visitors will notice that things look a little different around here.
My previous hosting providers decided to raise their rates, and corrupted part of the website database at the same time (not exactly a great sales pitch). It seems that the only part of the site that I couldn’t recover was the categories for each post. As of this writing, I’m beginning to rebuild and reorganize those.
As I had to make a bunch of changes anyway, I decided to take a fresh approach to the look of the site as well. I’ve switched to a new theme that is cleaner and should behave nicely on whatever size screen you’re reading this on. I’ve also tweaked the color scheme a little. Feel free to let me know what you think!
While family, work, and school remain my top priority, I plan to continue nerding-out about history as time allows in 2018. Most notably, we have the 155th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg to look forward to together!
This is a continuation of my series on famous burials in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA. Other posts in the series can be viewed here. The information was researched and produced in the summer of 2011 for The Gettysburg Daily.
The thing that initially attracted me to Hollywood Cemetery was the fact that two U.S. Presidents are buried there. Once I actually got on the grounds to look for their graves, I noticed a bunch of names that are familiar to a Civil War nerd and the idea for this series was born.
Originally buried in New York City (since he died there while living with his daughter) Monroe’s body was moved back to Virginia in 1858. Apparently the Virginia legislature could not tolerate the idea of one of their Presidents resting in a northern city.
James Monroe’s gravesite in Hollywood Cemetery marked by a red square. – Map by the author
His tomb is incredibly ornate, and easily stands out within the cemetery.
James Monroe’s Tomb – Photo by John Dolan
I talk a little bit about President Monroe’s life in this brief video:
The second U.S. President buried at Hollywood is a man who is not necessarily a household name, but a very interesting figure nonetheless: John Tyler.
President John Tyler – Portrait by George P.A. Healy
Tyler’s grave is found just a few yards from Monroe’s in the aptly-named “Presidents Circle” section of Hollywood Cemetery.
President John Tyler’s gravesite marked by a red square. – Map by the author
His monument is quite large, and features a bust on one side.
President John Tyler’s Monument – Photo by John DolanA closer view of the bust on Tyler’s monument. President Monroe’s tomb is visible in the background. – Photo by John Dolan
In this video I give a bit of information on Tyler, who was an exceptionally interesting 19th century political figure. When the Civil War broke out, he sided with the Confederacy – even going so far as to be elected to the Confederate Congress – but he died before he could assume that office. As a result of his rebel status, he remains the only U.S. President to not be officially mourned following his death.
He is buried in the far southwestern corner of the cemetery, near several other notable Confederate political figures.
Jefferson Davis’ gravesite marked by a red square – Map by the author
The monument that rests at his burial site includes a statue of Davis, as well as a few plaques with biographical information.
Jefferson Davis’ Monument – Photo by John DolanDetail of the plaque on the front of the Davis monument. – Photo by John DolanMore information from Davis’ monument. – Photo by John Dolan
I provide some more information about Davis in this brief video.
I decided to make a stop this evening at a local historic site that I’ve read a bit about lately. It’s a place that has been at the center of the history of Perryville, MD for the last several centuries. Visiting somewhere like this and walking the grounds always has the effect of making it more real for me.
The Rodgers Tavern, as seen from Broad Street. – Photo by the author
Rodgers Tavern gets its name from Col. John Rodgers who purchased it and another on the far bank of the Susquehanna River in Havre de Grace, in the 1780s. He also operated a ferry across the river between the two establishments. Located along the Old Post Road (also called the King’s Highway – the major north-south artery in 18th century America) it quickly became a popular stop for travelers.
Col. Rodgers gained fame as a commander in the Maryland militia early in the American Revolution, giving him ties to many notable figures of the day. George Washington was known to have slept here dozens of times – even once as he was travelling with the army to the final victory at Yorktown. Other revolutionary figures like Rochambeau and Lafayette also visited. Jefferson and Madison came through whenever they were travelling between Philadelphia or New York and their homes in Virginia.
It wasn’t just the visitors who were notable. Rodgers’ son (also named John Rodgers) who went on to become a Commodore in the United States Navy – perhaps the most important figure in the early history of that branch of our military, and a hero of the War of 1812 – was born in this building.
When the first railroad was constructed in the area, it paralleled the path of the Old Post Road. The Susquehanna River was seen as being too difficult to bridge, so a ferry remained in-place to carry the rail traffic. Passengers would exit the train in either Perryville or Havre de Grace and walk down a pier to a waiting ferry boat that would carry them and their baggage to the far shore where another train would complete the trip to their destination. The tavern thus remained a popular stop along the route of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad well into the 19th century.
A young Abraham Lincoln was known to have been a passenger on this route during his days in Congress. Robert E. Lee also passed through on several occasions as he traveled between Baltimore (where he was assigned to supervise the construction of Fort Carroll) and West Point (where his son was studying). Eventually, Lee would make the same trip to West Point to take over as its Superintendent. Another future Confederate General, Isaac Trimble, was the Chief Engineer of the PW&B for many years, and must have come past this building constantly.
