Maryland Historical Magazine Patricia Dockman Anderson, Editor Matthew Hetrick, Associate Editor Christopher T
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Friends of the Press of the Maryland Historical Society The Maryland Historical Society (MdHS) is committed to publishing the fnest new work on Maryland history. In late 2005, the Publications Committee, with the advice and support of the development staf, launched the Friends of the Press, an efort dedicated to raising money used solely for bringing new titles into print. Response has been enthusiastic and generous and we thank you. Our most recent Friends of the Press title, the much-anticipated Betsy Bonaparte has just been released. Your support also allowed us to publish Combat Correspondents: Baltimore Sun Correspondents in World War II and Chesapeake Ferries: A Waterborne Tradition, 1632–2000, welcome complements to the Mary- land Historical Society’s already fne list of publications. Additional stories await your support. We invite you to become a supporter, to follow the path frst laid out with the society’s founding in 1844. Help us fll in the unknown pages of Maryland’s past for future generations. Become, quite literally, an important part of Maryland history. If you would like to make a tax-deductible gif to the Friends of the Press, please direct your gif to Development, Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201. For additional information on MdHS publications, contact Patricia Dockman Anderson, Editor, 410-685-3750 x317, or [email protected]. Maryland Historical Society Founded 1844 Ofcers Robert R. Neall, Chairman Louise Lake Hayman, Vice President Alex. G. Fisher, Vice Chairman Frederick M. Hudson, Vice President Burton K. Kummerow, President Jayne H. Plank, Vice President James W. Constable, Secretary Lynn Springer Roberts, Vice President Cecil E. Flamer, Treasurer Richard C. Tilghman Jr., Vice President Sandra R. Flax, Vice President Board of Trustees Gregory H. Barnhill Cleveland D. Miller Chairmen Emeriti Francis J. Carey Joseph E. Moore L. Patrick Deering Robert M. Cheston Jr. George S. Rich Jack S. Griswold Tomas A. Collier Patricia E. Saul Barbara P. Katz H. Russell Frisby Jr. David P. Schefenacker Jr. Stanard T. Klinefelter Brian P. Harrington Dorothy McI. Scott Henry Hodges Stansbury Louis G. Hecht Jacqueline Smelkinson Presidents Emeriti H. Tomas Howell Michael J. Sullivan John L. McShane M. Willis Macgill Brian B. Topping Ex-Ofcio Trustees Te Hon. John P. Sarbanes Te Hon. David R. Craig Drucilla J. Null Te Hon. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Representative: William B. Gilmore II Te Hon. James T. Smith Jr. Te Maryland Historical Magazine Patricia Dockman Anderson, Editor Matthew Hetrick, Associate Editor Christopher T. George, Donna B. Shear, Robert W. Barnes, Jennifer A. Ferretti, Editorial Associates Editorial Board H. Tomas Howell, Chair Jean H. Baker; James H. Bready; Robert J. Brugger; Deborah Cardin; Lois Green Carr; Suzanne E. Chapelle; Marilyn Davis; Toby L. Ditz; Jack G. Goellner; Norvell E. Miller III; Charles W. Mitchell; Edward C. Papenfuse; Jean B. Russo; James F. Schneider; David S. Taler; Bertram Wyatt-Brown Members Emeriti David G. Fogel ISSN 0025-4258 © 2011 by the Maryland Historical Society. Published quarterly as a beneft of membership in the Maryland Historical Society, spring, summer, fall, and winter. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and/or America: History and Life. Periodicals postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland, and at additional mailing offces. Postmaster: Please send address changes to the Maryland Historical Society, 201 West Monument Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201. Printed by The Sheridan Press, Hanover, Pennsylvania 17331. M A R Y L A N D Historical Magazine VOLUME 106, NO. 1 (Spring 2011) CONTENTS Strange Bedfellows: The Union Party and the Federal Government in Civil War Baltimore ..................................................................................................................7 FRANK TOWERS Baltimore’s Confederate Women: Perpetuating a Culture of War ....................................... 37 CLAUDIA FLOYD Portfolio ..................................................................................................................................62 Research Notes & Maryland Miscellany ................................................................................70 Forty-Seven Eyewitness Accounts of the Pratt Street Riot and Its Aftermath, edited by Jonathan W. White Recollections of a Civil War Nurse: The Diary of Amanda Akin, by Kevin Konrad, Manon Parry, and Diane Wendt “The Flowers Are Still Fragrant”: Recreation on the Maryland Civil War Home Front, by Meirah C. Shedlo The Court-Martial of Sergeant George W. McDonald, by R. Gregory Lande Curtis W. Jacobs’ Diary and Account Book, 1854–1866, by Dustin Meeker The Maryland