May 29, 2013

1st Maryland Eastern Shore (USA)

It’s been said that many 19th century Cains and Abels dueled to the death on Culp’s Hill, and it was certainly a strange fate that brought Union Maryland units and Confederate Maryland units together in the worst possible way.  


What were the odds that these units, made up of family and friends who had once shared happier times, would both find themselves on this rocky, wooded hill? Maryland was a certified mess during the war as far as loyalties went. Many chose the South. Many chose the North. It was one of the down-sides of being a border state.

1st Maryland Battalion (CSA)

Nowhere is this struggle clearer than at South Culp’s Hill, where the monuments to the 1ST Maryland Battalion / 2ND Maryland Infantry (Confederate) and the 1^ST Maryland Eastern Shore (Union) are located. Though there were units in between, the two Maryland regiments did go head-to-head at one point, and for the duration of the battle they must have been cognizant of the other’s closeness. Fighting the enemy was one thing. Fighting boys you’d known since childhood was another.

The Maryland soldiers at Culp’s Hill found themselves in a quandary few other Civil War units suffered at Gettysburg: that sorrowful Cain and Abel syndrome. In fact, Col. Wallace, in command of the Eastern Shore unit, expressed regret that at one stage of the battle the focal point of his soldiers’ musketry had indeed been fellow Marylanders. He explained that the Confederate 1^ST Maryland Battalion incurred heavy losses and were then buried by enemies who had once been friends.

**HONORED TODAY**

SGT. WILLIAM H. PRINCE

Co. A, 5^TH Virginia Infantry

Died July 03, 1863 at age 20

Sgt. Prince worked as a shoemaker before the war. He enlisted in April 1861 and survived until July 1863, when he fell at Gettysburg during the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge. He is buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Winchester, Virginia.


(c) 2013 Skies of Blue and Gray