The first Union troops to arrive in Washington from the north in preparation for the Civil War passed through here on the PW&B. It was these soldiers who were involved in the Baltimore Riots, causing the next wave under the command of Gen. Benjamin Butler, to get off the trains here and continue south to Annapolis by boat.
The tavern and ferry were bypassed once a railroad bridge was constructed here in 1866. Within two decades, it was effectively abandoned.
But before the bridge changed history, my favorite passenger came through – a man who was much more anonymous at the time he was traveling. In fact, he was trying very hard to blend into the crowd, carrying forged papers, and attempting to avoid the constables who were always on the prowl for run-aways. Luckily, a young Frederick Douglass got off the ferry at Perryville and walked right in front of this tavern on his way to freedom on September 3, 1838. Can you imagine the mix of emotions that he must have felt at that moment in this place?
That is the value of historic preservation. Being in this place – having a tangible connection to these events and the people who lived them – makes history (and thus the human experience) so vivid. Go out and find amazing experiences like this for yourself!
This post was inspired by some books on local history that I’ve been reading recently, most notably:
In my last entry, I explored the history of the plot of land where the office I work in is located. Today, we’re going to start looking at how some of the buildings on our campus came to be. But first, because I’m a fort nerd, let’s take a look at a little bit of the history of the defenses of Baltimore.
Probably the fort that immediately springs to everyone’s mind when you talk about Baltimore is Fort McHenry – focal point of the Battle of Baltimore. Located on Whetstone Point, it was completed in 1800, and was thought at that time to be placed so that it could effectively defend Baltimore from naval attack, and clearly it did in September of 1814.
As weapon technology improved and population expanded, it was decided that the defensive line would have to be moved farther out from the city in order to provide sufficient protection. This led to the construction of an artificial island off Sparrows Point that would become Fort Carroll. Even though it was never fully completed as designed (and it was never tested by an enemy) it served for a number of decades in the middle of the 19th century.
The grand march of technology continued on. By 1886, it was known that the coastal defenses of the United States were obsolete once again. New techniques involving smaller but more numerous gun emplacements, combined with naval mine fields became the preferred approach during the Endicott Period. Baltimore’s defenses were upgraded to this new system right around the turn of the 20th century. Fort Carroll was overhauled, and new installations – Fort Armistead, Fort Howard, and Fort Smallwood (just up the road from our campus) – were constructed. All of these were abandoned as defensive measures by the 1920s because of the arrival of another technological advance: military aircraft.
At first, this new threat was countered with the installation of several anti-aircraft gun batteries at strategic points around town, but when jets – and soon thereafter supersonic jets – came on the scene, it became clear that gun crews wouldn’t be able to shoot the new faster planes down. The Army began researching a different approach, leading to the creation of the world’s first operational surface-to-air missile: the Nike Ajax.
All through the 1950s and into the early 1960s, over 200 Nike sites were established in the U.S. to protect targets of military, government, or industrial value.
The system consisted of a few elements.
The missiles themselves were 38 feet long, with a two-stage rocket motor: the first being a solid fuel booster that would get the weapon off the ground and on the way to its top speed of over twice the speed of sound. Once fully airborne, the booster would drop off and a second sustainer engine would propel the missile to its target up to 30 miles away, delivering three powerful, high-explosive fragmentation warheads.
A ground tracking and control station (called Integrated Fire Control, or IFC) used three separate radars: one to search for incoming targets and determine whether they were friend or foe, one to lock-on to and track the intended target aircraft, and one to lock-on to and track the missile. With the locations of both the weapon and the target known, a ground-based computer (usually located in a semi-portable trailer) would calculate an intercept course and send guidance signals to the in-flight missile by radio. Once the missile was close enough, the detonation signal would be sent, sending flaming shrapnel ripping through the sky toward its target.
A diagram of how the Nike Ajax radar tracking and guidance system worked.
It is also important to note that the whole idea was that bombers wouldn’t ever make it to our shores (which of course they never did). If everything went according to plan, any incoming threat would be intercepted by Air Force or Navy fighters somewhere over the Atlantic. These Army missile installations only existed to be a last resort in case anything slipped through.
I wonder a bit about what it must have been like to serve on one of these bases. They’re very small, and the work is highly technical. I get a picture in my mind of a group of nerdy guys – what with all the computers, radars, and radios involved – sitting around waiting for doomsday to show up at the door. One of the most interesting things I’ve come across is a few of the recruiting materials for the Nike program. They really play up the idea that you can join the Army and serve in the U.S. near a big city (as opposed to, say, a jungle in southeast Asia). You can go to football games, and meet girls!
A Nike Recruiting Brochure from 1973. Sadly the program ended in 1974.
