A BRIEF RETROSPECT

OF

THE HISTORY OF MARYLAND'S REPRESENTATIVES IN THE ARMY

AND NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE

GREAT CIVIL WAR, A. D. 1861 TO 1865.

THE State of Maryland responded promptly to the call for the preser-
vation of the Federal Union. "While her people were divided in
sentiment, many of them being connected by social and business
ties with the Southern States, which attempted to divide the Union
and set up a separate Confederacy, nevertheless the dominant
sentiment was in favor of the Union. The Union people, especially
in the western section of the State, in the early days of 1861, with-
out waiting for the authorities to act, took initiatory proceedings to form military
organizations to protect themselves and preserve order.

They subsequently, upon the call of the proper authorities, enlisted regularly in the
Army or Navy of the United States.

A considerable number of the people of Maryland who sympathized with the South-
ern Confederacy, and who had the courage of their convictions, promptly left the State
and joined the Confederate troops.

Maryland was on the border land, and in the early days of the Civil War, before
the Government was apparently making any serious effort for its own maintenance, and
while Confederate troops were stationed on the banks of the Potomac (on her borders),
with a full knowledge that her territory would become, in part, the seat of war, her
people did not hesitate as to their duty.

They enlisted in the regular Army or Navy of the United States, and in regiments
from, other States of the Union. They formed military organizations, and the Union
Home Guards, of Western Maryland, armed and equipped, protected, confirmed and
strengthened the Union sentiment in that section of the State. No appeal made to
them, even when their territory was occupied by Confederate armies, or their fair fields
desolated by contending hosts, property seized, appropriated, consumed, burned or
destroyed, could make them waver in their allegiance to the Union.

The sacrifices made by the people of Maryland for the preservation of the Union
have never been properly understood or appreciated.

The first naval contingent which manned the fleet of Commander Foote, in the year
1861, on the Mississippi, and which did such splendid service, was composed in part of
Baltimore sailors, descendants of that gallant body of men who carried the American
flag to victory on the high seas in the famous Baltimore privateers during the war of
1812-1815.