J. MILLARD TAWES, GOVERNOR                          1463

flict—Maryland having within its confines a love for both the North
and the South, her sons fought and died on both sides in that
struggle; and

Whereas, Maryland was a Southern Slave State, many of her
people, perhaps a majority, were in sympathy with the South, but
being the "Old Line State" of Revolutionary War fame, her lines
never broken in battle in that conflict, found the bonds of union
too strong to break; and

Whereas, Maryland's Governor, Thomas Holliday Hicks, a state's-
rights, unionman did everything he could to preserve a peace be-
tween North and South and used every bit of his influence to keep
Maryland in the Union; and

Whereas, Maryland's staying in the Union has HAD strong
repercussions on the other Border Slave States, Delaware, Kentucky,
Missouri and West Virginia, forming a buffer state, or territory,
from the Atlantic Ocean westward beyond the Mississippi; and

Whereas, These "Border States" not joining the Confederacy pre-
vented it from striking such necessary blows to win the war and to
dissolve the Union; and

Whereas, The Civil War actually began in Maryland when John
Brown, from a farm in Washington County, started his raid on
Harpers Ferry hoping to start a slave insurrection, this causing many
Union people of the South to believe their safety was no longer in
the Union of States, North and South, so they threw their lot with
the secessionists; and

Whereas, This locale within hearing distance and almost seeing
distance of John Brown's Farm became the spectacle of the bloodiest
single-day battle of all American History, known as the Battle of
Antietam or Sharpsburg; and

Whereas, This battle enabled Lincoln to issue his Emancipation
Proclamation, freeing the slaves and this in turn kept England and
France out of the war on the side of the south; this making Antietam
one of the decisive battles of the war; and

Whereas, Robert E. Lee, one of the greatest military geniuses
of all times, fought his greatest battles at Antietam holding back
about 85,000 union troops with 40,000 of his own men; he executed
one of the most perfect examples in military history of the full em-
ployment of a small force for a defensive battle on the inner line;
and

Whereas, Antietam kept Maryland permanently within the Union;
and

Whereas, Clara Barton, the only woman on Antietam Battlefield,
started the Red Cross movement of America on that bloody field, she
set up her field hospital on the edge of the Bloody Cornfields; and

Whereas, Maryland suffered tremendously during the Civil War,
having experienced three major engagements and some one hundred
and thirty lesser conflicts on her soil, because of these fights and
invasions much property was destroyed or carried off; Hagerstown
and Frederick had to pay large ransoms to keep from being destroyed
by fire; and