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Maryland Manual, 1971-72
Volume 175, Page 38   View pdf image (33K)
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38 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
tics 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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Maryland Manual, 1971-72
Volume 175, Page 38   View pdf image (33K)
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