St. Peter's or Horsehead? Is the Stage Route the Answer?

[L Verge]

In the middle of the night, a thought occurred to me. The Plains plantation of the Sothorons, which Rick mentioned in a previous post,was in St. Mary's County on the Patuxent River and about 3-4 miles from the village of Mechanicsville. It is now a housing development with only a well-kept family cemetery to ever suggest it had a history. Those of us who know about the Battle of Mechanicsville have always thought that the battle occurred near that site.

However, it dawned on me that there is another river to consider when studying St. Mary's County - the Wicomico River. An infamous town to the Yankees, Chaptico, still stands near the Wicomico (and has a great market that sells Maryland stuffed ham and good, Maryland-style fried chicken). Allen's Fresh, familiar to those who study the Civil War in Southern Maryland, is also on the Wicomico. Even today, however, nearby areas of the county fall under the Mechanicsville post office and cover about 14-15 miles from that river to the heart of Mechanicsville.

The point of my rambling is to suggest that this elusive Battle of Mechanicsvile could have occurred along the Wicomico River instead of the Patuxent River. Both areas would have been familiar to both the Yankees and any agents working from the Northern Neck shores of the Potomac. In fact, Jones decided to move Booth to Dent's Meadow after hearing that the Yankees had skedaddled to St. Mary's County because of reports of two men crossing into Virginia in that direction. We know those two men were likely Thomas Harbin and Joseph Baden. Mechanicsville extended to the shores of two rivers, the Patuxent and the Wicomico. Are we safe to speculate that the skirmish between Yankees and Mosby's men could have occurred somewhere near either river? I shall await a salvo from John Stanton...

P.S. If you want an interesting side story of the Civil War related to a citizen of Chaptico, google Richard Zarvona (a Civil War cross-dresser to serve The Cause).