Washington County, Maryland Washington County, Maryland Washington County is located in the western part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 census, the population was 147,430. Its county seat is Hagerstown. Washington County was the first county in the United States to be named for the Revolutionary War general (and later President) George Washington. Washington County is one of three Maryland counties recognized by the Appalachian Regional Commission as being part of Appalachia. The county borders southern Pennsylvania to the north, Northern Virginia to the south, and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia to the south and west. Washington County
Maryland in the American Civil War and in particular whether such conditions formed part of a deliberate policy of "vindictive directives" from Washington, is a matter of some debate. The state capital Annapolis's western suburb of Parole became a camp where prisoners-of-war would await formal exchange in the early years of the war. Around 70,000 soldiers passed through Camp Parole until Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assumed command as General-in-Chief of the Union Army in 1864, and ended the system of prisoner exchanges. Those who voted for Maryland to remain in the Union did not at first contemplate the emancipation of Maryland's many slaves, or indeed