U.S. Hotel fire from rear

I hate to start this blog with bad news, but I’m sure this won’t be my last post with photographs of destruction in the area.

On Friday, February 22, 2008, the United States Hotel in Boonsboro, Md., burned to the ground when a worked kicked over a propane tank, setting the structure ablaze.

Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan both marched their armies past this hotel on the way to the Battle of Antietam. Henry K. Douglas wrote about it in his book, “I Rode With Stonewall”:

“We crossed South Mountain at Turner’s Gap and encamped for the night near Boonsboro. The General dismounted at the house of Mr. John Murdock about a mile from the village and ordered the Headquarter tents to be erected in a field across the road. I then (by the way, against his advice) rode with a courier into the village to get some information about the fords of the Potomac and incidentally to see some friends. But I was interfered with. Lieutenant A.D. Payne with a small squad of the Black Horse Cavalry-the escort I spoke of-had gone on through the town in the direction of Hagerstown, and Colonel S. Bassett French of the staff of Governor Letcher, and at the time with General Jackson as volunteer aide-de-camp, in their wake. Colonel French had stopped at and gone into the United States Hotel on the corner of Main Street and the road which leads to Sharpsburg. I rode leisurely down the street and when we reached the corner we heard the clatter of unseen cavalry coming up the street, and in a moment a company of the enemy were facing us and proceeded to make war on us. We retired with rapidity and did not stand upon the order of our going; in fact we went at once. A squad of the enemy escorted us. I tried a couple of Parthian shots at them with my trusty revolvers, and in response they shot a hole through my new hat, which, with the beautiful plume a lady in Frederick had placed there, was rolled in the dust. I wanted to stop and get it, but thought better of it.”

There is more to the story, but for that I will direct you to Douglas’ book.