Maryland: The Invaded State that Won’t Forget the Civil War

When the Civil War began, Maryland was a slave state and the population was also pro-Southern.  Maryland’s proximity to Washington DC (that also allowed slavery for half the wary), made it important for Lincoln, though the state’s leaders had not declared for either side in the conflict. To make sure the North had control of the state, he would not allow it to be neutral, so he declared martial law to prevent secession. The writ of habeas corpus was suspended. Baltimore’s mayor, the city council, the police commissioner, and the entire board of police, were imprisoned in Fort McHenry without charges. Arrests of Confederate sympathizers, state politicians, militia commanders, and those critical of Lincoln. Manny suffered confiscation of their property by the Federal government. Lincoln also dismissed Chief Justice Roger Taney and arrested Frank Key Howard, an editor and grandson of Francis Scott Key, and imprisoned him ironically in Fort McHenry for an editorial. He wrote a book about his imprisonment that was published in 1863, Fourteen Months in American Bastiles, and two of his publishers were also arrested.

Maryland did not forget LIncoln’s invasion. According to the New York Times, the lyrics of “Maryland, My Maryland” are from a poem written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall, a Confederate sympathizer, and the song is set to the tune of “O, Tannenbaum.” Another website says Maryland’s General Assembly adopted “Maryland, My Maryland” as the state song on April 29, 1939. The song’s words refer to Lincoln’s invasion of Maryland, Maryland’s history, and geography, specifically mentioning several historical figures of importance to the state. Tennessee Earnie Ford made a recording of the song on his CD Songs of the Civil War.

Here are the lyrics!

The despot’s heel is on thy shore
Maryland, my Maryland
His torches at thy temple door
Maryland, my Maryland

Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore
And be the battle queen of yore
Maryland, my Maryland

Thou wilt not cower in the dust
Maryland, my Maryland
Thy beaming sword shall never rust
Maryland, my Maryland

Remember Carroll’s sacred trust
Remember Howard’s warlike thrust
And though thy slumberers with the just
Maryland, my Maryland

Dear mother, burst the tyrant’s chain
Maryland, my Maryland
Virginia should not call in vain
Maryland, my Maryland

She meets her sisters on the plain
“Sic semper” ’tis the proud refrain
That baffle’s minions back o’Maine
Maryland, my Maryland

Arise, arise in majesty again
Maryland, Maryland, my Maryland

Though forced to be a Northern state, thousands of Maryland’s men fought for the South. Here are a few of the Maryland units’ flags:

In my English Composition 1002 course I teach at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, I have students do a visual analysis of an album cover, a work of art or an advertisement. I wanted to share this review by Tyler Thomas, who chose my original song and cover, “Touched by Ghosts.”

Visual Analysis of Touched by Ghosts

Touched by Ghosts is a single by the artist Rickey Pittman. He is a country and western singer who sings with a folk tone. He is also a professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. The album cover depicts an eerie scenario. The eerie cover goes along well with the eerie tone of the song.

The cover says a lot about Pittman’s style. It has a picture of him at the bottom left corner. He is holding an acoustic six-string guitar and wearing a cowboy hat, showing that his music has a deep-rooted country and western vibe. He is sitting very cool, calm, and collected. You can tell from the look in his eyes that he is very serious. It is almost as if he truly believes all of the words in his song are a true story of his life.

There are a few reasons why I chose this album cover over all of his others. The main reason is because it contains my favorite song of the artist. The second reason is because of how well the album cover compliments the songs on it. Both the song and album cover give the audience the exact same feel. The last reason as to why I chose this cover is because it is so well designed. I like how beautiful the scenery is.

The album goes along with the song perfectly. Throughout the song, he tells a story. He talks about the legends of Louisiana repeatedly. The background of the album is a photograph of a swamp that can be assumed is somewhere in the state he resides in. Also, behind the image of him in the corner, there is another image. There is an image of a girl. She seems to be faded, maybe hinting to the viewer that the girl is a ghost.

If you look closer, the cover tells a deeper story. You can tell that the girl is meant to portray a ghost. The placement of the ghost girl is a big deal also. The ghost girl is placed behind him. That is because the song is telling about all of the things he has done, as in all of that is now behind him. There is, though, a chance that the woman behind him is one of the “many of cajun queen” that line three speaks of.

