Confederate Military History. Robert White

      for it was in the hearts of the people and it was true!

      The rendezvous of the drilled volunteers produced three crack companies under Capt. E. R. Dorsey, Baltimore City Guards; Capt. Wm. H. Murray, Maryland Guards, and Capt. J. Lyle Clarke, Independent Grays. And soon after was organized another company under Capt. Michael Stone Robertson, of Charles county, whose company came from the counties of St. Mary's, Calvert and Charles. These Richmond companies were mustered into the service of Virginia, May 17th and 18th and June 17th. Captain Clarke elected to take his company into the Twenty-first Virginia regiment. It served its year with great éclat and was the crack company of that part of the army. The other three were united to the battalion at Harper's Ferry. Virginia troops had by that time been taken en masse into the army of the Confederacy. That battalion was reorganized into six companies, so as to equalize them above the minimum required by the law of the Confederacy, and thus the First Maryland regiment was formed, with Capt. Arnold Elzey, late United States artillery, as colonel; Capt. George H. Steuart, late United States cavalry, as lieutenant-colonel, and Bradley T. Johnson as major. It consisted of 500 men armed with Mrs. Johnson's rifles, caliber 54, and 220 men (the three Richmond companies) with Springfield muskets and bayonets. The drill and style of the Richmond companies set the standard for the rest, and during their whole service there never was anything but the most devoted comradeship and the most generous feeling. The only rivalry was ‘Who shall get there first!’

      Soon afterward Capt. R. Snowden Andrews mustered into Confederate service his battery, which during the next four years won undying fame on a hundred fields as the First Maryland artillery. Next came the Baltimore light artillery, known later as the Second Maryland, Capt. John B. Brockenbrough. The Latrobe artillery, Third Maryland, Capt. Henry B. Latrobe; and the Chesapeake, Fourth Maryland, Capt. William Brown, were organized and mustered into the service early in 1862 and served with distinction, the Third Maryland in the army of the Southwest with Johnston and Kirby Smith, and the Fourth Maryland in the army of Northern Virginia. Capt. George R. Gaither brought to Virginia a part of the Howard Dragoons, a troop of which he had been captain in Howard county, with horses, arms and accoutrements, and mustered them into the First Virginia cavalry, Col. J. E. B. Stuart. as Company K of that élite corps. A troop of cavalry composed of Marylanders was mustered into the Sixth Virginia under Capt. J. Sturgis Davis. Subsequently five troops of Marylanders were collected under Davis and were known as the Davis Battalion, of which he was commissioned major. Capt. Elijah V. White, of Montgomery county, organized a dashing troop of Marylanders as escort and headquarters guard for General Ewell, which was afterwards enlarged into the Thirty-fifth Virginia battalion, commanded by Lieut.-Col. ‘Lije’ White. It was a Maryland command. Harry Gilmor in the valley of Virginia in 1863-64 collected a number of Marylanders into troops and formed a battalion known as the Second Maryland, or Gilmor's battalion, of which he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel. He and they operated in the valley of Virginia and rivaled Mosby by their daring exploits behind the enemy's lines and against his supply trains; and in the lower valley, operating against and breaking the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, occupied and kept employed a large body of the enemy's infantry and cavalry from Harper's Ferry to the Ohio river. In December, 1860, South Carolina had sent a recruiting officer to Baltimore, and he enlisted there and sent to Charleston five hundred men who were placed in the Lucas battalion of artillery and Rhett's First South Carolina artillery. They served with fidelity, gallantry and distinction in the defense of Fort Sumter, for a large part of the garrison of that fortress during its bombardment were Marylanders.

      During the autumn of 1862 seven troops of Marylanders were collected under Lieut.-Col. Ridgely Brown, from Montgomery county, as the First Maryland cavalry. When the First regiment was mustered out of service August 12, 1862, on account of its depleted ranks, which had been worn threadbare by Jackson's Valley campaign and the Seven Days battles, the men who were mustered out were largely collected by Captains Herbert, Murray and Goldsborough, who formed three new companies, which with others formed the Second Maryland infantry battalion, of which Herbert became lieutenant-colonel commanding, and Goldsborough major. The Second Maryland was officered by trained and experienced soldiers. Almost every one of its captains had seen more than one year's service in the army of northern Virginia, and its field officers had been among the brightest captains in the ‘Old First,’ as the First regiment was always designated in the hearts and words of its old members. The Second Maryland infantry and the First Maryland cavalry were in the valley of Virginia about Harrisonburg in the winter of 1862 and 1863. Co. F of the cavalry was recruited by three rich young Baltimoreans—Augustus F. Schwartz, captain; C. Irving Ditty, first lieutenant, and Fielder C. Slinghoff, second lieutenant. They furnished uniforms, horses, accoutrements and arms for their company at an immense expense, for everything except horses had to be smuggled through the blockade from Baltimore.

      In January, 1862, Elzey and the field officers of the First having been promoted at First Manassas, July 21, 1861, Colonel Steuart, while on leave at Richmond, procured an order to be issued by the adjutant-general of the Confederate States, that all Marylanders on application to the adjutant-general would be transferred to the Maryland Line, then consisting of the First regiment, in the army of the Potomac under Joe Johnston at Manassas. This measure resulted in no practical, good result. The Marylanders were generally quick, bright, valuable young fellows, and commanding officers were not willing to part with them. Many were taken on the staff, commissioned and non-commissioned, at division, brigade and regimental headquarters, and when one did apply in writing for a transfer, his paper was pigeon-holed and lost on its way up to the adjutant-general. The order added very few men to the Maryland Line.