It must have been stressful for the local folks, too. I can imagine that having a missile base move in to your literal backyard would be quite unnerving. Community members had lots of concerns about housing for soldiers, danger from the missiles themselves (the potential for accidents, for example), where exactly these first-stage solid rocket boosters would be landing after they drop off, and even the possibility of their neighborhoods becoming targets of attackers or saboteurs. Luckily, the Army had answers for all of these concerns, and assured the locals that having a Nike site move in next door is really no more dangerous than having a gas station around the corner.
Meanwhile, the soldiers dressed like this for the missile fueling procedure:
The missile fueling procedure. Safety first!
Baltimore was included in the list of protected areas because of its manufacturing centers, port facilities, and proximity to Washington – in fact the Baltimore / Washington area was treated in many respects as one combined zone since the cities are so close together. Anne Arundel County hosted three installations: W-26 outside Annapolis near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, W-25 near Davidsonville (both part of the Washington defenses), and our own BA-43 at Jacobsville (which was protecting Baltimore).
Our Jacobsville site came to be as the army was searching for “tactically suitable new base sites” around Baltimore, according to a January 5, 1955 article in the Baltimore Sun. By December, construction was underway on the facility that would one day become our offices.
A 1966 aerial view of our complex.
The site seems quite large, but was only around 36 acres in total. Nike installations actually consisted of three sites: the IFC site, the Administration site, and the Launcher site. In the case of BA-43, the IFC and Administration sites were combined on one plot. The important thing was that the IFC and Launcher sites had to be separated by at least 1,000 yards because otherwise the missile-tracking radar wouldn’t be able to keep up with following the supersonic weapons as they launched vertically.
At this point, I should note that the grounds I’m describing here are school system property, and that they are treated as a secure facility – complete with fences, cameras, and various alarms. Please be respectful of those boundaries and don’t trespass.
Let’s have a closer look at each area. First the IFC / Admin:
The IFC / Admin area of BA-43. – Annotations by the author
Among the elements of the site that have remained relatively undisturbed are the concrete pads that the battery’s computer and radar trailers would have sat on:
The “brains” of the base used to rest here. – Photo by the author
On to the Launcher area:
The Launcher area of BA-43. – Annotations by the author
Time has brought significant changes to both of BA-43’s sites. I’ll be detailing some of the reasoning behind that in a future post, but for now just know that these are veryout-dated photos.
Unit Insignia of the 36th AA Battalion; The first to serve at BA-43.
BA-43 was initially manned by the U.S. Army, Battery C of the 36th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion from 1956 through September of 1958. A Captain, serving as the battery commander, would be the ranking officer on-site, with the full headquarters for the battalion – responsible for the Baltimore / Washington defense area – located at Fort Meade.
Unit Insignia of the 562nd ADA Regiment.
In September of 1958 things changed in the way that the Army wanted to categorize these types of units. In the resulting re-organization, BA-43’s garrison became known as Battery C of the 1st Battalion of the 562nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment. I think this change was due to bringing more sites online, and that a battalion-sized unit may not have been able to support the number of soldiers that were now in place in some of the larger defense areas like New York, Los Angeles, or Baltimore / Washington.
Unit Insignia of the 70th ADA, Maryland National Guard; The Last Unit Stationed at BA-43.
This arrangement remained in-place for BA-43 until 1960. The Army had started converting some of the bases to use the larger, faster, more powerful Nike Hercules missile (which sometimes even carried a nuclear payload). BA-43 didn’t make the switch to the new weapon. Instead, the Army decided to turn over the sites using the older style Nike Ajax to local National Guard units. This was done to save on some costs, as guardsmen could commute to the base and pack a lunch (removing much of the need for barracks and mess facilities). In March of 1960, BA-43 was turned over to Battery A of the 1st Battalion of the 70th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, Maryland National Guard. This unit would be in control of the site until it was shut down in December of 1962.
I’m pleased to report that the weapons of BA-43 never had to be used against an enemy. As the 1970s approached, the threat from Soviet bombers became superseded by the threat from Soviet ICBMs, and while an attempt was made to create an anti-ICBM Nike missile (the Zeus), it was ultimately decided to end the Nike program in 1974.
I started this post with a brief overview of the history of Baltimore’s defenses because I think that here we have a great illustration of the incredible progression of technological advancement in the 20th century. Fort Smallwood – just at the tip of the peninsula – was completed in 1905, and was thought at that time to be positioned to provide an adequate defense of Baltimore. By 1927, it was abandoned because it was made obsolete by new technology. Thirty years later, the land just 2 miles south of Fort Smallwood – the place where BA-43 was constructed – was only useful defensively as a last resort. Within 6 years, that purpose was even made obsolete. It’s a remarkable pace of change.
In the next post in the series, we’ll find out what became of BA-43 once the Army had abandoned the site. For now though, I’ll end this post with another video. This one is from an Army-produced film highlighting some aspects of life at the Nike site near Upper Marlboro, MD. It’s a pretty interesting piece:
Here are some useful sources that I consulted for general information in putting together this post:
Ed Thelan’s Nike Missile Website – An amazing wealth of information on the Nike program. It’s easy to get lost exploring all the resources he’s collected.