Reviews of J.W. Dunn’s October Rain

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2024

I study and collect all the information I can on America’s Native Americans, especially on the plains tribes. In my research for my novel set in North Texas in the late 1860s, I came upon this article printed in the Baltimore Sun in Dec. 22 1901.  I hope you find it interesting.

CHRISTMAS BRIDES: One Hundred Comanche Maidens To Be Sold At Auction

Great Wedding Festival: Rival Suitors Will Bid Against Each Other For the Coveted Girls—How the Sale Will Be Conducted.

The Comanche Indians who live on a reservation in Oklahoma are planning a great wedding festival to take place on Christmas Day. One hundred. Brides will be sold to the highest bidders, after which a great wedding dance and feasting will follow.

  This is the first time that the Comanches have ever held one of their sacred wedding dances on Christmas Day, and it is said by their agent, Major Stouch, that the reds are celebrating Christmas because they think it will please President Roosevelt.

The Comanches held their last wedding festival one year ago, when 50 young women 3were sold to the highest bidders. Some of the squaws brought as much as $250 in cash, while 15 or 20 ponies was a common price.

These wedding festivals are conducted by the chief of the tribe, Quanah Parker. All of the young women of marriageable age who have not been “spoken for” by young braves are turned over to the chief, and he makes it well known among the bucks that on a certain day he will sell at auction;n the young women who have attained the age of 18 and whose parents are no longer willing to support them. In the Christmas sale of brides, no men except those of the tribe are allowed to bid,

Quanah Parker, chief of the Comanches, denounced the custom to President Cleveland and promised to have it abolished among his people, but he is taking a lively interest in the approaching sale and has from time to time ween fit to buy eight wives himself. For one—Mrs. Toonuly—he paid $700, or its equivalent, in 70 ponies at $10 each.

The Indians prepare weeks in advance for such an event. The women to be sold are placed in a stockade of tepees, surrounded on all sides by stern old squaws who have passed through the sale once and whose Indian nature thirsts to revenge itself upon others.

The young women are well fed, subject to occasional visits from young men who are planning to buy them. Otherwise, they are left to contemplate their fate. Many of them attempt to escape, but this only makes it worse for them, as they are sold first and allowed to go to the highest bidders who are generally rough.

The young man among the Comanche Indians is considered rich not by his bank account or his land holdings, but by his number of wives and their beauty. A young brave having five beautiful squaws is a member of the Comanche aristocracy and has carte blanche to all social events of the tribe, while the poor unfortunate [man] with but one squaw to do his bidding is quite trashy indeed.

Quanah Parker, by far the most diplomatic of all Indian chieftains alive today started when young and has now eight wives, He owns a large farm structure built in Southern style, not far from Darlington Oklahoma, and it is there the big sale will take place.

In summer Mr. Parker and his eight wives take up their residence in the tepees but in winter they live in his $25,000 mansion. Parker wears a blanket and breechcloth among his people; in Washington he is clothed in. broadcloth and pat. Patent leathers, Besides his wealth of wives, he owns a great of jewelry. including one pearl necklace costing $12,000. This he wears while acting as leader of their medicine and war dances.

Two years ago an old squaw named Lightning Arrow dies and left her curse upon all the unmarried women of the Comanches. She had been married to a white man, Willis Haymes, a cowboy, who beat her to death, The white man was assassinated that night and his heart cut out and burned but the curse of Lightning Arrow remained.  Try as they would, the medicine men could not remove it, The young braves offer up all kinds of blankets, saddles, spurs, and even ponies to the White Father through their medicine man, but the stain was branded deep and seemingly forever,

Two weeks ago Comanche Jack and another medicine man went into the woods on Medicine Creek and announced they were to have a special conference with the Great Spirit. Upon their return, it was given out that a great wedding festival to take place on Christmas Day,

As a matter of fact, the Indian medicine men admitted to their agent that certain young braves had paid them to reach the decision. Quanah Parker’s daughter, who was about to marry a white man, is also indirectly responsible for the festival.

Jennie Parker is a young Comanche girl barely 16. She was engaged to marry a white farmer near the new town of Lawton, She is an educated woman who has attended Eastern schools. She had her wedding clothes prepared and her father had all but given his consent.

