Spare your country\u27s flag : Unionist Sentiment in Frederick, Maryland 1860-1865

The historiography of Frederick, Maryland has maintained in the years since the Civil War that the area was firmly pro-Union. However, through the 1860 presidential election, as well as the reactions of residents of Frederick to the Confederate Army through 1862, it becomes apparent that there was a significant, although perhaps not sizeable, group with Confederate sympathies. In 1863, Frederick County began to shift its sympathies. Through the narrative written by one diarist about the Confederate Army’s march through Maryland prior to the Gettysburg Campaign, the army’s residence in Frederick during the Battle of Monocacy, as well as the 1864 Presidential Election returns, there is evidence that the city and county became more pro-Union as the war went on. Frederick County, as well as the city of Frederick, was divided in its sympathies at the beginning of the Civil War. By 1863, the county began to favor the Unionist sentiment for which it is known and has been remembered

Ambrose Burnside, the Ninth Army Corps, and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

The fighting on May 12, 1864 at Spotsylvania Court House evokes thoughts of the furious combat at the Bloody Angle. However, there is another aspect of the fighting on May 12, that is, incidentally, at another salient. The then-independent command of Ambrose Burnside’s Ninth Corps spent the day fighting on the east flank of the Mule Shoe, and charging against the Confederate right flank at Heth’s Salient. This paper has two parts: the first half analyzes the complexities and problems of Burnside’s return to the Eastern Theater since his disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862, starting in April 1864 and culminating with the opening moves of the Overland Campaign. In the second half the paper examines the fighting on May 12—tactically how and why Burnside was repulsed, while strategically it examines the larger repercussions of the fighting on May 12, including the pivotal position of Heth’s Salient in defending Lee’s flank and reserve line. I would like to acknowledge the staff and volunteers at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park for their help with this paper. Especial thanks are due to Peter Maugle, Eric Mink and Rebecca Capobianco for their assistance in a last-minute request locating Henry Heth’s official report

Breaking and Remaking the Mason-Dixon Line: Loyalty in Civil War America, 1850-1900

Between 1850 and 1900, Americans redefined their interpretation of national identity and loyalty. In the Mid-Atlantic borderland of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia this change is most evident. With the presence of a free state and slave states in close proximity, white and black Americans of the region experienced the tumult of the Civil War Era first hand. While the boundary between freedom and slavery served as an antebellum battleground over slavery, during the war, the whole region bore witness to divisions between the Union and Confederacy as well as to define what loyalty and nation meant. By exploring how ordinary men and women, Unionists or Confederates, free or enslaved persons, articulated their understanding of loyalty, this project tracks the development of identity and nationalism for over half a century. This project analyzes the rhetoric and discussions of national loyalty in order to unpack how Mid-Atlantic residents attached themselves to the idea of a nation in the second half of the nineteenth century. In doing so, it reveals how individuals shifted their interpretation of loyalty as a loosely held, reciprocal definition of loyalty in the antebellum period to firmer antagonistic definitions of allegiance. After the war, with the inclusion of African Americans in society, white Mid-Atlantic residents again redefined loyalty to focus on the hereditary connections between themselves and the Founding Generation, thereby excluding freedmen and women from inclusion in the nation and laying the foundations for a distorted memory of the Civil War Era

Bean (Paul W.) Civil War Papers, 1860-1864

Civil War correspondence of Frank L. Lemont (Company E, 5th Maine Regiment); letters of Charles Warner (145th New York Volunteers); diaries of John B. Bailey, Ezekiel Ellis, Edwin M. Truell and George Washington Verrill. Also contains record books. Access digitized portions of the Paul W. Bean Collection on Digital Commons at http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/paul_bean_papers/https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/findingaids/1219/thumbnail.jp

Finding Aid for the Lionel Baxter Collection (MUM00027)

Collection consists of letters, documents, autographs, engravings, maps, facsimiles, broadsides, framed items, books, and ephemera related predominantly, but not exclusively, to the Civil War

The Crisis at Fort Sumter: The Symbolic Monument That Transformed Northern and Southern Opinions During the Start of the Civil War

Understanding the complexity of the Battle at Fort Sumter and the changing opinions of Northerners and Southerners acts as means of delving into the deeper roots of slavery, secession, and national discourse that laced our nation’s undeniable history. The first firings at Fort Sumter were the flashpoint of the entirety of the Civil War, triggering the four years of battle, death, destruction, and competing nationalisms that ensued between the North and South. Because the histories of the war—more specifically the battle of Fort Sumter—are biased because they are written from points of views laced with Confederate and Unionist undertones, comprehending the interactions between historical figures that recorded or publicized their changing opinions throughout this nebulous time accurately and without partiality is difficult. By doing so, one can conclude the overall effect the national divide had on the lives and perspectives of politicians, abolitionists, slave owners, and common folk of the national discord of the time

0703: Rosanna A. Blake Collection, 1818-2000

This collection consists of manuscript and other paper items collected by Rosanna A. Blake. Included are letters, diaries, correspondence, unit rosters, Confederate imprint forms and currency, 1860-1865. Also included are 3D items including firearms, edged weapons, tin soldiers, original Civil War art work, the Volck shield, and Southern periodicals relating to the Civil War. Notably, the collection includes 3 original Robert E. Lee letters, 1 Jefferson Davis letter, and 2 general orders dictated by Lee. The O\u27Brien sub-collection contains Civil War pamphlets and booklets, over 300 monographs and books, photos, CDV\u27s, original Civil War art work, the Volck shield, ambrotypes and tintypes, one original Robert E. Lee letter, original Civil War sketches and etchings, and other 3D items. Most materials are Confederate related. To view materials from this collection that are digitized and available online, search the Rosanna Blake Collection, 1818-2000 here

Northern Town Lot Histories of Fairfield, Pennsylvania

Each lot history give the original lot number, original owner, the current address, the owner of the lot in 1860, a description of the lot or dwelling in 1860, a recital of ownership with as much detail as is known, a comprehensive lot history, any known residents in 1860 (may be different than lot owner), and any family notes on any residents mentioned in the lot history. The research is comprehensive, but not necessarily exhaustive. Thorough information for all lots was not always available to the researcher