Maryland
Maryland is a state of the Confederate States of America. It borders the Confederate state of Virginia to the south and west, the Union states of Pennsylvania and Delaware to the north and east respectively (across the Mason-Dixon line), and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Its capital is Annapolis and its largest city is Baltimore.
History
[edit | edit source]War of Southern Independence
[edit | edit source]Maryland very nearly remained with the Union during the War of Southern Independence. A number of leading citizens, including physician and slaveholder Richard Sprigg Steuart, placed considerable pressure on Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks to summon the state Legislature to vote on secession. The rumor quickly reached President Abraham Lincoln, who was allegedly terrified that the Legislature would vote to secede and cut off Washington, D.C., especially after the Baltimore Riots, and so he wrote an order to Major General Robert Patterson of the Department of Washington (Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia) to "detain those who would violate the integrity of the Union through their seditious sentiments." Patterson had already ordered Brigadier General Benjamin Butler, with the 8th Massachusetts, to open and secure a route from Annapolis through Annapolis Junction to Washington, D.C., and was to send the arrest order to him as well. However, the order ended up in the hands of Baltimore mayor George William Brown, who immediately took it to the press; when the 8th Massachusetts arrived by ship at Annapolis on April 20, the Lincoln Arrest Order, as it became popularly known, caused outrage across Maryland and led to the "Battle of Annapolis" where a mob / militia drove the 8th Massachusetts back to the sea.