Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/55

Rh England. They were tied to home by a thousand imperative duties, but their hearts were "over the water with Charlie." Every Southern family had a son over there. Every Southern woman, young or old, had her heart there with lover or brother or son. There were few husbands, for the enlisted Marylanders were generally youths unmarried. The field officers, Elzey, Steuart and Johnson, were the only married officers of the First Maryland regiment.

Social life in Baltimore was almost obliterated. Spies, male and female, of all social ranks, permeated everything. You could not tell whether the servant behind your chair at dinner, or the lady by your side, whom you had taken to the table, were not in the employ of the Federal provost-marshal. But force never compels ideas, and hearts are beyond the power of bayonets. During all that period, when nurses were arrested because the babies in their arms wore red and white socks, when young ladies were marched to the guard-house because they crossed the street rather than pass under the Union flag suspended over it as sign and proof of domination during all that red time communication with Richmond was incessant and reliable. Word would be passed by a nod on the street, by a motion of the hand, and time and place given in a breath. And in one of the parlors of one of the greatest houses of the town, blazing with every luxury that wealth and culture could buy, one or two score beautiful women would meet, doors and windows sealed, to see the messenger and to hear the news "from Dixie." Every story of a Maryland boy who had died in battle for the right, every exploit of a Marylander that had thrilled the army, every achievement of the First Regiment of the Line, was recited and repeated and gone over, until human nature could stand no more, and "In Dixie's land I'll take my stand, and live and die for Dixie" would burst from the throng and make indistinct vibrations on the outer air. At