Uniontown, MD

In my quest to know "All-Things Hancock", I decided to take a little trip on Sunday and ended up in the Uniontown/Frizzellburg, MD area. Before I get into anything here, lets see what Gen. Hancock has to say about this in his Official Report:

"On the morning of the 29th [June], orders were received for the corps to march at 4 a.m. and move to Frizzellburg. An accident delaying the delivery of the order, the command was not in motion until 8 a.m.

At 10 p.m. the command was halted for the night 1 mile beyond Uniontown, having accomplished with its entire train a march of over 30 miles. Frizzellburg was not reached, owing to its being considerably farther from Monocacy Junction than indicated by the maps.

At Uniontown, I ascertained that Stuart was at Westminster with a heavy force of cavalry and a number of guns, which information I communicated to the major-general commanding.

The Corps remained in camp at Uniontown on the 30th.

On the morning of July 1, the command marched to Taneytown, going into bivouac about 11 a.m."

I drove down to Frizzellburg, Md (about 10 minutes outside of Westminster) and was shocked at the sight of the town. When I say its a little town, I'm not kidding. This town consists of, maybe, a dozen homes that are in poor shape and that's about it in Frizzellburg.

I then drove on to Uniontown. One thing that you will notice on this drive is the rolling farmland. As I drove along, I could see why Hancock was told to bivouac his men in this area. If I was leading 20,000 men to battle, this would definitely be the place I would stop for a rest....lots of space.

Uniontown is a little bit bigger than Frizzellburg and in much better shape. They actually have a church and a store. The store is more like a store/post office/gathering place. When I first saw it, it reminded me of Ike Godsey's store on "The Walton's". And right in the center of town was a wayside marker talking about the 2nd Corps encampment.

The encampment was actually about a mile south (?) of town on a horse farm called "Babylon". If you look around, you can figure out why Hancock stopped the movement of his men and told them to rest here. After 14 hours of marching, when you find an area that is clear enough and large enough to hold your men, you stop. And this is the area where he stopped.

They stayed here for a little over a day before moving on to Taneytown (which is about a 20 minute drive from here).

One thing that I noticed in the O.R. that I posted above....this says something about the man that Hancock was: He says "an accident delaying the order". At no time did he blame anyone for the accident or the delay. I have never read anywhere what had happened to delay the order....only that it was delayed. Only General Hancock seems to know the story and it has died with him. He was in a position to place blame on someone....and all he says is "an accident delaying the order". I like that. He never places the blame....just states that it happened....and lets move on. This is probably why he was so revered by his men. But this is just one of my thoughts.

Now back to Uniontown, Md. I suggest for anyone who has any interest in the events leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg, stop by one of the many Maryland State Information Centers (there is one on Rt. 15 just south of Pennsylvania) and get a map of Maryland that shows the Gettysburg campaign. Its extremely enlightening.