6-12-12: First Call Hagerstown

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CivilWarWashingtonCounty-0612.mp3

The bugle flourish you might have heard at Preakness is not just used to summon horses to the starting post. In the military its name is “First Call,” and it’s played to warn troops it’s time to assemble.

It was no doubt heard often in western Maryland in the late summer and fall of 1862, as Confederate and Union troops moved back and forth during Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign. That campaign led to the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, and to President Lincoln’s announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

This weekend Hagerstown will see “First Call Weekend”: activities, exhibits, re-enactors, concerts, lectures to kick off a summer and fall of commemorating the 1862 military campaign.


Sheilah learns more from Washington County Museum of Fine Arts director Rebecca Lane, Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area director Elizabeth Shatto, and Tom Riford, CEO of the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau and chair of the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area.