Historical Magazine welcomes submissions from authors and letters to the editor. Letters may be edited for space and clarity. All articles will be acknowledged, but only those accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope will be returned. Submissions should be printed or typed manuscript. Address Editor, Maryland Historical Magazine, 201 West Monument Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21201. Include name, address, and daytime telephone number. Once accepted, articles should be on CDS (MS Word or PC convertible format), or may be emailed to [email protected]. The guidelines for contributors are available on our website at www.mdhs.org. Editor’s Notebook Silks, Scraps, and Splinters . Anniversaries of nation-changing events generate bursts of creative intellec- tual energy as historians of every stripe, from armchair warriors to scholars in the country’s most prestigious universities, reexamine the causes, events, and legacies of monumental wars. Tis year the country stands at the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and over the next four years publishing houses and cultural institutions will bring forth thousands of books, articles, exhibitions, programs, and tours, all designed to engage the curious in the story of a war that claimed more than six hundred thousand lives. Some look for family connections, others search for deeper understanding of the forces that shredded the bonds between North and South, and then there are those who stumble across documents and artifacts and fnd new people and stories that add to our knowledge. Te Maryland Historical Society staf defly wrestled with the challenge of how to engagingly and respectfully commemorate this anniversary, and this special is- sue of the magazine is our permanent contribution to the state’s Civil War history. Scholars featured herein are at vastly diferent points in their careers. Celebrated historian Frank Towers is among the reigning experts on sectional politics; Claudia Floyd has enviable command of Baltimore’s post-war Confederate culture; Jonathan White masterfully harnessed the gritty personalities of those who witnessed the Pratt Street Riot; Kevin Konrad, Manon Parry, and Diane Wendt perceptively pulled Amanda Akin’s sympathetic humanity from her memoirs; Gregory Lande confdently tackled George W. McDonald’s court-martial; and Meirah Shedlo, whose work as an undergraduate museum intern delighted and amazed us, crafed an intriguing glimpse of civilian life. Matt Hetrick, University of Delaware doctoral student and current book review editor served as “guest editor” and skillfully managed the calls for papers, submissions, reader reports, and author correspondence. Te question of how to tell Maryland’s Civil War story in an exhibition began in 2009 with discussion of the classic “house divided” and “brother against brother” themes, bounced of of Charley Mitchell’s Maryland Voices of the Civil War, and landed on “Divided Voices.” Te result is a striking and at times chilling account told through the letters, diaries, images, and personal belongings of those who lived through it—and did not know how or when it would end. We strove to iden- tify representative persons among the men, women, children, Union supporters, Southern sympathizers, Confederates, free and enslaved blacks, immigrants, and native-born families who had been here for generations, in an efort to present the complexities and personal conficts that certainly existed between and within the people of Maryland. Sorting and sifing through the thousands of Civil War papers and objects lef in our care over the past century and a half produced a stunning selection from which to choose. Robert E. Lee’s iconic camp chair and the haunting shadowbox featured on the cover come quickly to mind. More intriguing, however, are the pieces, the fragments, all the more powerful in that they have survived. Te thumb-sized sliver of wood from the platform on which John Brown was hanged afer a failed attempt to capture a federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry; the regimental fag that the 4th United States Coloured Troops carried and so gallantly saved at Chafn’s Farm, the remaining shattered silk now meticulously conserved; and the scrap of faded burgundy and cream foral wallpaper removed from President Abraham Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Teatre afer the assassination, curiously found among the papers of John Wilkes Booth’s family. Tese are the pieces that attract a second look and prompt the questions that drive us deeper into the past on a period rush that carries us back to the 1860s. And once there, on familiar terrain, the release of intuitive imagination allows us to retrieve more of Maryland’s story. Tis is history at its best. PDA Cover: Antietam National Cemetery Memorial Shadowbox, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, 1887 On September