The Daily Dispatch: July 31, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.
Northumberland county and the war.

Your correspondent of Lancaster county. of the 16th inst, thinks this county has not done its duty in sending men in the field to fight the enemies of our country Permit me to inform the public through your widely circulated paper what Wicomico has done. In the first place, this is a very small district in the county of Northumberland-- perhaps not one-seventh of the county. It can vote at best one hundred It has equipped. and sent it to the field Capt States company of seventy-five men, and furnished to three companies of Lancaster about twenty five more, seeding as many men as we have voters.--This left us about thirty militia, who are now called in the field, and, report save are to be sent off, which will leave about twelve men to protect this part of the county, which ties immediately on the Bay and Wicom co River, and intersected by bold and navigable creeks in every neighborhood — making at least twenty-five miles of water coast to defend, where the enemy can land, and where they did land last week, and destroyed and carried off two vessels and several cannot, and other property.

We have in this district a population of largely over one thousand negroes. When all the facts are taken in consideration, I thing any sane man will say Wicomico has cone its duty; and I feel satisfied, were the proper facts brought before the Government, not one of the few militia would be put in camp, as they are absolutely required to see after the crops of their own and the families of those who have already gone. Wicomico.