Benjamin Welch Owens, CSA
(1836-1917)
On June 19, 1863, during the War Between the States (1861-65), Private Owens of the 1st Maryland Artillery, Confederate States of America, performed heroically at the Battle of Stephenson's Depot. Owens, born and raised in West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, single-handedly held off the Union forces, continually firing his cannon after his compatriots had been wounded. General Robert E. Lee would call this battle "The Thermopylae of the War". For this action Owens was posthumously awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor. Benjamin Welch Owens represented all the Maryland boys who fought for "a war of ideas, political conceptions, and loyalty to ancient ideals of English freedom."
Erected June 19, 1999.
Marker is on Mt. Zion Marlboro Road (Maryland Route 408) 0.1 miles west of Ed Prout Road, on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
