Maryland Line (CSA)

However, by this late stage in the war, few men wished to leave the units they had fought alongside for more than two years, and the exiles' dream of an independent Maryland Line in the Confederate army would never be fully realized.

Like other border states such as Kentucky and Missouri, Maryland found itself in a difficult position as war approached, with opinion heavily divided between supporters of North and South.

[3] On April 19 Baltimore was disrupted by riots, during which Southern sympathizers attacked Union troops passing through the city by rail, causing what were arguably the first casualties of the Civil War.

[5] Steuart's eldest son commanded one of the city militias during the disturbances of April 1861 and, in a letter to his father, the younger Steuart wrote: I found nothing but disgust in my observations along the route and in the place I came to - a large majority of the population are insane on the one idea of loyalty to the Union and the legislature is so diminished and unreliable that I rejoiced to hear that they intended to adjourn...it seems that we are doomed to be trodden on by these troops who have taken military possession of our State, and seem determined to commit all the outrages of an invading army.

[8] However, although the state would remain in the Union throughout the war, many members of the newly formed Maryland Line in the Confederate army would be drawn from Steuart's militia.

Upon entering Maryland, the Confederates found little support; rather, they were met with reactions that ranged from a cool lack of enthusiasm, to, in many cases, open hostility.

Lee was disappointed at the state's resistance, a condition that he had not anticipated as many of the fiercely pro-Southern Marylanders had already traveled south at the beginning of the war to join the Confederate Army in Virginia.

[12] The cavalry battalion of the Maryland Line, commanded by Col Bradley T. Johnson, joined the Army of Northern Virginia during the Overland Campaign.