Posted on 01/19/2022 11:05:26 AM PST by re_tail20
Regular folks and history buffs who believe Maryland leaned strongly toward the Confederacy during the Civil War era have never lacked evidence for the claim.
It was a Marylander, after all, on the U.S. Supreme Court who wrote the opinion in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott case, which found that Black people were not citizens — a ruling that helped spark the fighting. And Marylanders voted for a Southern sympathizer, not Abraham Lincoln, for president in the election of 1860. Then, some 20,000 Marylanders took up arms for the Confederacy.
But such facts can be deceiving if looked at in a vacuum — or so say the scholars behind a critically acclaimed new book that aims to explode long-standing myths about the period.
In “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered,” a collection of 13 essays assembled and edited by Baltimore historians Charles W. Mitchell and Jean H. Baker, are independent thinkers from as far away as California and England and as close as Johns Hopkins University. They point out, among other things, that contrary to popular belief, Maryland judges refused to put the Dred Scott decision into effect; that more Marylanders voted, in total, for the three presidential candidates who backed the Union than they did for John C. Breckinridge, the Southern Democrat who carried the state in 1860, and that four times as many Old Line State men fought for the Union than for the South.
Maryland, in short, was less sympathetic to the Confederate cause, and more behind the Union, than generations of historians have implied, says Mitchell, a self-taught Civil War expert, author and editor who got the sprawling essay project rolling four years ago.
History, he says, is framed by the values of those who pass it along. In the case of Maryland’s antebellum and Civil...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Many thousands of Maryland men went south and joined Virginia regiments. Many joined the cavalry. Maryland newspaper ran ads enticing them to go south and offered bonuses to them to do so.
Secession sentiment in Maryland depended on what part of the state you are talking about. Western Maryland, like Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. was strongly Unionist. There were few slaves. Most of the whites were descendants of Scots-Irish and German pioneers and small farmers, who had no use for Tidewater planters and the slave system. Southern Maryland, an extension of Tidewater Virginia, was pro-Confederate, sharing the same plantation culture as much of the Lowland South. The Eastern Shore was a mixed bag. While having a Southern like culture, the area’s isolation inclined many locals toward neutrality, as was the case during the War of Independence. After the Civil War, the popularity of the Lost Cause caused greater sympathy toward the former Confederacy.
It was September 1861. The Maryland Legislature had already voted against secession the previous April and now a minority of members want to take the state to join the armed rebellion currently being waged against the government. What the heck did you expect to happen?
Yes, no doubt many did. “Many Thousands” is speculation
He who loses the war, writes the myths. And nowhere it that more evident than with the Civil War.
This is kinda pointless.
Some States were strong for the Union.
Some States were strong for secession.
Some States were mixed, and Maryland was one of those.
Thousands, In HS I wrote a paper on this very subject a long time ago. Many VA regiments had more Marylanders than Virginians. Entire VA cavalry troop companies were Maryland men. They had to bring their own horse and if the horse got shot - KIA’d they had a short period of time to replace the horse or join the infantry or artillery, Yuk....
When I was a kid in the fifties I remember people would say you could run over to Maryland and get married at the age of 14. Does anybody know if that was true?
If they voted to secede the government would have had to abandon on DC.
Ask Joe Biden. He loves confederates and railroads and had to go through Baltimore regularly.
Lyrics to Maryland, My Maryland
The despot’s heel is on thy shore
Maryland, my Maryland
His torches at thy temple door
Maryland, my Maryland
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore
And be the battle queen of yore
Maryland, my Maryland
Thou wilt not cower in the dust
Maryland, my Maryland
Thy beaming sword shall never rust
Maryland, my Maryland
Remember Carroll’s sacred trust
Remember Howard’s warlike thrust
And though thy slumberers with the just
Maryland, my Maryland
Dear mother, burst the tyrant’s chain
Maryland, my Maryland
Virginia should not call in vain
Maryland, my Maryland
She meets her sisters on the plain
“Sic semper” ‘tis the proud refrain
That baffle’s minions back o’Maine
Maryland, my Maryland
Arise, arise in majesty again
Maryland, Maryland, my Maryland
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jack Fascinato / Ernest Ford / Dp
yeah, sounds pro union to me.
from maryland’s eastern shore... or the right coast as we call it.
yup
a few thousand perhaps. A cavalry troop in the Confederate Army was about 60-75 men. All Confederate cavalry had to provide their own horses. The South was so short of horses that Confederate artillery pieces were drawn by a four horse hitch.
In the Union Army 6 horses drew a gun.
I just don’t think a writer today can accurately read tea leaves from 1861, as complex as it was. I suppose in today’s world where everyone has their own truth, this sort of writing can make people feel better about themselves if they live in Maryland. Who am I to judge their truths, anyway. I may want my own tomorrow.
Lincoln would have won the electoral vote even if all the votes for his 3 opponents had been cast for just one opponent, because he carried enough Northern states for a majority of the electoral college. (Fremont nearly won the election of 1856 when the Republican Party was brand new.) Lincoln got very few votes in the South—in most of the Southern states he was not on the ballot in 1860.
Roger Taney was widely reviled for the Dred Scott decision (and because he was a Catholic) but he remained on the Supreme Court until his death in 1864.
“The people of Maryland wanted to secede. It’s legislature didn’t. A mob had gathered outside the state house in Baltimore demanding secession. When Lincoln was appraised of the situation he sent troops to guard the statehouse.”
He didn’t send troops to guard the state house, he sent them to ARREST the state legislature!
“’Appraised’. Look it up.”
Well, “appraise” is to rate or determine something’s value or worth; “apprise” is to tell or inform someone.
“So why did Lincoln imprison the Maryland legislators without trial? “
I think that explains the resulting “pro-Union” sentiment more than any change of heart.
Another imprisoned civil war Marylander was Francis Key Howard, grandson of Francis Scott Key:
“imprisoned for treason for fourteen months at Fort McHenry in September 1861”
“Howard was the editor of the Daily Exchange, a Baltimore newspaper sympathetic to the Confederacy. He was arrested without a warrant just after midnight on September 13, 1861 at his home by U.S. Major General Nathaniel Prentice Banks on the direct orders of General George B. McClellan enforcing the policy of President Abraham Lincoln.”
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