Silver Spring and the Civil War

On July 11, 1864, some residents cheered and others watched in horror as Confederate troops spread across the fields and orchards of Silver Spring, Maryland. Many fled to the capital while General Jubal Early's troops ransacked their property. The estate of Lincoln's postmaster general, Montgomery Blair, was burned, and his father's home was used by Early as headquarters from which to launch an attack on Washington's defenses. Yet the first Civil War casualty in Silver Spring came well before Early's raid, when Union soldiers killed a prominent local farmer in 1862. This was life in the shadow of the Federal City. Drawing on contemporary accounts and memoirs, Dr. Robert E. Oshel tells the story of Silver Spring over the tumultuous course of the Civil War.

Robert E. Oshel, PhD, is the vice-president and past president of the Woodside Park Civic Association. He is the author of the association's Home Sites of Distinction: The History of Woodside Park. He is a member and past-chair of the Silver Spring Library Advisory Committee, and a member of the Friends of the Silver Spring Library. Dr. Oshel was also a founding member of the Silver Spring Historical Society. He writes a monthly history column for the Woodside Park Voice.