Perspectives of the Civil War in Rockville

Introduction

Maryland’s slaveholding society gave it a natural sympathy with the Southern cause, but at the same time rapidly burgeoning trade and railroad connections to the north were beginning to align the state with its northern neighbors.  With the highest population of foreign-born residents in the South, Maryland also had the largest number of free blacks.  In the decade leading up to the Civil War (1861-1865), Maryland’s political leaders repeatedly spoke out in favor of a peaceful resolution, hoping in vain to avoid a conflict altogether.   

The first bloodshed of the war occurred during the infamous Baltimore Riots on April 19, 1861, when Confederate sympathizers clashed with the Union army passing through the city.  Maryland’s

legislature was forced to pick a side and on April 29, the state legislature voted to remain loyal to the Union.  Even though President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, it did not apply to Maryland.  The lingering possibility that

 Maryland might still secede from the Union—

a distinct possibility as a result of the Union

army’s unpopular establishment of martial law

in Baltimore—prevented the Federal Government

from requiring Maryland to comply with it.  Thus,

enslaved men, women, and children would not

receive their freedom until slavery was officially

outlawed in Maryland on November 1, 1864. 

Like the state of Maryland, the citizens of Rockville were polarized in their support—some for the Union, some for the Confederacy.  And the Civil War presented unique troubles to Rockville’s citizens since the town saw military action every year during the war.  Union and Confederate troops camped, fought, took prisoners, raided homes and farms for food and supplies, and  traveled near and through Rockville.  By the time General J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalry rode into Rockville on June 28, 1863, Rockville citizens had experienced many challenges trying to avoid conflict among their own.  Sophia Dorothy Barnard

Higgins, a wife and mother of six children, saw her

Unionist family weather turbulent times because of

their political views.  George Peter, Jr., a local

secessionist leader, experienced family tragedy because

of his support of the Confederacy. Reuben Thomas Hill went to war a slave and returned to Rockville as a free man and William Wallace Welsh joined the Union army unaware of the hardship that lay before him.  Peerless Rockville presents the experiences of these four Rockville citizens and how the Civil War changed their lives.