Washington Monument

Washington Monument was used as a Union signal station before and during the Battle of Antietam, and during the Confederate retreat from Gettysburg.

Although other monuments to the memory of George Washington were begun at an earlier date, this monument was the first to be completed. The monument was begun on July 4, 1827 by the citizens of Boonsboro, Maryland and the surrounding region. When it was completed in September, the monument stood thirty feet high on a fifty-four foot circular base.

By the time of the Civil War, however, vandals and mischievous boys had tossed eight to ten feet of stone from the monument down the mountainside. OnSeptember 15, 1862, following the Army of thePotomac’s seizure of the passes throughSouthMountain, aUnionsignal station was established onWashingtonMonument. Signal officers there detected the Confederate army passing along the road fromSharpsburgto Shepherdstown and the beginnings of a thin battle line beyond Antietam Creek. During the September 17BattleofAntietam, the signal officer atWashingtonMonumentwas ordered to watch for enemy movements fromPleasantValleyor thePotomac. OnJuly 8, 1863, during the Gettysburg Campaign, a Union signal station was again established atopWashingtonMonumentand reported Confederate movements during the Battle of Boonsboro, which took place that day.

In 1882, through the efforts of theSouthMountainencampment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Madeleine Dahlgren, who lived at the Mountain House at Turner’s Gap, and who was the widow of Civil War naval officer John A. Dahlgren, a fund was established to rebuild the monument. Repairs were made and for the first time a carriage road was constructed to the monument. Within twenty years, however, a fissure had opened in the monument and it soon fell into ruins. In 1922 the monument and one acre of surrounding land were purchased by the Washington County Historical Society. From 1934 to 1936, the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era agency created to alleviate national unemployment, rebuilt the monument. The property was donated to the state ofMarylandin 1934 and is presently a state park.