Hancock: The Town Stonewall Jackson Could Not Cross

In the first days of January eighteen sixty-two, Stonewall Jackson marched his Confederate army north out of the Shenandoah Valley in some of the bitterest cold of the war. His objective was not a pitched battle but something more strategic: the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the two arteries that carried men, coal, and supplies from the Ohio Valley to the Union capital at Washington.

Jackson moved with his characteristic speed, pushing his men through snow and ice toward the small Potomac River town of Bath, in present-day West Virginia, scattering the Union garrison there on January fourth. He then advanced to the river bank directly across from Hancock, Maryland, where a Federal garrison under Brigadier General Frederick Lander held the Maryland side.

Jackson's artillery went into position on Orrick's Hill, overlooking the river, and opened fire on January fifth. He also sent a note across the Potomac demanding the town's surrender, threatening to shell the civilian population if Lander refused. Lander sent back a refusal that reportedly dripped with contempt.

The bombardment continued for two days, but Hancock's brick buildings absorbed the fire better than Jackson expected, and casualties were light. More importantly, he could find no safe crossing. The river was too high, the ice too unreliable. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge had been burned on the fifth, but Lander's force held the town itself.

On January seventh, Jackson withdrew and turned back south, eventually swinging toward the town of Romney to complete his winter campaign. The Romney expedition became one of the most controversial episodes of his career, with his officers petitioning to be relieved of duty over the brutal conditions and confused objectives.

Hancock emerged from the bombardment battered but intact. It remains today one of the narrowest points on the Potomac corridor, a town that once stood at the edge of everything and held.