Volume 173, Page 28 View pdf image (33K) |
28 MARYLAND MANUAL
At sea, Marylanders, sailing in the speedy Baltimore clippers, terrorized British shipping to the coasts of Eng- land, accounting for 556 British vessels, almost a third of the total taken by American vessels. Outstanding privateers- men were Captain Thomas Boyle in the Comet and the Chasseur and Commodore Joshua Barney in the Rossie. Barney later commanded a fleet of gunboats in the regular navy. Commodores John Rodgers and Stephen Decatur also distinguished themselves as naval commanders. Early Nineteenth Century After 1815 the State went on more vigorously than ever. A national "pike" was completed to Ohio and two canals, the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Chesapeake and Delaware, and a railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, were put in opera- tion. Samuel F. B. Morse ran an experimental telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore and on May 24, 1844, the message "What Hath God Wrought" flashed over the wire. In 1845, the Naval Academy was founded at Annapolis as Commander Franklin Buchanan and an academic staff of eight assembled some forty-odd midshipmen in Fort Severn. Marylanders in the Baltimore and Washington Battalion took part in General Taylor's campaign in northern Mexico and participated in General Scott's march from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. In Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe produced some of his greatest poems and short stories until his untimely death in 1849 brought an end to his brilliant but tragic career. Having attained a population of 169,000 by 1850, Balti- more was erected as a separate political unit by the Consti- tution of 1851. The Civil War Sectional differences placed Maryland in a peculiar posi- tion during the 1850's. Growing industrial and commercial ties bound the State to the North and West, as well as to the South. On October 16, 1859, Maryland's position became even more difficult when John Brown, basing his operation on Maryland soil, seized the arsenal at Harpers Ferry and cut the rail and telegraph connections to the West. On April 19, 1861, some Baltimoreans attacked the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment on its way through the city to Washington. Enraged poetical comment on the event by James Ryder Randall, a Marylander living in New Orleans, produced the State song, "Maryland, My Maryland." As the war began, Maryland hovered on the brink of se- cession. It was important to the national government to keep |
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Volume 173, Page 28 View pdf image (33K) |
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