Maryland Daily PhotoEvery Week Day a New Picture from MD

The river is actually the reason why Maryland is the thinnest state in the union at this point.   The state’s original boundaries were drawn to be north of the river from the starting point of the river.   There are two geographic intricacies that are of interest here. 

First, the river moves Northward from its start point to this place here in Hancock where it reaches its northernmost point.  Some say that the northward moving portion of the river was unknown as the charter was laid out and that the state was never supposed to be this shape.  I’m not sure of that, but I’ll welcome some input from others who might know.  

Second, this stretch of land was never intended to be only 1.7 miles as the original charter for Maryland extended it up to the 40^th parallel, which (and I am being very approximate here) would extend the northern boundary into PA at around the point where I-70 intersects with I-76.  More boundary disputes here. 

In either case, this picture looks out over the northern most southern boundary of the state of Maryland, just across the river and just right of center of the picture.  

 Though you have probably been on I-70 heading west and decided to continue on I-70 into Pennsylvania, or take I-68 west towards Cumberland, you might not have known that the intersection of those two roads, or actually just before that intersection if you are westbound, is sitated in the thinnest part of Maryland.  In fact, that isn’t just the thinnest part of Maryland, it’s the thinnest part of any state anywhere.   

In the town of Hancock Maryland there are only 1.7 miles between the edge of the Potomac and the Pennsylvania border.    Because I know there are a few Marylandophiles here who will call me out on this, I will make the caveat now that I am not including the distance of the river itself as the true border is on the south side of the river.  

This week Maryland Daily Photo goes on assignment to take you on a hike of all 1.7 miles of the thinnest part of Maryland by walking up the appropriately named Pennsylvania Ave. Tomorrow we’ll start at the river.   (also, I know you all are sick of seeing posts…sign posts, lamps posts, foul pole posts, etc.  I promise this is the last one)

Here you see the monument to Major General Joseph Mansfield in the background with the cannon in the foreground that marks the spot where he was mortally wouned.  

Throughout the battlefields at Antietam you will find cannons such as these to mark the spots where all six generals who died or would later die were wounded at Antietam.  In a battle that was waged all day, Mansfield was wounded early, as he was deploying his troops towards the cornfield, which was the first of the three stages of battle there.      

The monument in the background is inscribed:

Major General
Joseph K. F. Mansfield
Commanding the 12th Corps Army of the Potomac mortally wounded near this spot
September 17, 1862 about 7:35 A.M. while deploying his corps in action.

How Mansfield died is one of the interesting stories of Antietam.  As he was making his way to the front line he noticed that they were firing into a woods that Mansfield believed contained retreating union troops.  Seeing this, he rode to the line and told them, “you are firing at your own men.”  

After the men on the line convinced the general that they were in fact firing at the enemy and after agreeing, saying, “yes, yes, you are right,”  he was then shot. 

On part two of the cemetery request we explore another historic gravesite, this time in Washington county.  What you see here is from Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, MD.  The cemetery was established in 1865, to house only a portion of the 22,500 who died during the single bloodiest day in American history.  4,776 Union soldiers are buried in this cemetery, after it took years for the cemetery board to find and assign identities to the bodies which had fallen or died subsequent to battle in sharpsburg. 

The statue in the center is called the Private Soldier Monument. It originally stood in the entrance of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.  According to the NPS, the statue was transferred here in many pieces.  The midsection of the statue apparently fell into the Potomac during transport and had to be later pulled out and dragged to the cemetery.