Tuesday Talk: “Misplacing History: Rowser’s Ford”

On the night of June 27, 1863, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart crossed the Potomac River with 5,000 horsemen including artillery at “Rowser’s Ford” and proceeded to ransack Montgomery County.  Stuart’s actions proved a catastrophe for the Confederacy because he should have been with Robert E. Lee’s army in Pennsylvania.  Moving blindly without his cavalry, Lee stumbled into the huge Union army at a place called Gettysburg where he was soundly defeated.  To deflect criticism, Stuart wrote a report glorifying his crossing at Rowser’s Ford as a heroic, superhuman effort.  In more recent times, markers have been erected at the supposed site on the C&O Canal at Violette’s and Riley’s locks.  Visitors marvel at the courage of Stuart and his men to cross the mile-wide river, filled with rocks, rapids, and whirlpools.  But the markers, and history, misplace the site.  It was actually two miles downriver in a placid, sandy-bottomed part of the Potomac on John Rowzer’s farm.  Jim Johnston unravels the historical mystery.