Wild Horses, a Comanche warrior of wild reputation, was desperately in love with beautiful Jennie Parker and he induced the medicine men to order the sale so he might win or buy this maiden, She is in despair.

The auction ceremony is unique in itself. All of the young women to be sold are taken before the medicine council three days before the auction day for inspection.

When the appointed day arrives, the young women march to the place of auction and stand in a row, The braves are allowed to pass along by them and pass judgment. The auctioneer then takes the first in line and offers her. He cries her name, age, family history, and good qualities. Then he extols her charms until the young men grow enthused and commence bidding.

 Very often two bitter enemies will bide for one squaw; then the bidding is fierce and reckless. The woman brings twice her value under such circumstances and is apt to be roughly treated by her owner as he blames her for attracting his enemy,

After all the women have been sold a big dance takes place and for several days the braves and squaws make merry.

William C. Meadows

Kiowa Military Societies: Ethnohistory and Ritu

The Civilization of the American Indian Series

University of Oklahoma University, 2010

Hardcover and paperback, 455 pp.

A Review by Rickey Pittman

al

All my life, I’ve always been a student of the Native Americans, especially the plains tribes of Texas and Oklahoma. I was raised watching all the cowboy movies and by the age of thirteen had read every book in the local branch of the Dallas Library about Native Americans.

As a Boy Scout, when applying for my American Indian merit badge, I went to the merit badge counselor’s house in Dallas to be interviewed for the award. Entering his house, I was directed to his den, where I found his collection of historical items, virtually a museum devoted to the American Indian. The most striking exhibit was an authentic Kiowa war bonnet, enclosed in glass. We had a discussion about coups, and the war honors each feather must have represented, and the counselor spoke of the deadly reputation of the Kiowa warriors during the Indian wars in Texas.

I continued my interest in Native Americans and that interest manifested itself in my fiction and essays. While working on my present western novel project set in North Texas, the Kiowa would play a prominent part of that story. Though there are more resources now, there are still too few works devoted to the Kiowa that would prove to be useful. So it was with great delight that I came upon William C. Meadows book, Kiowa Military Societies: Ethnohistory and Ritual. William C. Meadows has been working with and presenting his research on the Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa since 1989. This is an amazing read, sure to hold many surprises about the Kiowa, and prove to be a valuable research tool for writers or those interested in Native American culture, legends, and history.

The text is well illustrated with drawings and photos (taken by the author) of the Kiowa from their beginning into modern times. The text is rich with Kiowa vocabulary, including a pronunciation guide. I found the index, the End Notes, along with the extensive Bibliography, to be valuable for reference and for adding extra information.

The body of the book, as the title suggests, focuses on the warrior/military societies of the Kiowa.  The Kiowa were truly a martial people, and Meadows points out how they lacked purely social dance societies like those of some other tribes. The societies revealed to me how central a place war held in the minds and hearts of the Kiowa. Meadows reveals how the warrior societies were structured, what were requirements for membership, rank and social status, rituals, taboos, dress, music (drums and rattles), dances (with choreography), society meetings, persona and society songs, and their connection to the Sun Dance. There were also women societies that served as “auxiliaries to Kiowa warriors, sources of supernatural protection, and as charitable organizations” (p. 307).

The first nine chapters of the book discuss in detail each military society: the Rabbits Society, the Mountain Sheep Society, the Horse Headdresses Society, the Black Legs Society, the Unafraid of Death or Skunkberry Society, the Sentinel or Scout Dogs Society, the Kiowa Bone Strikers, and the Omaha Society. Meadows documents the revival of some of the societies and stresses the Kiowa efforts to honor veterans of the nation’s wars.

I found numerous surprising details extremely interesting including the pictographic calendars of the Kiowa; the mescal bandoliers; the calls from captured bugles; the various sashes, lances (including the no-retreat staff), and staffs; and the Táime and Ten Medicine Bundles. The engaged reader will discover many more.

The reader and researcher will find many historical anecdotes, museums where historical Kiowa relics are located, legends, biographical descriptions of leaders and famous warriors, tribal traditions, as well as conflicts with and the influence of other tribes upon the Kiowa.

