The Daily Dispatch: August 22, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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[for the Richmond Dispatch.]
the position of Maryland.

Of the slave States yet attached to the despotism of the North, probably the people of Maryland are the least responsible for the degrading position she now holds as a subjugated province of the Washington Administration. Since the commencement of our national difficulties, the sympathies of this State have been warmly enlisted in behalf of the South and its rights; and although beset with difficulties innumerable, this sympathy was often and unmistakably evinced. But, to conceive of the disinterestedness, and to show that the people of Maryland acted only from principle, let us review the position she has held since the commencement of our present troubles.

Occupying the position of a border State, and having the National Capital within her boundaries, she was from the first threatened by the collection of the military to guard (?) the inauguration of the Abolition King, and with Virginia still in the Union and between her and the Southern Confederacy, her people could only patiently look forward to the action of the Old Dominion as the signal for their own escape from the disgrace and thraldom which, alas! has overtaken them — Joined to the unfortunate temporizing of the Virginia Convention was the fact that the people were disorganized, and with the traitor Hicks at the head of their Government, the Legislature, although honest and loyal to their constituents, were unable to act, and, without and official call from the Executive, could not take their destiny in their own hands, and so, perforce, were compelled to await the action of Virginia.--Every one knows of the uprising of that outraged people to repel the onward march of the Yankee hirelings to crush a people who possessed their every feeling of sympathy, and with whom they would fain have cast their own lot; and every one knows of the perjury of their Governor, who, being terrified at this great uprising of a free but outraged people, hastily convened the Legislature and proclaimed that no troops hostile to the cause they all held so dear should, with his consent, invade the sacred soil of Maryland.

Since that day her subjugation has been going on steadily, sneakingly, almost imperceptibly, until now, a military despotism is established, whose ultimate object is to crush out the last vestige of freedom from her soil. This is being accomplished, as it were, like a huge reptile encircling its victim, who at first struggles violently in its grasp, and then, as the pressure is for a moment suspended, though not relaxed, the victim becomes temporarily quiet, and remains still and exhausted in the folds which encircle it, when again one coil is tightened, and thus, from time to time, till the poor struggling creature becomes dead and passive in the folds of its executioner. So are the liberties of the people of Maryland being crushed out steadily but surely. The insult offered by the march of the Massachusetts troops through the city of Baltimore has been followed by numerous others. The arrest and incarceration of Marshal Kane without indictment or trail, the subsequent disbanding of all the police of that city, and the substituting of their own hirelings, and the disarming of peaceable, law-abiding citizens, were only the prelude to other insults not less outrageous; nor have these outrages been confined to the city of Baltimore alone. My own native county of Washington has suffered not less severely. Although the most western county of the State but one, and contaminated as it is by the borders of Pennsylvania as its northern boundary, the majority of the people are of warm Southern feelings, but are held in subjection by a Northern army and a low, armed rabble, who are urged to commit outrages at which their instigators hold up their hands in holy horror.

Murder and rapine do their deeds unrebuked in the broad light of day. D. C. Rench, a young and promising lawyer of Baltimore, while on a visit to his parents in this, his native county, was brutally murdered — shot down and stoned to death — and his horse, on which he had rode from his father's farm to the village, was sent as a ‘"trophy"’ to the army, then at Chambersburg. His parents were informed that they might have the body, provided they came and took it away in fifteen minutes, and asked no questions. The Sheriff of the county was also given a similar space of time in which to make his exit, when he came to make inquiries concerning and arrest the parties who had perpetrated the atrocious died, and thus the matter ended.

R. H. Alvey, a member of the Hagerstown bar, was arrested and sent down to Fort McHenry, and from thence to Fort Lafayette, all for entertaining supposed Secession sentiments, the only charge being brought against him was that he had said that ‘"two or three Virginia regiments would put to flight the whole of Patterson's ragged army."’ Subsequent events lead us to the inference that he was a far-seeing man.

Old and grey-haired citizens have been openly insulted and abused, and, at night, have had their houses stoned by threatening mobs for no crime of their own, but because they had sons in the Southern army. This rabble, some of whom are organized into volunteer companies of cavalry to join the regular army, have been commissioned by Lincoln as Home Guards, and who are nothing more nor less than a gang of horse thieves and plunderers, who follow their delectable occupation without let or hindrance. They are supplied with the best of arms, and go around through the county and the bordering counties of Virginia stealing horses, sheep, &c., which contraband they deliver to the Yankee army at moderate valuation.

I, as well as many others whom I could name, having been threatened with the punishment generally inflicted there on disloyal citizens and persons entertaining supposed Secession feelings — namely, murder or imprisonment — were compelled to escape by night across the Potomac as best we could, to cast our lot with this new El Dorado.

The last Congressional ‘"election"’ (?) in Western Maryland, by which the hoary-headed traitor, ex-Governor Thomas, was ‘"elected,"’ does not by any means represent the feelings of that part of the State. The Southern Rights' men did not have a candidate, as at that time it would have only aggravated farther fracases and outrages from the ‘"Union shriekers,"’ backed up by the Northern troops then in their midst.

There are numbers of young Marylanders now in the Southern army — more, perhaps, than many are aware of; they come over quietly as fast as they can, and join the first division of the army they come to, and thus they are scattered among the ranks of Virginians, South Carolinas, or the regiments of any State which may be most convenient on their arrival. There are also thousands of other good and true men, who are willing and anxious to come on and participate in this glorious struggle for independence, but whose family ties and interests will not permit them to do so without a great sacrifice. And thus it is that thousands of loyal citizens suffer every indignity; and being bound and gagged, as it were, can only pray to a just God to hasten His retribution on the heads of their persecutors, and look forward, with longing eyes, to the advent of the Southern army, which will be the signal for forty thousand Marylanders to spring joyously to arms, and drive the accursed and insolent invaders from their soil.

Thus far, the Southern Congress and the Southern army have done all things well, and may we not hope that, acting in the same spirit, they will not permit a false delicacy to influence them, or a fear of ‘"intruding"’ on the soil of a sister State, who, by force of circumstances, has not as yet declared herself out of the Union; but will carry this war through Maryland, and onward to the territory of the enemy, making them feel all the horrors and humiliation of an invasion, and thus the more speedily, and on their own soil, dictate terms of peace. A Marylander.