Maryland is best known for the prison at Point Lookout, a peninsula formed by the confluence of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. It attracted attention from the outset of English colonization in America. In 1830 the federal government erected a lighthouse on the tip of the Point. In 1862, following General George B. McClellan's unsuccessful campaign to capture Richmond, the federal government erected Hammond Hospital at the tip of the Point. The ward buildings radiated in spoke fashion from a central bay. Wounded and sick soldiers began pouring in for treatment.
