Maryland – Expanding the “Crossroads of War” Website

Unidentified USCT soldier with wife and two daughters believed to be from the state of Maryland.

Library of Congress

Recipient: Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area

Amount: $73,300.00

During the American Civil War, central Maryland’s civilian population—both enslaved and free—witnessed and endured the ravages of war. For four long years, Union and Confederate armies attempted to outmaneuver one another: military casualties mounted at South Mountain, Falling Waters, Antietam, Monocacy—battlefields etched into public memory. But the landscape of loss and destruction ranged more widely: farm fields turned into encampments, towns converted into field hospitals, and over 80,000 African Americans remained in bondage. As a border state that remained part of the Union, Maryland was not subject to President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. The constant movements of both armies particularly imperiled enslaved Black Marylanders, whose acts of self-emancipation often involved support for the Union through military service as guides and teamsters and as soldiers in the United States Colored Troops.

Thanks to the financial support of a 2022 Preservation Planning Grant awarded by the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program, the non-profit Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area will expand their website to highlight the experiences of central Maryland’s civilians. The new web content will promote better understanding of the Civil War’s impact on civilians and focus attention on the lives of central Maryland’s enslaved communities during the war.

Preservation Planning Grants are the American Battlefield Protection Program's broadest and most inclusive grant program, promoting the stewardship of battlefields and sites of armed conflict on American soil. In addition, the program administers three other grants: Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants, the newly authorized Battlefield Restoration and Battlefield Interpretation grant programs. This financial assistance generates community-driven stewardship of historic resources at the state, tribal and local levels.

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