This is a book I would highly recommend to anyone who wanted to write about the west, about the fierce Kiowa who came down the Texas Corridor, or who needed an exceptional and reliable reference tool. There is information here one cannot find anywhere else.

The book can be ordered HERE:  https://www.oupress.com/9780806190099/kiowa-military-societies/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: William C. Meadows is Professor of Anthropology and Native American Studies at Missouri State University, Springfield. A scholar of Plains Indian cultures, he is the author of Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies: Enduring Veterans, 1800 to the Present; Kiowa Ethnography; and The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in World War I.

David Grann
Killers of the Flower Moon:
Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI
Simon & Schuster, 2017

A Review by Rickey Pittman

The Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann was an enthralling read. Though I have been an avid reader and researcher for many years on America’s Native Americans, I knew little about the Osage, other than the fact they were fierce enemies of the Kiowa in the past. After watching Martin Scorsese’s wonderful, award-winning movie and reading Grann’s well-researched book, I received new insights into the Osage culture and their passage from rez Indians to becoming the wealthiest people in America.

 The book’s title fascinated me, speaking with double imagery—describing the beautiful flowers of the Osage hills and prairies seen in April that would die in the month of May—the flower-killing moon—and a title also suggestive of the killers who plagued the Osage in the early 20^th century. The lands of the mighty Osage had shrunk until they were finally driven to what was then an undesirable section of Oklahoma; ironically that is, until those same lands were found to contain the richest oil fields in America. The Osage were smart enough to take advantage of their newly found wealth.

However, what could have been a dream fantasy for the Osage turned into a nightmare as so many Osage were murdered by white men who schemed, manipulated, bribed, and murdered so they could obtain the lands and oil income belonging to the Osage. Not only did the Osage suffer from such outlaws, they also suffered from the same corrupt politics our age suffers from—politicians, lawyers, judges and lawmen who lie, who use oppressive laws, and who are even willing to use brute force to get what they want. And if the book’s account of the newly formed FBI had not risen to deal with the Osage murders, there is no telling when these evils and murders would have stopped.            I would encourage the reader to both watch the movie and read Grann’s book. It will be an unsettling experience, but a rich one.

The book can be ordered HERE:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Grann is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the bestselling author of the Lost City of Z and the Devil and Sherlock Holmes. He has received several honors for outstanding journalism, including a George Polk Award.

J.W. (Billy) Dunn and his family have deep, historical ties to Central Louisiana. Those who originally settled the Piney Woods section of the state were a tough, determined breed of pioneers. They were farmers who wrestled with the unpredictable weather and hard, economic times to raise a family in an unforgiving land.  October Rain is a tale of a family’s struggle to hold on to their faith and to hold their family together. The writing is so strong that the reader will find him or herself living in their cabins, working with them in their fields, and hunting Louisiana forests.

A Review Anthony Wood’s White & Black: A Story of the Civil War

by Rickey Pittman, Bard of the South

Anthony Wood
A Story of the Civil War
White & Black: A Tale of Two Colors Volume I
Tiree Press, an Imprint of the Oghma Press

This historical novel is a fascinating and thoughtful account of the Antebellum South that like a polished diamond, has many facets. It is in many respects a bildungsroman, that shows the journeys, growth, and development of a young man, Lummy Tullos, in a turbulent, troubled time in America’s history.
This is a Civil War novel, though it thankfully avoids preaching and the overused stereotypes of Hollywood movies.
It is also a story of the conflicts, (inward and outward), struggles, and victories of the Tullos family in Mississippi and in Central Louisiana. Most importantly, this novel is a romance, a story of an intense but forbidden love between Lummy and Susannah, two people of different races. Lummy, in spite of the war descending upon them and his enlistment in the Confederate Army, he finds redemption in Susannah’s love, the love of his life and the only thing that will make him whole again.
Wood’s writing is excellent, capturing the idioms, vocabulary,  and soul of Southerners. Using epigraphs, letters, and historical events, he takes the reader into the deep South so effectively that we will not forget this story. And remember: This is just Volume One.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

ANTHONY WOOD is an award-winning and oft-published writer, a devoted historian, a minister, and a Civil War reenactor. Find his book on all streaming services, including Amazon.