The Environs of St.
Mary’s County and Baltimore
The Maryland Guard Battalion was the most elite military
organization of Zouaves from Maryland many members were from prominent Baltimore
families. The roster of Company “G’, shows no less than fifty-six of its pre
war strength of sixty-eight joined the Confederacy. They became the Maryland
Guard, Company “B”, 21st Virginia Infantry.
On April 25, 1861
William Thomas Blackiston who was admitted West
Point September 1, 1858
aged 16 resigned and went home to St Mary’s County to raise a Militia Company.
On April 26, 1861 Thomas wrote, “If Maryland
raises no Navy will not someone be willing to fit a small, strong, swift
propeller [boat] carrying two or even ten or eleven inch guns mounted on patent
carriage boat guns ammunition? As for men I believe I can get one hundred and
fifty in one day.
On June 29, 1861 Hollins, Thomas and a detail of Zarvona’s
Maryland Zouaves capture the St. Nicholas on the Potomac.
On July 4, 1861
the 1st Company of Maryland Zouaves, 1st Zarvona’s
Regiment held a meeting in Richmond
to elect officers and William C. Walters was duly elected
Captain.
On July 31, 1861
Captain Hollins was sent to New
Orleans
On November 1, 1861
the 1st Company was ordered to Tappahannock
Virginia there after the regiment
was dissolved due to Richard Thomas’s capture, and there absorbed into the 47th
Virginia Infantry as Company “H”.
The second Company of Zarvona’s Maryland Zouaves was under
the command of Captain Blackiston; there is no record of organization. Some of
the men went with the newly promoted Captain George G. Alexander and became
guards at Castle Thunder Prison in Richmond.
Note:
The Confederacy had 2 prisons called Castle Thunder, one in Richmond
and one in Petersburg, Va.,
both were converted tobacco warehouses.
The more important, Castle Thunder in Richmond, the Confederate capital,
was used to confine political prisoners who were described in one early account
as "the murderer, the robber, the deserter, the substitute deserter, the
pickpocket, and worst of all the skulker-the man who
by his skulking endangers his comrades therefore worse than the murderer-the
spy, the reconstructionist, the disloyal." Also among
the prisoners were Yankees" being held "to answer charges of running
Negroes to the Yankees."
A newspaper correspondent wrote that the inmates of Castle
Thunder in Richmond were so tough
they laughed when death struck one of their number, saddened "no more than
if it had never occurred. One simply stretched out the man's limbs with an
'I'll be damned if he ain't dead!' Another placed a
billet of wood under his head, and notified the guard with the remark, 'There's
a fellow here got his discharge and wants to get out.'"
The many held in the prison as spies and criminals charged with
treason were said to have been treated with
unnecessary brutality by the guards. The
unsavory reputation of the prison obliged the Confederate House of
Representatives in 1863 to order an investigation of the commandant, Captain
George W. Alexander, who had been accused of "harshness, inhumanity, tyranny, and
dishonesty." Alexander, by a majority was cleared
by the investigation. During its course
he said that the most difficult of the prisoners were "the plug-uglies of Baltimore
and the wharf-rats of New Orleans."
After Richmond fell, the Federals
used the prison to confine Confederates accused of war crimes.
Others appeared to follow Captain John W. Torsch to the 2nd
Maryland Infantry.
On May 24, 1862
the Maryland Guard, Company “B”, 21st Virginia Infantry was mustered out with the expiration of their term of
service. Many of them were recruited became on September 1, 1862 Company “E”, 30th Virginia
Sharpshooters along with Captain Richard Curzon
Hoffman.
Late in 1862 Louis Keepers was elected
commander of a company called the Maryland Guerilla Zouaves, which was
organized in Richmond and whose
roster was predominately Marylanders. By order of the Secretary of War they were assigned to Nelligans 1st Louisiana Infantry
Regiment as the second Company “C”.
Source:
Hartzler D.D.: Marylanders in the
Confederacy
Mcclellan H.B.: I rode with Jeb
Stuart