Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/58

48 Company K of that elite corps. A troop of cavalry composed of Marylanders was mustered into the Sixth Virginia under Capt. J. Sturgis Davis. Subsequently five troops of Marylanders were collected under Davis and were known as the Davis Battalion, of which he was commissioned major. Capt. Elijah V. White, of Montgomery county, organized a dashing troop of Marylanders as escort and headquarters guard for General Ewell, which was afterwards enlarged into the Thirty-fifth Virginia battalion, commanded by Lieut.-Col. "Lije" White. It was a Maryland command. Harry Gilmor in the valley of Virginia in 1863-64 collected a number of Marylanders into troops and formed a battalion known as the Second Maryland, or Gilmor's battalion, of which he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel. He and they operated in the valley of Virginia and rivaled Mosby by their daring exploits behind the enemy's lines and against his supply trains; and in the lower valley, operating against and breaking the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, occupied and kept employed a large body of the enemy's infantry and cavalry from Harper's Ferry to the Ohio river. In December, 1860, South Carolina had sent a recruiting officer to Baltimore, and he enlisted there and sent to Charleston five hundred men who were placed in the Lucas battalion of artillery and Rhett's First South Carolina artillery. They served with fidelity, gallantry and distinction in the defense of Fort Sumter, for a large part of the garrison of that fortress during its bombardment were Marylanders.

During the autumn of 1862 seven troops of Marylanders were collected under* Lieut. -Col. Ridgely Brown, from Montgomery county, as the First Maryland cavalry. When the First regiment was mustered out of service August 12, 1862, on account of its depleted ranks, which had been worn threadbare by Jackson's Valley campaign and the Seven Days battles, the men who were mustered out were largely collected by Captains Her-