- The Enterprise - The Recorder The United States was in the
heart of the Civil War 150 years ago this year. While Maryland,
a border state, was forced to remain in the Union, the dominant
sentiment of Southern Maryland and its slave-holding economy
went with the Confederacy. By 1863, Union forces were frequent
visitors in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties. That year,
the Union established a military hospital and then a prisoner-
of-war camp at Point Lookout, at the southern tip of St. Mary’s.
There were recruiting stations for black troops established
after July 1863 at Forrest Wharf and Leonardtown in St. Mary’s,
at Benedict in Charles and at Lower Marlboro in Calvert. The
U.S. War Department offered $300 for owners who turned over
their slaves for recruitment. Just as owners feared would happen
with the election of Abraham Lincoln, slavery, which was
established by colonial Maryland law in 1664, was crashing down.
The institution would formally end in Maryland with the third
state constitution, which