Battle of Hancock 5K

2012 results

Download entry form for Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013

Rough sketch of the 5K course map (subject to change pending inclement weather)

HANCOCK, Md., Jan. 7, 2012 – In January 1862, soldiers on both sides of the War Between the States were facing their first harsh Western Maryland winter.

American civilians also were impacted in ways generally not felt today. Across the Potomac River from the sleepy little town of Hancock, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson gave the order to shell the town but ordered citizens be given a two-hour notice.

In Emily Leatherman’s Hancock 1776-1976, she writes: “before Stonewall Jackson’s bombardment of the town, the people ran to west end across the creek and hid behind a hill near what is now the entrance to Widmyer Memorial Park.”

To a degree, runners and walkers in the first Battle of Hancock 5K and 1-mile run/walk will be able to re-enact the evacuation as part of the town’s sesquicentennial celebration of the Civil War.

Instead of evacuating west, however, event participants will head north – which, ostensibly, would have been further out of reach of the Confederate cannons. Both the 5K (3.1-mile) and 1-mile run/walk will feature paved with generally a single loop.

Both events start and finish at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on High Street. The church was used as a hospital during the Civil War.

Visit www.PhDispatch.com, the Internet home of the Potomac Highlands Distance Club, or call 304-209-8981 with questions.