As noted last Friday, Talbot County workers began the removal and relocation of the Talbot Boys Monument from the Talbot County Courthouse Green on Sunday. The statue will be moved to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, Inc., a Virginia non-profit corporation, in accordance with an
Administrative Resolution adopted by a majority of the Talbot County Council on September 14, 2021.
A few Spy agents were able to capture a few images of this emotional moment earlier this morning. Spy readers are encouraged to submit your own images as our community experiences this historic moment.
Keith Alan Watts says
* * * *
“Death is nothing at all .
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect. Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you.
For an interval. Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.”
* * * *
“Death is Nothing at All” ~ Henry Scott Holland, English clergyman, 1910.
Richard Merrill says
Maryland, My Maryland
The despot’s heel is on thy shore,
Maryland! My Maryland!
His torch is 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!
Hark to an exiled son’s appeal,
Maryland! My Maryland!
My mother State! to thee I kneel,
Maryland! My Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
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 all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Come! ’tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array,
Maryland! My Maryland!
With Ringgold’s spirit for the fray,
With Watson’s blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Come to thine own heroic throng,1
Stalking with Liberty along,
And give a new Key to thy song,2
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 baffles minions back amain,
Maryland! My Maryland!
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland! My Maryland!
For thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland! My Maryland!
But lo! there surges forth a shriek,
From hill to hill, from creek to creek-
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the blade, the shot, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland! My Maryland!
I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland! My Maryland!
The Old Line’s bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland! My Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she’ll come! she’ll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!
Kristen Greenaway says
The State song Maryland, My Maryland by James Ryder Randall has been repealed effective
July 1, 2021.
https://sos.maryland.gov/mdkids/Pages/StateSong.aspx
Paul Callahan says
The song certainly does give great insight as to the sentiment of Marylanders at that time. Notice it is about tyranny and aggression towards Maryland and mentions nothing about preserving slavery. We seemed to have lost, or conveniently ignored important historical events that happened to our State. What is absolutely certain is that many people and groups that know very little or nothing about our history are fully willing to modify and “propagandize” it to suite their political purposes.
The forceful occupation of a democratic State, replacing city mayors with those friendly to the occupiers, arresting the State’s legislature, representatives and judges, arresting and imprisoning protestors without trial, shutting down the free press and only allowing news publications after censor and government approval, was as relevant in 1861 Maryland as it is today.
Today we are shocked and outraged over the takeover of a free and democratic State, that Russian protestors are immediately arrested and that the free press in Russia is suppressed and only censored and “propagandized” news is allowed to be published. Yet many of the same people who are outraged by today’s world events refuse to acknowledge that Talbot citizens of 1861 were similarly outraged over the elimination their democratically elected government in Maryland, the elimination of their basic Constitutional rights, the unlawful occupation of their State by Northern Troops, and the arrest and imprisonment of their citizens without trail. So many among us refuse to acknowledge these incredibly historic events that Marylanders experienced and only assign and promote a “propagandized” historical version that our Talbot citizens of 1861 were “only” motivated to preserve slavery and had no other reason to resist.
These comments should in no way be considered support of a confederate flag at our courthouse, which I do not, but should be a wakeup call that many, right here among us, are willing to “propagandize” our history to support their specific political purposes.
Henry Herr says
The UDC and SCV have been propagandizing Civil War history for many years.
Many people readily acknowledge the multitude of reasons Marylanders entered the Civil War. We just also acknowledge there is no need to glorify Confederate soldiers on courthouse grounds.
Michael Davis says
Some White Marylanders did, indeed, suffer from the behavior of Union troops and the temporary suspension of habeas corpus by President Lincoln. And some White Marylanders were unjustly jailed during the Civil War. But that does not compare to what Putin is doing to his own citizens and to Ukraine. Many Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were jailed, but walked out free men after the war. Will Putin allow that? No comparison.
Also, many free Marylanders were kidnapped by Confedearate troops to be sold into slavery. J.E.B Stuart, one of the so called heroes of the Lost Cause, routinely captured free Blacks to send them South as enslaved people. I don’t think anyone kept count, but there were probably hundreds of them. Robert E. Lee encouraged this. Was a monument ever set up in Maryland for the Marylanders that were sent into slavery and never came back? They suffered far more than most White citizens of Talbot County.
Comparing suffering is tricky. But there is no denying the Talbot Boys monument was racist and needed to go.
Paul Callahan says
Mr. Davis, The destruction of 11 US cities and the death of over 800,000 Americans compares to any conflict past or present.
The only thing that separates us from having an oppressive government, as we see in Russia, are the principles of government and rights for which our ancestors sacrificed and recorded in our Constitution.
It’s not the paper document but the men and woman who are willing to sacrifice so much to protect and enforce our form of government.
Many somehow justify the historical fact that a President set aside and violated the principles enshrined in our Constitution because they are in support of a cause. However, treating the Constitution as a set of “guidelines” which could be set aside at the whim of a President is an extremely dangerous and slippery slope. Many can envision a future President doing the same and he would have allot of popular support for his cause as well.
Many citizens during that time, as there are today, fully understood that if our democracy was lost we would all be slaves to our government. Though it has been slow and painful, without our democracy our citizens would never had obtained the freedoms we have now. Freedoms which are both precarious and taken for granted by most.
I do not support the confederacy, or it’s symbols, particularly on public ground – I never have. As a veteran who served, along with having a fair knowledge of Maryland civil war history, I fully understand why Talbot citizens were motivated to fight against the Union.
Vilifying our Maryland ancestors and assigning a “Deep South” motivation to them was done to support a political objective of today. Truth was secondary to the support of a political / social cause.
The justification of the wholesale destruction and the extreme loss of human life and human suffering inflicted during our Civil War reveals both a callousness and a superficial shallowness of the understanding of that history.
Lesley Lowe Israel says
THANK YOU!!!