Encampment

Fire on the Mountain: The Battle of South Mountain By KEVIN CLAPP / Staff Writer Fire on the Mountain: The Battle of South Mountain Saturday, Sept. 9, and Sunday, Sept. 10 Md. 34 south of Boonsboro to Monroe Road Admission $5 For information, go to www.fireonthemountain.org on the Web. Civil War re-enactors - more than 1,000 of them - are going to relive 1862 this weekend just south of Boonsboro.

Outdoor enthusiasts took advantage of dry Memorial Day skies to enjoy several Washington County parks and pools. More than 700 visitors had toured Antietam National Battlefield by 2 p.m. Monday, and about 2,000 people visited the historic park over the weekend despite heavy rains, said Visitor Use Assistant Colleen Mastrangelo. "It didn't matter if it was sunny or not," she said. Monday's scattered sunshine prompted numerous telephone inquiries about boating and fishing at Fort Frederick State Park near Big Pool, and visitors enjoyed living history demonstrations inside the fort, said park receptionist Beth Fields.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Cadet Lt. Col. Mark R. Guiney and Lt. Col. Robert V. Mills were selected by the Civil Air Patrol to participate in the International Air Cadet Exchange Program. Guiney traveled to the Netherlands while Mills escorted a group of cadets to Canada July 18 to Aug. 5. The program gives about 70 CAP cadets and 16 adult escorts an opportunity to serve as ambassadors by visiting participating foreign countries and promoting international friendship and understanding through a common focus on aviation.

The National Pike Festival begins Friday night in Clear Spring and weaves along National Pike, known today as U.S. 40, to Boonsboro. The three-day event begins with an encampment in Clear Spring. On Saturday morning more than 25 wagons and 30 outriders are expected to leave from Clear Spring and head toward Boonsboro, where the group will convene on Sunday. The caravan will make stops along the way to rest and to bed down for the night. The 32-mile procession includes covered wagons and horse-drawn carriages similar to ones that once drove along the same road more than 200 years ago. The festival is sponsored by the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

For Sonny Lemon, the annual wagon train ride is more than just an opportunity to trace the famous route that opened Washington County to the west - it's a family tradition that goes back more than 20 years. Lemon, a Boonsboro native, first began riding in the National Pike Festival and Wagon Train in 1989 with his friend and fellow horseman, Robert Shank. The National Pike Festival celebrates the historic, 19th-century road that helped extend the Baltimore-National Pike to Cumberland, Md., allowing for the development of roadways that would eventually lead to national westward expansion, according to the event's website.

Everyone comes for Civil War battle re-enactments - the smoke, the noise, the advancing lines of men and horses. But who stays for dinner after the battle? As spectators dribbled out of the grounds after Saturday's  "Maryland, My Maryland" re-enactment of the Battle of South Mountain, Sharon Jackson poked the fire at the 27th Virginia Company C encampment. Jackson is from Pennsylvania, but she's with the 4th Texas Company B. But on Saturday, her unit was on campaign, so she was adopted as a cook by the 27th Virginia.

Karen Davis enlisted friends Stacey Schaab and Beth Przybylski to join her for last year's National Pike Festival and Wagon Train in Washington County because she had just finished radiation treatment for cancer. “Now, I can't get rid of them,” Davis joked Saturday afternoon at City Park in Hagerstown, where the trio stopped with the caravan of wagons, horses and people for the weekend ride. The National Pike Festival, which celebrates the historic, 19th-century road that helped extend the Baltimore-National Pike to Cumberland, Md., kicked off Friday with an overnight encampment at Plumb Grove near Clear Spring.

Lynn Milek and her children Jenna, 6, and Jacob, of Hagerstown, check out "Montana," a quarter horse owned by Jamie Baker, in background, at the wagon train encampment at Plumb Grove in Clear Spring, at the start of the National Pike Festival.

Imagine a time in our nation's history when covered wagons creaked and swayed across a vast landscape. Pots and pans clanged against the sideboards and large, spiny wheels — prone to splinting — dipped in and out of ruts. With little more than a willing spirit, families headed West, hoping to stake a claim and start a new life. Cradling babies and shotguns, their journey carried them along the National Pike. Following his inauguration in 1801, President Thomas Jefferson championed building a national road into the west to facilitate American expansion.

Civil War re-enactor Dennis Easterday, right, of Smithsburg, talks with re-enactor Larry Sokolowski, center, of Washington, Pa., as they examine an authentic Civil War soldier's canteen Friday at a Civil War encampment at the Western Maryland Hospital Center in Hagerstown. At left is re-enactor Ken Strope of Ottsville, Pa. A Civil War field hospital is being set up at the center this weekend as part of a living history of medicine event.