JEB Stuart Comes to Rockville
Peerless 139th Anniversary Commemoration Event, June 2002

Peerless Rockville staged its first Civil War event to commemorate the 139th anniversary of JEB Stuart's cavalry coming to Rockville.  We did so as a single day "warm-up" for the more significant 140th anniversaries to follow.  Highlights included a ceremony, period music concerts, walking tours, Civil War displays and demonstrations, and living history reenactment of the Confederate troops entering town and arrests of local citizens.  The program and pictures from this event appear below.

Peerless also held a subsequent 140th anniversary Civil War weekend event in 2003.  This expanded on the success of the 2002 event.  
Click here for more on the 2003 event.

 

Program

Sunday, June 2, 2002, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Town Center, Rockville, Maryland

10:00 am - Ongoing:
  • Confederate sympathizers and Unionist civilian re-enactors describing day-to-day activities and social history of the time.
  • Union and Confederate encampment areas
  • Exhibit by National Museum of Civil War Medicine of Frederick, MD
  • Knippīs Battery artillery display [10:00-12:30 only]
  • Period cooking demonstration
  • Sutlerīs display
10:30 pm
12:00 pm
12:30 pm
  • Opening Ceremony
  • Recognition of descendants of Civil War families
  • Speaker Charles Jacobs dicusses Rockvilleīs role in the Civil War and narrates a living history of JEB Stuartīs "visit" in June 1863 on his way to Gettysburg.
1:15 pm
  • JEB Stuart and his fellow mounted and dismounted cavalry leave lot of Rockville United Methodist Church and process down Montgomery Avenue to Red Brick Courthouse [rolling street closures, approximately 3 blocks]. Stuart addresses crowd of Rockvillians, sends troops up the Rockville Pike to capture Union supply train and liberate farms of horses, supplies, slaves, and others in area approximately 3 miles out from Rockville. Dora Higgins defends her store from Confederate liberators. Stuart gets word of prominent Unionists hiding at Christ Episcopal Church and sends Captain Cissel with troops to capture them.
  • Captain Cissel leads troops, followed by Rockville crowd, to Christ Episcopal Church [1 block away; rolling street closures], to capture prominent men. He leads them back to the Red Brick Courthouse to join other captured prisoners. Stuart leaves with captured men and heads towards Brookeville, where he paroles some of them.
  • Speaker concludes remarks.
2:30 pm
3:00 pm

Pictures

JEB '02 Event, Musicians
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista

The South Mountain String Band entertains the crowd.

JEB '02 Event, Red Brick Courthouse Scene
Photo credit: David Back

The opening ceremonies, in front of the Red Brick Courthouse.

JEB '02 Event, Mayor Giammo Welcoming
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista

Rockville Mayor, Larry Giammo, welcomes visitors.
Union garrison reenactors form a spare and fleeting skirmish line to contest the town with arriving Confederate troopers.

JEB '02 Event, Union Skirmish Line
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista

JEB '02 Event, JEB Stuart
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista

JEB Stuart arrives and addresses the crowd (Eileen McGuckian, Peerless Executive Director seated).


JEB '02 Event, Seminary Girls
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista

 Female students from the Rockville Seminary excitedly greeted the arriving Confederate cavalry soldiers.  Here are our modern reenactors from local schools.

Reenacting the Confederate arrest of local citizens.

JEB '02 Event, Civilian Arrest
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista

JEB '02 Event, at Christ Episcopal Church 
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista


Another arrest episode happened at Christ Episcopal Church.  Here the modern pastor of this same church explains what happened on the actual site, prior to reenactment.

Gathered descendents of 1863 Rockville residents. 

JEB '02 Event, Descendents
Photo credit: Dean Evangelista
 

Đ 2006, Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation Trust Ltd.