[Leica] ING: Point Lookout

[bjq1 at mac.com (Bernard Quinn)]

This is Point Lookout State Park. That's Point Lookout Light in the  
distance. It is located where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake  
Bay. Lighthouses are traditionally supposed to look rustic, sturdy,  
and scenic. Point Lookout light just doesn't. Perhaps it is just as  
well. During the Civil War the narrow peninsula on which it sits was  
simultaneously a Union Hospital, a prison for confederate soldiers,  
and a camp for slaves who had escaped from the South. The conditions  
in which the Blacks lived were beyond belief. There was no housing  
for them. They survived by digging holes about five feet deep in the  
ground. They would cover these holes as best they could. They would  
make an opening several feet wide. They would crawl through this hole  
to get into their shelter, not unlike the way an animal goes into its  
burrow. Given that, the state of medicine at the time, and the  
general conditions in civil war prison camps the suffering which  
people endured here is beyond what I know how to measure. Not much is  
left of the original buildings. That may be just as well. As you walk  
around the grounds the suffering which happened here is still almost  
palpable.

http://www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/Barney/PointLookout.jpg.html

Comments and criticism welcome.

Barney