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Coords are not GZ!
Read content re: starting point. Fairly easy Cache & Dash; park on the side street. Keep an eye for Muggles. Coordinates are for a major landmark at the site, not direct to the cache. Read the description carefully.
The cache is a medium-sized Pelikan box, perfect for Travel Bugs. Be sure the lid is snapped tight when you close it back up. Replace carefully due to occasional Muggle traffic from street. No need to "bury" it! FTF reward is a new Geocoin.
[Please be respectful of this churchyard and cemetery. You will not have to disturb any markers seeking the cache. If you are hunting on Sunday, the church leaders ask that you are respectful of the families who are attending services.]
In this region of the US, Civil War history is never very far away. In this case, it’s right in our neighborhood!
On July 11, 1864 General Jubal Early's exhausted Confederate troops arrived in Silver Spring after marching 47 miles from the Battle of Monocacy two days before. Small groups of advance scouts called "skirmishers" advanced towards Washington to feel out the strength of the Union troops that guarded the city. They discovered only Home Guards (convalescing soldiers, clerks, green recruits, and a few weekend warriors) and quickly returned north to inform Early.
On July 12, 1864 Early marched his 20,000 Confederate troops 3.5 miles down Georgia Avenue (formerly Seventh Street Turnpike), to attack Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia.
The Battle of Fort Stevens ended at dark the next day, after the arrival of almost 11,000 Union reinforcements dissuaded Early from launching a direct assault on the capital city. The fighting never really advanced beyond skirmishing and cannon fire, and only 59 Union troops were killed. (The number of Confederate killed and wounded is estimated around 500, according to the National Park Service.)
Once he realized the full strength of these forces he withdrew his troops to the Shenandoah Valley, via Poolesville, not far from where the Gen. Jubal A. Early Ferry now crosses the Potomac River, and headed for Virginia, ending his invasion of Maryland. “We didn’t take Washington,” Early told his staff officers, “but we scared Abe Lincoln like Hell.” But Early also did not go quietly. His troops burned many homes on these farms including the Blair family house about a mile south of here.
One of our neighbors is an historian and today (12/6/09) he posted this note from a newspaper article from the *Evening Star* newspaper of July 15, 1864 quoting a prisoner who escaped from Jubal Early's Confederates attacking Washington that "the main body of the Rebel forces did not appear in front of Fort Stevens but remained encamped on the Wilson farm, about a mile and a half beyond Blair's on the 7th street road. At this point (Wilson's farm -- where you are standing right now) there were not less than 25,000 or 30,000 men."
This may seem like a lot of fuss over a minor incident. Even if you grew up in Washington, you probably didn’t learn about the Battle of Fort Stevens in history class. The story lacks the “high-water mark” narrative of Gettysburg or the terrible bloodshed of Antietam. But it could be argued that the events at Fort Stevens changed the trajectory of the war and America itself.
In 1864, Lincoln’s reelection was anything but assured. Mounting Union deaths and Confederate victories had turned the public against the war, and Lincoln’s opponent was former Gen. George B. McClellan, who promised to make peace with the South. If Early had managed to capture the capital of the United States — even briefly — it would have been disastrous for Lincoln’s reelection chances. And if Confederate sharpshooters had succeeded in killing the president while he stood on the parapet at Fort Stevens, American history might look very, very different.
At the time of the Battle of Fort Stevens, Grace Episcopal Church stood along Brookeville Pike and many of the Confederates marched past it. The Grace Episcopal Church that now stands where you are (number 6 on the map, attached) was constructed after a former structure burned in 1896. The gravesite includes 17 unknown Confederate dead from the Battle of Fort Stevens. Find the obelisk, made of granite, marked simply "Confederate," that memorializes the soldiers who lost their lives in the Battle of Fort Stevens.
The city of Silver Spring has grown all around this Civil War encampment. The surrounding community is still finding cannon balls, buttons, shells, and other military items left from the time when Confederate troops camped here. As you stand near "ground zero" near the cache, try to imagine the neighborhood without houses -- just the trees, and thousands of Confederate tents and campfires as the soldiers rested and prepared to march into Washington.
FINDING GZ: Start from the "Confederate" obelisk -- with your back to Georgia Ave, find 10:00 (directionally) and look for the large Wilson Family plot. Locate the Wilson obelisk. For good cachers, the location will likely be evident.
NEW CACHERS, PLEASE NOTE:
This cache has a high population of Travel Bugs and Travel Coins. They are NOT SWAG (you aren't supposed to keep them!), and need to be logged as Found on the website. Then, your task is to move them on to another cache, and log that you've done that. Each TB or coin has information about its "quest." Please show good Caching Etiquette and follow through -- otherwise, leave them alone and let someone else take care of them!
(We are adding this note due to the number of TBs that seem to be Missing in Action.)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ybbx qrrc va gur gerr!