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Point Lookout State Park is on a
peninsula at the southern tip of Maryland in St. Mary's County. It
displays a beautiful water view as
 the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River meet.
Captain John Smith explored this
land in 1612. Leonard Calvert, Maryland's first governor, claimed
this land as his personal manor in 1634. In 1830, the Federal Government erected
Point Lookout
Lighthouse at the tip. In 1857, William Cost Johnson
bought the land wanting to develop a resort, but the Civil War
interrupted these plans. A military hospital,
Hammond Hospital, was built in 1862 as a place for union soldiers to be
treated. The hospital consisted of one large building with several
outbuildings surrounding it in a spoke-like
fashion.
Point Lookout Prisoner of War Camp, Camp Hoffman, was
established on these grounds after the Battle of Gettysburg. This camp
would hold Confederate soldiers from August 1863 until June 1865. When
the prison population reached over 20,000 a wooden walled pen was built on
the bay
 shore. Prisoners were
given tents as shelter. Approximately 14,000 prisoners died at Point
Lookout but only a little over 3,000 have been accounted for. Those which have been found are buried in a mass grave along
Rt. 5 before you enter the park. An 85 foot towering monument marks
this grave. This monument was the first erected for Confederate
Soldiers. After the war there was an attempt to establish a home for
disabled Army and Navy veterans on the grounds of today's state park. |
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Today Point Lookout State Park is home
to Point Lookout
Lighthouse, Fort Lincoln (a Civil War Fortification),
 barracks
and officers quarters of the fort, portions of the Prisoners Pen where
living history re-enactments are done, and a visitors center with a Civil
War museum. For more information on what is available recreationally
at Point Lookout State Park, visit our
St. Mary's County Parks page.
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